"The older son was angry and would not go in to the feast" (Luke 15).
The prodigal son’s story is probably the most read story in the gospels I must say. A father with two sons. A case for the older brother. A difficult one because he looked so good. He kept his room straight and his nose clean. He played by the rules and paid all his dues. His résumé ? Impeccable. His credit ? Squeaky clean. And loyalty ? While his brother was sowing wild oats, he stayed home and sowed the crops.
On the outside he was everything a father could want in a son. But on the inside he was sour and shallow. Overcome by jealousy. Consumed by anger. Blinded by bitterness. The story of the prodigal son. The boy who broke his father’s heart by taking his inheritance and taking off. He trades his dignity for a whisky bottle and his self-respect for a pigpen.
Things didn’t work out, then comes the son’s sorrow and his decision to go home. He hopes his dad will give him a job on the farm and a room over the garage. What he finds is a father who has kept his absent son’s place set at the table and the porch light on every night.
The father is so excited to see his son, you’ll never guess what he does. He throws a party, I mean a big party! But what the father did, infuriated the older brother. “The older son was angry” (v.28). It’s not hard to see why. “So, is this how a guy gets recognition around here in this family?
Get drunk, fool around, and go broke and you get a party?” So he sat outside the house and pouted. “I have served you like a slave for many years and have always obeyed your commands. But you never gave me even a young goat to have at a feast with my friends.
But your other son, who wasted all your money on prostitutes, comes home, and you kill the fat calf for him!” (v.29-30). Appears that both sons spent time in the pigpen. One in the pen of rebellion the other in the pen of self-pity. The younger one has come home. The older one hasn’t. He’s still in the slop. He is saying the same thing we said when the kid down the street got a bicycle and we didn’t. It’s not fair!
Mrs. Wanda Holloway of Channelview, Texas, saw red. When her fourteen-year-old daughter didn’t get elected to the cheerleading squad, Wanda got angry. She decided to get even. She hired a hit man to kill the mother of her daughter’s chief competitor, hoping to so upset the girl that Wanda’s daughter would make the squad.
Bitterness will do that to us. It’ll cause us to burn down our house to kill a rat. Fortunately, her plan failed and Wanda Holloway was caught. She was sentenced to fifteen years. She didn’t have to be put behind bars to be imprisoned, however. Bitterness is its own prison. Black and cold, bitterness denies easy escape.
Victims of betrayal. Victims of abuse. Victims of the system, the military, the world. Angry. Sullen. Accusatory. Arrogant. Whiny. Put them all together in one word and spell it b-i-t-t-e-r. If you put them all in one person, that person is in the pit—the dungeon of bitterness. The dungeon of bitterness, deep and dark, is beckoning us to enter
.You know, I know. We’ve all experienced enough hurt. You’ve been betrayed enough times. We all have history of rejections? Haven’t you been left out, left behind, or left out in the cold? You are a candidate for the dungeon. We can choose, like many, to chain ourselves to our hurt, pain, and disappointments.
Or we can choose, like some, to put away our hurts before they become hates. We can choose to go to the party. You have a place there. Your name is beside a plate. If you are a child of God, no one can take away your sonship/daughtership. Which is precisely what the father said to the older son. “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours” (v.31).
And that is precisely what the Father says to you and me. How does God deal with our bitter heart? God reminds us that what we are more important than what we don’t have. We still have our relationship with God. No one can take that. NO one can touch it. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Our health can be taken and our money stolen—but our place at God’s table is permanent. The older brother was bitter because he focused on what he didn’t have and forgot what he did have. His father reminded him—and us—that he had everything he’d always had.
He had his job. His place. His name. His inheritance. The only thing he didn’t have was the spotlight. And because he wasn’t content to share it—he missed the party. It takes courage to set aside jealousy and rejoice with the achievements of a rival.
Finally: Once upon a time, two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side-by-side, sharing machinery and trading labour and goods as needed without a hitch. Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference and finally, it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.
One morning there was a knock on John's door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter's toolbox. "I'm looking for work," he said. "Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there I could help with?" "Yes," said the older brother. "I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm.
That's my neighbour. In fact, it is my younger brother! Last week there was a meadow between us. He recently took his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us. Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I'll do him one better. See that pile of lumber by the barn?
I want you to build me a fence an 8-foot fence - so I won't need to see his place or his face anymore." The carpenter said, "I think I understand the situation. Show me the nails and the post-hole digger and I'll be able to do a job that pleases you.
" The John had to go to town, so he helped the carpenter get the materials ready and then he was off for the day. The carpenter worked hard all that day -- measuring, sawing and nailing.
About sunset when the John returned, the carpenter had just finished his job. The John's eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. There was no fence there at all. It was a bridge... a bridge that stretched from one side of the creek to the other! A fine piece of work, with handrails and all!
And the neighbour, his younger brother, was coming toward them, his hand outstretched... "You are quite a fellow to build this bridge after all I've said and done." The two brothers stood at each end of the bridge, and then they met in the middle, taking each other's hand.
They turned to see the carpenter hoist his toolbox onto his shoulder. No, wait! Stay a few days. I've a lot of other projects for you," said the older brother. "I'd love to stay on," the carpenter said, but I have many more bridges to build. The Bridge:
Remember this: God won't ask what kind of car we drove, but He'll ask how many people we helped get where they needed to go. God won't ask the square footage of our house, but He'll ask how many people we welcomed into your home.
God won't ask about the clothes we had in our closet, but He'll ask how many we helped to clothe. God won't ask how many friends we had, but He'll ask how many people to we befriend.
God won't ask in what neighbourhood we lived, but He'll ask how we treated our neighbours. God won't ask about the colour of your skin, but He'll ask about the content of your character.
Unlike the older brother, he heard a higher call. And unlike the older brother, he was present at the party, but never went in. Wise are we if we rise above our hurts, bitterness, and disappointments. For if we do, we’ll be present at our heavenly Father’s final celebration. A party to end all parties. Celebration to end all celebrations. A party where there will be no pouters.
Why don’t you come in, and join the fun?
Amen
.Rev. Samuel King-Kabu
March 21 , 2004