"once, there were two sons..."

In the first century C.E., if you were a Jewish person living in Israel and heard someone begin a story by saying “Once upon a time, there were two sons”, you’d go “uh-oh” inside. Stories about brothers don’t turn out well. In Israel’s rich tradition-history you have stories like Cain & Abel, Ishmael & Isaac, Esau & Jacob to prove it.

Jesus draws on this tradition of rivalry in what is perhaps his most famous parable. We know it as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” but it is really a parable about two brothers, whom Jesus refers to as “the younger son” and “the elder son.” We are most familiar with the first part of the parable where the younger son asks for his inheritance, moves away from home, squanders it on wild living, comes to the end of himself and begs his father to take him back.

The father welcomes him back with open arms and throws a party for him, saying “My son who was lost is found!” The song Amazing Grace borrows its most famous line from this parable.

What we often leave out is what happens next. The parable isn’t over. While the party is going on, the elder son (who has been working in the fields) hears music and merry-making going on in the house. He discovers that his younger brother has returned and their father is throwing him a party.

He gets upset. It isn’t fair! He never left, he never insulted his father and he has labored faithfully all these years. And he has never had such a lavish party thrown for him.

He refuses to join the celebration. But his father comes out to him and pleads with him to come in the house and welcome his brother back. The parable ends with a repetition of what the father said earlier: “My son who was lost is found!”

We don’t know how the story ends because we are left wondering: Will the elder son finally join in the party? We hope he will. We hope he will find it in his heart to extend grace. We want joy for the elder son just as much as we smile at the undeserved joy the younger son has received. We realize that, if the elder son can find it in himself to extend grace and join the party, the extension of grace to another will prove to be a reception of grace for the elder son, too. Everyone wins!

Instead, we wonder if the elder son will persist in his bitterness…if the elder son will insist on winners and losers. The parable invites you and me, each of us, to supply the ending. What will you choose?

I am writing a paper on this parable and I wanted to share something with you that grips my conscience. The elder son’s heart does not line up with the father’s heart. He is so filled with self-righteousness he cannot bring himself to extend grace. The father is also righteous—but his righteousness is a righteousness of grace. The parable reminds us that grace is right, true, good and lovely.

Born-again Christians often point to this parable as a story of conversion. We celebrate it because we sing the lines from Amazing Grace in the first person. We are the younger son, we say. We are like the younger son who once was lost but now is found.

But sometimes I feel like Christians who have received the Father’s grace become like the elder son. We begrudge the Father when he gives his grace to those we think don’t deserve it. Too many Christians today are prone to look down their self-righteous noses at others. Such self-righteousness stems from a posture of ungrace. This great parable of Jesus teaches us that the Father’s grace is the Father’s righteousness. The Father’s grace is not extended in spite of the Father’s righteousness; rather, the Father is righteous because the Father is gracious.

The irony is: Christians who were the younger son but have become the elder son need to be converted all over again. Come back to the Father.

We need to remember that it is God’s grace that makes someone righteous, not judgment. Stop judging and join the party, already.