One of the poignant stories in the Bible is the parable of the prodigal son. St Luke has portrayed it vividly (Luke 15:11-32) to describe different dimensions of the lives of a loving father and his two sons with contrasting lifestyles and attitudes. The central character is the elder son, who, like many of us, Pharisees and Scribes, turns jealous and calumnious.
When you look at the persona of the elder son, you can see a couple of things. First of all, Jesus narrated this parable to people when Pharisees and Scribes started murmuring and whining about tax collectors and prostitutes who flocked to listen to the Word of God from Jesus. The ‘prodigal son’ was aimed at these Pharisees and Scribes whose attitude is similar to the elder son in the prodigal son parable.
“Not only that, look at what he says about his younger brother. The elder son said he squandered the money with prostitutes. The loving father or the younger son or the servants didn’t say that. We also have a tendency to indulge in slander and character assassination of other people,” Rev Fr Biju says. The elder son is a perfect example of how one should not be in life.
The Bible says, “He was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me even a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!”
He caviled and grumbled against the loving father. When you read the Bible, you will come across numerous occasions when Scribes and Pharisees behaved like the elder son. And we’re not far behind them. We’re one step ahead of him in our daily life.
The elder son was blinded by jealousy. He was not happy at the prospect of the younger son back in the family. This is despite knowing and hearing that whatever the father has got is for him alone. For, there’s a custom in the Jewish families in those times that elder son gets two times the share of the property. Here, he would have got two-third of the family property while the younger had already taken away and destroyed one-third.
The elder one was upset that younger brother repented and returned to the father’s house. Scribes and Pharisees also behaved like that when sinners came to Jesus. Aren’t some of us are like these Pharisees, Scribes and the elder son? We may not realize it initially or even later. If you’re a sinner, you should repent like the younger son. Don’t behave like the elder son. In short, the real unrepentant prodigal son is the elder brother.
