All that is mine: the Prodigal’s Brother

All that is mine: the Prodigal’s Brother

Sermon given at Good Samaritan Lutheran Ministry

March 31, 2019

Joshua 5:9-12, Luke 15:11b-32

Greetings Good Samaritan! A couple of months ago, I was talking with Pastor Crispin and complained about something. When preachers preach on the parable of the Prodigal Son, they seem to ignore the prodigal’s older brother. The younger brother who wasted his inheritance and the father who had no problem just accepting him back home get all the attention. But the older brother who worked night and day to see that the family had enough food to eat gets ignored. I should have known better than to complain in church and especially before a Pastor, because usually that means you get volunteered to set right the thing you had just complained about. So Pastor Crispin said that the Prodigal Son lesson is coming on Lent 5, so perhaps I should preach that Sunday. Okay, I agreed. So here I am. And here you are. So I want to preach on the Prodigal’s Brother.

But before I do that I need to say a few words about the reading from Joshua. It is very short, but did you catch what this text is about. The Lord says to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” What is this? Remember how the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. They had been driven to Egypt by famine, but were cruelly treated by Pharaoh and the Egyptian. So God helped them escaped. They celebrated the first Passover the night before they left. The Egyptian army pursued them. But passing through the Red Seas the Israelites found safety, when the sea had swallowed up Pharaoh’s army. Then for forty years, they wandered without a place they could call home. A generation died in the wilderness before God led their children into the land that was promised to them. Moses too died in wilderness. At the end of his life he climbed to the top of a mountain from which his could see the promised land. But it was not for him to lead the Israelites into their inheritance. This was given Joshua, whom Moses had prepared for this day.

I want to ask, how do we know when we have entered the promised land? Last time I preached you laughed when I suggested that perhaps some of you had though the US was the promised land before you came here. But now that you are here maybe this strange place seems much different to you. The Israelites were a displaced people too. They had sought refuge in other lands. And they had seen decades pass in tents with no place to call home. In our text today, they were in Gilgal in the plains just outside of Jericho. They had passed through another sea, the waters of Jordan. They gather 12 dry stones from the floor of the Jordan and placed it at Gilgal. And on this fourteenth night of the month, they celebrated the Passover. You would think that all this was enough to know that they had finally arrived in the Promised Land.

But notice a key point in this scripture. On the day after the Passover, they ate the produce of the land. And the manna that had sustained them through the last 40 years came to an end. God had cut them off from that special food which they had only needed to gather each morning. Instead, the Israelites would need to start growing their own food. They would need to plow the land, sow the land, water the land, tend flocks and fields, and harvest the land. In short, they were to become farmers. How could this be the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey if they had to do so much work? Well, guess what, this was to be their land. It was to be the place where they could raise their families and form stable communities. This all takes work. Lots of work. Endless care and vigilance just to hold onto the inheritance. But indeed, God was with them. The Lord had truly rolled away from them the disgrace of Egypt.

So let us pray: Father, we thank you for bringing us to this place. Generations have sought refuge in you, and so do we. Open our hearts, Father, that we may hear what you have for us today. In Christ you have opened a way for us to come into your kingdom, into our Promised Land. Show us what this means and give us courage to claim this inheritance in you that we share with one another. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

So what of these two brothers? The shared an inheritance with their father. Yep, it was a farm. It was endless work. The family was wealthy enough to have servants, but even so there was little time for leisure. There was always something that needed to be fixed, some animal to tend to, some bills to be paid. I also suspect the brothers might not have gotten along very well with each other. The older brother was hard working and very responsible. The younger brother probably resented always being told what to do by his older brother, while the older brother probably resented having to goad his brother into taking little responsibility to help out. I was a younger brother. When I was a kid, my oldest sister would try to get me to clean my room every Saturday. My way of escape was to run out of the house and hang out with my father as he worked. I’m sure this frustrated my sister that I could get away with this week after week. But in the case of the two brothers in our parable, the younger was much more desperate to get away than I was.

What is the value in waiting around for this inheritance anyway? The younger son asked is father to divide up the inheritance between him and his brother. Thinking so little of his family, he gathered up his share of the inheritance and ran off to another country. The father was heartbroken to see his beloved son go. There was no reasoning with this child, and there was no assurance that he would ever come to his senses. I imagine the older brother was angry. How could he show such disrespect for his father and leave him to run the farm on his own. But then again, maybe it was just as well not to have the aggravation with his brother around. He could just tell the servants what needed to be done and not have to argue about it with his brother. So with the younger brother gone, the older brother retreated to his work while his father grieved. That son was as good as dead.

So we know the story. The prodigal blows through his money pretty fast with wild living and worthless companions. A famine strikes the land, and he finds himself broke and friendless. He takes a job slopping hogs, but cannot make enough money to feed himself. He comes to his senses and recognizes that even the servants back home have it much better with his father than the mess he had made of his own life. For the first time in his life, he gets a glimpse of what his inheritance had really been worth, but recognizes that he has thrown it all away. He had sinned against God and his father. He knew that his father was a good man, but was there anything left for him back home. He was ashamed, but maybe he could be taken back in as a servant. Maybe it would be better to take orders from his older brother than to be alone here in this mess, where no one would give him anything.

²⁰So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

²¹Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'²²But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
³¹Then the father said to him,
³²But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"

²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; ²⁴for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.

And they were loud. They were sing and dancing. And this is what totally set off the older brother. Everyone was celebrating, but this brother. He had been toiling in the fields for years doing every task that needed to be done. He had held everything together while his brother had nothing but contempt for the family, the farm and his father. He had seen his father weep for years for all the grief this son had given him. This son had dishonored their shared inheritance. But now this son is being welcomed back with with a big party.

The brother wanted to had nothing to do with this celebration. He was angry and refuse to enter. He could not enter the festivities and greet his brother.

I used to work with a man from Senegal. We shared an office. He was Muslim, and we had many wonderful conversations. One day I asked him how Muslims understood forgiveness. He told me that Allah forgives, but the real problem is forgiving one another. He seemed to say you are truly forgiven until your brother has forgiven you. Hmm, that seems pretty deep, and not far off from what Jesus taught. “Father, forgive us as we forgive one another.”

In our parable today, the father is able to forgive his younger son, even though the older brother is still holding some pretty reasonable grievances. What is a father to do? The older son refuses to enter. So the father goes out to the aggrieved son and pleads with him. And he listens to the son’s complaint.

²⁹But he answered his father,

'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!'

'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

You see, how is this son going to enter in if he does not forgive his brother? How is he going to be able to sing and to dance if he cannot embrace his brother? What is his inheritance worth if he cannot be reconciled with his brother?

The father says to this good, faithful and very much loved son, “You are always with me, and all that is mine is your.” What is this inheritance? Sure, the older brother will inherit what is left of the farm, all the material possessions. That is a matter of law. But what of this brother who was dead and has come to life? What of the father’s delight for having found what had been lost? This is your brother, ndugu. If you don’t love your brother, you have nothing. This brother who was lost is your inheritance.

Jesus left the story there. He did not go on to say where the younger brother also sought the forgiveness of his older brother, or whether the older brother was able to forgive the younger brother. This is for us to ponder. The father loved these two sons very much. They were his most treasured possessions. But if they could not forgive each other, they would have never received their full inheritance, and they never fully known how much the father loved them both. So we have to ponder what the end of story is. But know that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. God will be with us and empower us for this work.

How do we know when we have entered the Promised Land? We have our inheritance when we love one another. We enter the promise when we forgive each other. We enter the joy of our Father when we serve and delight in each other. And so here we are Good Samaritan. This is our Promised Land when we welcome one another. We will sing and we will dance. We will learn new languages and we will learn to forgive. Every refugee is our brother and our sister. So let’s celebrate.