The Prodigal and The Prideful

In Luke 15:11ff., Jesus tells the familiar story of the Prodigal Son.  This son, not caring about his father's wishes, demands his inheritance in advance so he can leave to chart his own course.  Receiving his money, he sets out on a course of "wine, women and son," so to speak, and winds up in ruin.

Coming to his senses and having no money left and no other place to turn, he returns to his father's house with a broken and humble spirit, asking only to be allowed the place of a hired hand in order to begin paying his inheritance back, as impossible as that would be.  Nonetheless, he felt he deserved nothing, not even room and board.

The father, representing our Father in Heaven, accepts him back, rejecting the notion of repayment or allowing his son to be a hired hand, welcomes him back with all the honor and privilege of a son, including a robe, a ring, new sandals and a welcome home banquet complete with the center piece of a fatted calf (reserved for very special occasions).  Everyone rejoices!

Well, not everyone.  The older brother, who had stayed and worked all that time the other played, squandering his inheritance, refused to come to the banquet his father was hosting, refused to honor his father or respect his wishes because of his hurt pride: "Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!" (vv. 29-30).

Now, in the same vein of his younger brother whom he despised, the older brother pridefully treats his father with the same contempt.  Although he stayed behind and worked while the Prodigal played, it wasn't out of a sense of love for his father, it was out of a sense of self-importance and expectation of special reward.  Like his brother who demanded his inheritance, he believed his father owed him special treatment and reward.

Both the Prodigal and the Prideful sons failed, both needed to repent and change their ways, and especially their attitude toward the Father from whom everything they had came.  Neither were owed anything, both were blessed because their father loved them.

Our Father in Heaven does not owe us anything either.  Whether we have been "God-fearing church-goers" all our lives or lived a worldly and wasteful life up to now, every blessing we have is a gift from God, not a right, not something earned: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God---not by works, so that no one can boast" (Eph 2:8-9).  Jus' Say'n.