Prodigal sons

A man had two sons.  The older one was hard working and responsible, and he always played by the rules.  The younger was a bit of a trouble maker and was all about himself. One day the younger boy made an outrageous demand for an inheritance that was not to be his until his father passed away.  His attitude towards his father was: I don’t really care about you or your business, I just want the money and I will be on my way.

Incredibly, the father, without argument, gave the boy what he asked for.  The boy took off and lived it up for as long as he could. 

In the meantime, the older boy continued to work the farm and play by the rules.  He never asked for anything.  He just doggedly did what he was supposed to do.  The father continued his work, but always with his eye on the horizon waiting for the day when the younger boy would come home.

The day finally came when the father’s eye caught a figure in the distance.  He instinctively knew who it was.  With a heart full of compassion he ran to meet the boy.  He knew that for this young man to come home on his own accord meant he was truly sorry for hurting him and wasting his inheritance. 

Before the son could utter his apologies, the father had him dressed in the finest robe and wearing a family heirloom on his finger.  Oh, what a happy day it turned out to be until the responsible, hardworking, play-by-the-rules son got wind of what had happened.

Feeling very insulted, he accused his father of treating him unfairly by treating the younger son with leniency.  I envision him saying, “I have never asked anything from you and have worked hard for you all these years without any kind of thanks from you, Dad. Then this good-for-nothing comes back and you give him everything as though he is as good as me.”  

“Son,” the father implores, “you know everything I have is at your disposal.  I have never denied you anything.  But your brother, whom I love as much as I love you, is sorry. He was dead to us, now he’s alive and we can be family again.”

Jesus does not go on with the story.  We don’t know how that drama played out, but this same drama is repeated in our own families and church families all the time. 

We can ask ourselves, are we the sons and daughters who take off looking for something better only to find we are wasting our lives and need to return to our Father? Or are we the responsible, smug children who have been there all along and think we are better than the others because we have never left the farm?