A New Inheritance

I have posted about the Prodigal Son before, but I wanted to get into a little different aspect of that parable. At the beginning, it says that the younger son asked his father for his share of the inheritance, and then journeyed to a far country. I think that we should consider that as kind of a strange request. Generally, a person doesn’t inherit anything until at least one of their parents is dead; how does one even calculate what half of the estate would be if the father were dead? Anyway, the father managed to work out something, so that the younger son could get his inheritance, and walk away happy.

Now that younger son takes his inheritance, and travels far away, and he wastes what he has on riotous living. Soon he has nothing. Of course, he wouldn’t have anything to speak of really if he had stayed with his father, but all of his needs would have been met, and he would still have an inheritance coming at the end of his father’s life.

So, he comes to the realization that his father’s servants are living better than he is, and, although he realizes that he has no right to even ask to be treated as a son again, surely there is enough love left that his father will hire him to work for him. Of course, when he returns, the father immediately reinstates him as his son.

Now, one of the arguments that I have heard is that once one becomes a son (or a daughter), then one will always be family. That is true. Of course, just because one is a relative (by blood or by adoption) is doesn’t necessarily follow that one will collect an inheritance. If the prodigal son’s father had died while the prodigal was still in that far country, well, he had already received his inheritance, he wouldn’t have received anything more. Quite frankly, no one would have even known where to look for the younger son. The older son would have been the sole heir of the estate, even though he would not have been the only son.

In the parable, the inheritance represents what God has for us; it represents our salvation. The younger son received salvation, but then he went and just did what he wanted to with it, and gave no reverence to God for it. He wasted it; at some point he no longer had it. When he repented, and returned to his father, he gained salvation all over again. Keep in mind that, at that time, he hadn’t done anything to earn his salvation; he had only repented of the life he had been living.

The father rejoiced, because his son was home. The father said, “My son, was dead, and is alive again.” Is it not clear that if the son had died living his own way, that he was dead to God? It would have been worse for him than if he had never known the Father. I think that it is significant, too, that if you look at Luke 15 (the chapter where the parable of the Prodigal Son is), the other parables told at that sitting all have to do with lost items. The is the parable of the lost sheep (which in this case was found, but there is no guarantee that it would be), and a woman that had ten pieces of silver, but lost one, and rejoiced when she found it (don’t you wish that every time you lost money, you were able to find it again?). Jesus was teaching us about repentance, but also that, just because we have salvation now, it doesn’t mean that we can’t lose it. In these three parables, the lost were all found, because they were parables. Real life doesn’t always work out that nicely; just ask Esau.

The Other Son

I think most people are familiar with the story of the prodigal son. The father in the parable has two sons: One of them asks for his inheritance early, and goes off to live on his own. After some time, and some bad decisions, he finds himself broke and hungry. Considering where he came from, he begins to realize that he would have been much better off if he had stayed with his family. He decides that his father wouldn’t be willing to treat him as a son, but perhaps there is enough love left that his father will give him a job. When he returns home, though, his father welcomes him home, and throws a celebration that his son has returned. One thing that gets overlooked in the story a lot is the other son. After the prodigal returns, the older brother, coming back to the house from working in the fields, hears the party going on, and, instead of going in and asking his father what was going on, he asks one of the hired servants. Finding out that his brother has returned, he becomes angry. He understands that his brother didn’t come home because he struck it rich and wants to share the wealth, he hit rock bottom and didn’t know where else to go. Word filtered back to the father that the other son was angry about the treatment that the prodigal was receiving, and so the father sought out the other son. “I don’t get you, dad, he has dishonored you, he has dragged our family name through the mud (or worse), he finally gets desperate enough to come home, and you throw a party! Why haven’t you ever thrown a party for me? I’m the son that has always followed your wishes!” The father reminded him that he had never asked for a party; he had never indicated any desire to celebrate with his father.
I think that there is some of each brother in most of us. Sometimes we end up doing our own thing, and end up outside of the will of God. All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. When we get right, God is happy that we did. But, then, we swing the other way. We start thinking that we are doing right, and have done right, and we are in the zone; we are just so right with God. But then someone else falls into the same trap that we did, and when they get right, we wonder why God would even forgive them. On some level we know that if God didn’t forgive people, then we are all in deep trouble, but how can He forgive that?
I think that it’s interesting, too, that the other son never asked for a party. He should have at least been willing to celebrate his brother’s return. Apparently he would have been at least as happy if his brother had died in whatever far country that was that he had gone to. It seems to me that, in the natural, at least, he might have been considering the fact that, with his brother gone, he stood to inherit everything that his father had, but with his brother’s return, and the father’s obvious jubilation, suddenly his inheritance stands to be cut in half. Jesus didn’t even address that aspect of it, though, because He wasn’t talking about a natural inheritance. Our inheritance is Heaven, and Heaven will never get crowded, or spread too thin; it will be perfect. Of course, I think most of could understand the other son’s frustration at the idea that he has been doing all of this work for all of this time, and his brother ran off and did whatever he wanted, and now they both stand to gain the same inheritance. Of course, Jesus dealt with the same idea in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard in Matthew 20. What I do for my reward is between God and me, and what you do for your reward is between God and you. I don’t have any business passing judgment. The real problem IMHO, is the brother’s attitude. He’s so busy worrying about his own sense of justice, and his reward compared to his brother’s, that he completely missed his father’s justice, the true justice.

BTW—the above image is courtesy of Edith OSB on flickr.com.