The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. – Luke 15:28

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 28, 2017): Luke 15

Robert A. Heinlein in “Stranger in a Strange Land” wrote that “Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy - in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.” The bottom line is that even when we think we are acting because of love, often our response finds its origins in jealousy.

The character of the older brother in the “Parable of the Lost Son” is often more complex than we realize. He only garners a couple of lines in the whole story, and yet it is the older son that is more to the point of Jesus message than either the Prodigal Father or the Prodigal Son. The older son is really the only one of the three main characters to which the word “prodigal,” which means wasteful, does not apply.

The older son has been the business manager for dad. He has taken care of the business, probably for a long time now, but the management load of the family enterprise has definitely landed on him since the untimely departure of his younger brother. While dear old dad pined for what was lost, the older son has worked hard to ensure the profitability of the family farm.

That the older son worked hard is not in doubt. What is in doubt, and what the contemporary ear often misses, is whether or not the older son has been busy doing appropriate things. Specifically, it would have been the elder son’s job to take care of whatever it was that was bothering his father. In this case, it was the elder son’s job to go and find his brother, and if he could not bring him back to dad, at least he could tell dad that his son was well cared for and that he was safe. But this is a task that the older son has left undone.

If it was possible for us to conduct an interview with the older son, it is likely that he would tell us that his younger brother had been a drain on the family resources for a while now; that the day that the younger brother decided to leave was a good day – both for the family and the business. It is also quite likely that the older son’s protestation would be that he is reacting because he loves his father and he does not want his younger son to take advantage of patriarch again. But as dad comes out to speak to him, the real situation emerges. The older son is jealous of the younger one. This has nothing to do with dad and everything to do with the advantages that the older son feels that the younger son has abused – the elder son wishes that he had had the opportunity to live his life in a way similar to that of the younger son.

Jesus’s point? There is no doubt in the mind of Jesus that we are the older son. And our jealousy often gets in the way of our ministry. Rather than realizing that we are all equal, in the eyes of the father, with those to whom we minister, and instead of sharing love with the world, we try to place ourselves on a higher plane of existence. We give ourselves the illusion of privilege in God’s world, rather than just recognizing that we are all just fellow travelers on this journey of life. And that reaction is based on jealousy and not love. And we are called to love!

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Luke 16