prodigal listener-addendum

A point I'd like to clarify: When I said that it was the older brother's responsibility to go out and find his brother, it should be stated that this responsibility's source is the Bible, not culture. I don't know if that was a cultural standard or not, but Keller was the one to point out this responsibility to me (indirectly, of course). He referenced the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis, and God's telling Cain that he is indeed his brother's keeper.

This is also the implication that Christ makes when telling these parables; the prodigal parable is the last of three. The first two involved something getting lost, and someone going out to find it. The lack of searching for the lost thing in the third parable is supposed to be glaringly obvious, and point us to Christ, the one who searches for His lost things [...us].

a prodigal listener

Campy? Yes. Still true? Yup. Let me explain.

In the past few months, the parable of the prodigal [entities]* has surfaced in my life an inordinate amount of times.

[Author's note: At first, I paused after finishing that last sentence, thinking, perhaps 'inordinate' is inappropriate here. The actual number of times I am referring to is small, in terms of the number line. So being the nerd that I am, I looked up the definition of 'inordinate' and realized the term is more appropriate than I realized. The very first definition listed is the following: Not within proper or reasonable limits; immoderate; excessive. ...Which completely describes my attitude to all the times I've heard the parable recently. Which you will understand, if I will just get back to my post...]

It seems that every time I hear a sermon or series on the prodigal [entities], I think, I've heard this parable a million times. I think I get it. At least the basic gist; I mean, I'm sure there are things I don't know about it. But the application of it...got it. Check. Can we just move on? Even with the new perspective that seems to currently be permeating PCA circles, much aided by Tim Keller's book Prodigal God, I still have had the attitude of there being only so much you can pull from one parable. (Which is true on some level, but not the point here.)

But this parable keeps coming up. Let's review.

1. A local church (that I do not usually attend, but which supports me with RUF and thus I am aware of their various activities) read through The Prodigal God with small groups, and it was recommended to me as well.
2. Next, the pastor of my church took several weeks to teach through a series on the parable (gathering a lot of material from Keller's book, I believe).
3. The leadership team with RUF (and thus me) took this past semester to read through The Prodigal God.
4. The parable was the topic of a random sermon a friend showed me (via YouTube) one weekend.
5. The very next day, it was mentioned in the sermon at the church we attended.
6. One or two more mentions after that, of which I cannot recall the particulars.

Finally, I had to admit that maybe God was trying to tell me something. But it took me a while to realize what that was.

Despite my protestations, I actually was learning something new each time. But it was always something small, something that never quite shook my prideful belief that I'd been confronted with every application of the parable. i.e. The older brother was just as lost as the younger brother--while I'd never expressly heard that before, my past involves a strong struggle with legalism, and I'd always kind of related to him. Etc.

But with every discussion of the parable, there's always been one nagging question for me that no one had ever really addressed. And I always thought, Well it's not really the point of the parable, it doesn't really matter, and you mostly ask that because you ARE the older brother and want to justify his actions and frustrations. The parable says the older brother "was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on." (vs. 25-26) And my question has always been this: Why didn't the older brother know about the return of his younger brother, and the subsequent party?

I've had two possible solutions to this, but I have never been settled with either.

1. Perhaps he was being deceitful when he asked the servant what was going on; perhaps he did in fact know about the party, but was being passive-aggressive about being left out and pretended not to know. --But the Scriptures don't seem to claim that he's lying about knowing, so I'm more inclined to believe that he legitimately didn't know.
2. If he was indeed in the field and too far away to know about it; why didn't anyone come find him and tell him? If the father truly was excited enough about the return of his younger son to throw a humongous party for him, why didn't he either run out to tell his other son, or send a servant to share the good news?

Why was he left out? Doesn't that slightly legitimize the frustration of the older son?

In a four-part revelation, via two friends, Keller's book, and my own ruminations, God answered that query. And it was pretty much mind-blowing.

Most of us who are familiar with this parable are also familiar with a few of the nuances of Jesus' time that affect the parable's application. For example, when the younger son asks for his share of the inheritance, that's not comparable to the same situation happening today; rather, the younger son was telling his father he considered him as dead and wanted to live accordingly. But one particular nuance completely changed the parable for me, and that is this: When the younger son ran from home with his share of the family estate, there was a protocol for how the situation was to be treated. The father was to in turn act as if the son was dead. But there's more. There was a particular person in the household whose responsibility it was to go and find him, bring him back, and entreat the father to reinstate him. Guess who that was?

The older brother.

And what I realized, via my own convoluted path, was that the son's not knowing about the party was not the father's failure to complete the family celebration, fight for unity, and include his older son. No, it was the older son's failure to do his job, look for his brother, fight for the family unity, and bring his brother home. He should never have been in the fields. He should never have come upon the house after his day's work and not known his brother was home. He should have been the one to bring his brother home.

What makes this particular realization especially significant is the application of this thought: Yes, the father's unexpected response shows God the Father's goodness and grace of receiving His lost children. But also...the older brother's failure points to the True Older Brother's success. The whole point of this parable is that Christ is telling everyone that He is the true Older Brother!

How humbling. My petty, apparently insignificant question about why the older brother was left out shows my heart and reveals that I do not follow Christ's example of searching out my lost brothers and sisters or expect them to come home, but even more so shows that I had completely left Christ out of the parabolic equation. ['Parabolic' as in the adjective form of parable. ...I was a math major; I felt the need to clarify.]

Perhaps to my detriment, my humor at the irony of this process has kept me from despairing over this lesson an inordinate amount; however, there was clearly much more application to be had from the parable I claimed to be so tired of hearing.

**I refer to the parable as 'the parable of the prodigal [entities] because I just don't know what else to call it. According to my pastor, saying 'prodigal son' is insufficient, because both sons were lost. And Tim Keller, in his book title, refers to God as being 'prodigal.' And I can't say 'parable of the prodigal people,' because I can't include God in 'people.' Thus my use of the word 'entities.'

...yes, I am ridiculous. At this point, I think I just need to embrace it.