One of the best known parables from scripture is one we often call “The Prodigal Son”. It’s from Luke 15, and, like “The Good Samaritan”, it’s a commonly understood description. Though we are better served if we don’t hyperfocus on the younger, prodigal son, which is why I tend to call it: the parable of a man with two sons.
I’ve come to appreciate the older son as a particularly revelatory element of the parable. Both sons are lost, but in very different ways. The prodigal son is the more exciting story; he takes the money and runs, blows it on “dissolute living”, and returns home destitute, humbled by the experience.
Not only have we all been lost in similar ways – striking out from God, trying to make it on our own, until we recall the loving voice of the father – we do love a good story. The younger son is more Hollywood. It’s unexpected, redemption, a happy ending.
The older son, the one who doesn’t even get named in the typical titling of the parable… his story is less exciting. And you wouldn’t be alone if his contentions sound fair, or even if you wanted to argue that the father is wrong to welcome back the son so lavishly, if at all.
Yet he’s outside the party, pouting alone in the night. Externally he’s done everything right: he stayed home, he worked hard. But he’s missed out on being formed by the father’s love.
Tomorrow is Aldersgate Day. It’s not a big deal holiday – I didn’t even know it was coming up until I noticed an article about it – but the event it commemorates is big in the history of Methodism.
On May 24, 1738, John Wesley attended a Moravian group meeting. He was already an Anglican priest, already engaged in vocational ministry. Already known by those close to him as deeply dedicated and hard working. And yet, it was this day that he names as receiving assurance of his salvation. As he wrote in reflection of this experience:
“… while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
The work he continued would be the start of Methodism, today The United Methodist Church. What I love about the Aldersgate story is the reminder that the journey to grow closer to God, to understand how God’s love is at work in and through us, is never over. You can do all the right things and still find yourself outside of the party.
But God – the father in the parable – is ever seeking to welcome home both of his sons. He searches the horizon for the one who left and leaves the party to invite the other inside. God isn’t interested in leaving well enough alone. The risk, as the older son’s story reminds us, is that we do.
Rev. Ben Richards
