A Homily for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity

{The] elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. . . . And he was angry, and would not go in.

—S. Luke 15:25, 28

The Gospel lesson for this morning is the well-known parable of the Prodigal Son.

The parable begins: “A certain man had two sons.” Most of the attention, of course, is given to the younger son, the prodigal. It seems it's always about him.

We do not know too much about the older son, the prodigal’s brother. We know that, when the prodigal returned, the older son was out working in the field. His father says that he has never left the father's house. He himself says that he has never disobeyed any of his father’s commandments.

It may be easier for most of us to identify with the older son than with the prodigal. Very few of us can boast that we have never disobeyed any of the commandments; remember, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and, as the psalmist says, "who knows how often he offendeth." But most of us have managed not to blow half of our parents' life savings on riotous living in faraway places, either.

It may very well be that we have never quite experienced a homecoming like the prodigal's, with robes and rings and a dinner party with roasted veal. We might even feel as if we have never even been given allowed a small kid for a dinner with our friends.

The older brother became angry when he heard how his father had received the prodigal on his return. He was so angry that he would not go into the house; instead, he stood outside and sulked.

Why did the older brother become angry? His father had not done anything wrong to him. The other brother was angry because, as he saw it, his younger brother was getting more than he deserved, was being treated better than he had any right to be treated. Let him come home, sure! But let him sweat it out for a few years; don't let him forget what a jerk he has been and how much pain he has caused. And most of all, don't lets be killing fatted calves and letting the kid think he's gotten away with something.

There is a parable in the Old Testament that is not entirely dissimilar to the parable of the Prodigal Son. It is the parable of Jonah. Now Jonah was a prophet, and God spoke to Jonah and told him to get up and go to Nineveh, “that great city,” the capital of the Assyrian empire and probably the most important city in the world at that time. Nineveh was a very wicked place. And Jonah spent three days in Nineveh, during which he repeatedly prophesied that God was really, really angry with the Ninevites, and he was going to burn their city to the ground.

The king, and the senators, and the clergy of Nineveh heard Jonah’s message, and they turned out in sackcloth and ashes, and they got all the people, and even the domestic animals to turn out in sackcloth and ashes. They repented of their evil ways, and they prayed to God that he would have mercy on them and spare their city. And God listened to them and did not burn Nineveh to the ground.

Meanwhile, Jonah the prophet had sat down on a hill outside the city to watch the fireworks. And when God changed his mind and let the Ninevites off the hook, Jonah became angry, and sulked like the Prodigal’s older brother. Jonah told God that he was "angry unto death" because God spared Nineveh.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father both rebukes his older son and gives him a word of reassurance.

The father rebukes the older son for his anger, much as the landowner (in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard) rebukes the workers who have toiled all day, and grumble because they receive the same pay as those who came only at the eleventh hour: the landowner asks: "Is your eye evil, because mine is good?" We are reminded once again that the anger of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

The father of the two sons reminds the older one that the younger, the prodigal, was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found. And that is, in itself, a cause for rejoicing. For the same reason, the shepherd rejoices when he finds the one sheep out of a hundred that became separated in the desert and got lost; for the same reason, the housewife rejoices when she finds the one coin in ten that rolled away and got lost.

The finding of the lost sheep, the return of the prodigal, the conversion of Nineveh are the cause of more than earthly rejoicing. There is joy among the angels of heaven over each sinner that repents.

It is only frail, sinful human beings who become angry when other people go unpunished for their evident misdeeds. We hear it in the news reports or read it in the newspaper every day; we feel it in ourselves from time to time. We tell ourselves that all we want is for justice to be done; sure, we are indignant, but it is righteous indignation.

In the old testament story, God causes a leafy plant to grow in a day and to shade the angry Jonah from the heat of the sun; the next day, God causes the plant to die, and Jonah is vexed. God rebukes Noah: "you didn't make the plant, you didn't tend it or water it, and yet it bothers you that it was not allowed to live; how then can you be so angry that the great city, with all its inhabitants, including innocent children and livestock, was allowed to live?"

In our parable, the father reassures his older son with these words: “Son, you are with me always, and all that I have is thine.” The father's welcoming of the penitent prodigal does not mean casting out the faithful offspring. The older brother loses nothing--all the money that the prodigal has wasted was the father's, and the other son will still receive his full inheritance.

Life, as Christians understand it, is not a zero-sum game. One person's winning does not mean another person's losing out. "There is welcome for the sinner, and more blessing for the good; there is mercy with the Saviour, there is healing in the blood." [F.W. Faber, Hymn 304.]

The parable of the prodigal son ends without our being told how the older brother responds to his father's rebuke and reassurance. For that matter, the old testament story of Jonah the prophet ends without our being told how Jonah responds to what God tells him. Both stories end abruptly, while the message is still just beginning to sink in.

Maybe that is because the father's speech to the older brother of the prodigal son is also addressed to us. Maybe God's speech to Jonah the prophet is also, in its way, addressed to us. And maybe the story is not over until we respond.

Perhaps some of us today are harboring anger or resentment. If so, the Lord is asking us to let it go, and come to the banquet. Here is slain no fatted calf, but the very Lamb of God himself.

The ending of the story is up to us. Can we put aside our anger and resentment? Can we join the celebration in honor of the lost-and-found, the dead-and-alive-again? Will we join the angels of heaven in rejoicing over each sinner that repenteth?

Church of Saint Mary Magdalene

Orange, California

28 July 2002

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