What about the elder brother?

Homily Remembrance Sunday Prodigal God Series #4

When I was first thinking about The Prodigal God series of sermons, all revolving around the parable of the Prodigal Son and related readings, I wondered how it would work with special Sundays, like last Sunday, All Saints, and this Sunday, Remembrance Sunday.

I needn’t have worried because the challenges raised by the parable are so universal, that they address many aspects of our lives as Christians.

Take our Remembrance Sunday this morning. As I talked to John Summerfield this week, he recalled an incident difficult for him to even speak about until only a few years ago.

A comrade, who he bunked with, and worked on bomber crew with got hit with shrapnel during a bombing run, and died in John’s arms as he tried to revive him.

John went on to many more successful bombing runs. However it is that loss of a comrade that haunts him, and brings tears to his eyes still.

War is unspeakably horrible, because of the loss of life, the loss of comrades.

War is above all, if it is a just war like World War 2, a sacrifice for one’s fellow countrymen, for freedom.

War is about sacrifice; the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others.

Sacrifice is the link with both today’s Gospel passage from Luke about the rich ruler and his encounter with Jesus about what is required of him for salvation, and the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Luke’s account is challenging for us, even today. The ruler asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him if he has followed the Hebrew law, the Torah. He answers he has done that since he was a boy.

Then Jesus asks him to sell all that he owns and give it to the poor, then come and follow Jesus.

Needless to say the ruler was sad, since he was certainly not prepared to give up his possessions, as the disciples had when they left everything behind to follow Jesus.

This passage, if interpreted literally would certainly cause difficulties for all of us who are living well in an affluent society.

Jesus goes on to say it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

We have to remember Jesus was using hyperbole, or exaggeration to make his point. That method of teaching was certainly part of his Jewish heritage.

What he really wanted to underline is that our wealth can not be allowed to become God, replacing God our Father, our creator, as the God we worship.

As we look around our world today we see the fruits of making wealth a God. Many people have never had it so good, accumulating unimagined wealth, and living extravagantly while countless others are starving and homeless.

If we follow Christ we have to not only see this as wrong, but see the link between the two.

The greedy CEO’s and investment bankers who created the mess which led to the economic crisis of 2008 that still lingers today are worshipping the God of wealth. Anything goes, including profits made purely on speculation, not creating goods and services people use.

What we need is the same spirit of sacrifice that we saw in the two world wars. The spirit of sacrifice, although we paid a price in terms of loss of life, led to the peace and prosperity that followed World War 2.

What would a spirit of sacrifice look like in 2011. For a start, maybe all the CEOs could reduce their compensation packages to less than a million dollars. We could change the taxation system so the burden could fall on those who can afford to pay, rather than the stretched and shrinking middle class.

We could ask for sacrifice for the good of many. But that would run counter to the current prevailing attitude that says greed is good, and if one can accumulate extravagant wealth at the expense of other’s that is just survival of the fittest, free enterprise.

In Dicken’s Christmas Carol, Scrooge is asked to give to the poor and asks the unfortunate canvassers: “are there not prisons, are there not workhouses?” Perhaps what is needed is to “decrease the surplus population” by allowing the poor to starve.

In a sense Scrooge is just like the Ruler who confronts Jesus. He may have followed all the rules of society. But when asked to sacrifice for others, he has no heart for it. He wants to hoard his riches, and not share it with his employee, Bob Cratchett and his crippled son, Tiny Tim.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father generously receives the younger son back after the younger son his literally squandered his part of the family inheritance, which he had the audacity to ask for before his father’s death.

That younger son broke all the rules, disappointed his father, and wasted his opportunity.

We don’t aften spend too much time looking at the lder brother in the parable. He’s only there at the end, bitter over his brother’s return, and jealous that the father killed the fatted calf and held a party to celebrate.

The elder brother, like the ruler who asked Jesus about salvation, didn’t do anything wrong.

He followed all the rules. He worked hard for his father. But he hadn’t learned from his father to have a spirit of generosity, of love, of sacrifice, of putting relationship above wealth.

Instead he was focused on himself, and what he deserved for his hard work.

What did the elder brother show in his reaction to his brother’s return:

*deep anger over what he perceived was unfair treatment.

*a sense of persecution—he had slaved for his father all these years, but a fatted calf had never been slain for him.

*no love or care about his younger brother. No rejoicing that he had come to himself.

*a sense of entitlement. Since I have been faithful to my father all these years, don’t I deserve better than for him to celebrate my younger brother’s return. What about me?

*a lack of foregiveness, and a judgmental attitude.

As we look at the elder brother for the purposes of this series, we have to consider that there are aspects of the elder brother, and the younger brother in all of us, and we need to be conscious of this as we move forward in our lives as followers of Christ.

Both brothers fell short. But at least the younger brother recognized his spiritual failings.

Perhaps the danger of the older brother’s attitude is that it allows for a kind of moralistic spirituality which treats faith as primarily a matter of following the law, and doing what is expected.

However obedience to the law is only part of the path to salvation.

The other part is loving God, and loving our neighbour, and developing the spirit of sacrifice which can lead to peace, joy, love and community.

Being self-righteous, like the elder brother, leads to a spiritual malaise.

Instead we are called to humility, to forgiveness, to always looking for the grace of God,rather than seeking salvation through our own merit.