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Dad Always Liked You Best

 'My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again;
he was lost and is found.’     Luke  15:31-32

Do you remember The Smothers Brothers television show?
If you saw it at all you will remember that famous line Tommy Smothers would use to close off debate with his brother Dick--'Yeah, mom always liked you best!'

The parable of the Prodigal Son as it is commonly called is pretty much self explanatory.
Good stories are, and this is one of the best.
But a preacher's gotta do what a preacher's gotta do and so here are some things to think about.

The key to understanding this parable is the short interchange between the father and the elder son at the end of the story.
The father is trying to persuade the elder son to come in and join the party he has thrown to welcome the younger prodigal son home.

A quick recap of the story:
There is a father with two sons. They farm for a living.
The younger son is sick of home, sick of farming and maybe just tired of the same old same old.
Maybe he is fed up with his older brother too, who from what we later learn is ultra responsible and never does a thing wrong. Its not easy living with someone who is perfect. Especially if its your older brother.
So he asks for his share of the inheritance, which was permitted in Middle eastern custom.
With his pockets full of spending loot, he sets out for the big city and the far country. Anywhere but the two-bit hicksville where he grew up.
While away he lives it up and satiates his senses with every pleasure imaginable, especially every immoral and forbidden pleasure.
His money gone, he has no friends and has to take a job feeding pigs.
Finally he comes to his senses and says to himself, "my father's hired hands live better than this. I am going home."
So he rehearses a speech. "Father I have sinned against heaven and you . I am no longer worthy to be a son, but a job on the farm as a hired hand would suit me fine."
He sets out for home.
Before he even reaches the house his father sees him on the road and comes running out to greet him.
His father cuts him off halfway through his little speech. There will be no hired hand status here.
He is welcomed back with open arms and a party is ordered along with a suit of the best clothes.

Meanwhile elder brother who has been out dutifully working in the field hears the revelry and asks what's going on.
When he is told his younger brother is home and that's the reason for the party, he is furious.
He won't come in the house.
His father comes out and there is a brief interchange, which we will look at in a bit more detail.

But first you have to imagine the father's total joy at seeing his youngest son coming down the road.
Any parent with a child lost in drugs, or any addiction would understand what it would mean to have the son come to his senses and "come home again."

I remember a few years back when side-scanning sonar was developed how it was used to locate all kinds of underwater wrecks that had been previously unobtainable.
One close to home occurred at Cameron Lake between Port Alberni and Parksville. I was living in Port Alberni in the mid 1980's when the wreck of  a small private plane was located hundreds of feet down in the cold water of Cameron Lake.  The airplane had taken off from Lake Okanagan with a family and a couple of friends bound for Sproat Lake on the other side of Port Alberni.
The plane had never arrived.
After the wreck was found with the bodies and their luggage still onboard, one dimension of the story was told.
A young girl had been onboard. She lived near Penticton in the Okanagan valley and was going to vacation at Sproat Lake with her friends.
When the small plane was lost, the mother just did not give up hope.
They lived on the lake and apparently she would walk down to the lake every day and sit on the end of the dock watching the sky for the arrival of that missing plane and her daughter.
Of course it never came.

But you can imagine the father walking to the end of his property and looking down the road for his son, day after day.
Then one day maybe out in the field, he looks up the road... and he sees a bedraggled solitary figure.
He knows that tousled head of hair and saunter a mile away.
He's back!

The party ensues. Picture the overjoyed father, and maybe the relieved and incredulous son.
He really is seeing his father for the first time, or at least in a new light.
Dad is so happy that he doesn't much care about what brought his son home, or what went on in the far country, though he undoubtedly has an idea.
He knows the story will come out in its own time, but for the moment it's just time to celebrate.

Now imagine the elder brother dragging himself home after a hard day's work.
He is bone tired maybe and dirty. He just is looking forward to a bath, some clean clothes and a quiet dinner with his father.
Life has been different since his brother left.
For one, he has his father for himself. Mostly that's a good thing.
His father has been a lot more attentive to him since the kid left.

Which reminds me of one feature of relationships.
Dr. Murray Bowen a famous psychiatrist who developed family systems theory says the most pervasive dynamic in all human relationships is the triangle.
Triangles are a constant feature in any set of relationships.
There are two characteristics to triangles:
   1. They help to ease our anxiety in one on one relationships
   2. They are always about who is close and who is distant. Who is in and who is out.

One father, two sons is a triangle.
Corners of a triangle are not always people though.
Father, son and inheritance is another triangle.
Father, eldest son and the farm is another triangle.

In marriages, television can be the third corner of a triangle. When things get uncomfortable, the T.V. comes on and someone gets distanced.
The third corner in a triangle can be anything. A credit card often works well.
You get the idea.
The trick is always to ask who the close pair are and who is in the distant corner. Those positions can and do change depending on circumstances.

But back to our Father and two sons triangle.
Anyone who has raised more than one child knows that something you have to watch out for is even giving the appearance of favoritism.
But you know you can't always treat everyone equally.
Sure you cut the cake to make sure everyone gets exactly as big a slice. Ditto the ice-cream on top.
In the back seat of the car, we would define a dividing line between our two daughters. Each had the same amount of room though one was older and one was younger and therefore smaller.
That did not mean she occupied less space though.
And so it goes.
But from time to time we have to do things for one we don't do for the other. Like taking them to emergency for stitches. No one complains being left out of that equation.

And birth order is important. It is not destiny, but its important.
We know certain things about eldest children and we know other things about youngest children as well as middle children.
The eldest usually gets mom and dad to his or herself for a bit until they are eventually upstaged by this absolutely adorable, wonderful younger sibling!
The eldest has his or her place though. Sometimes its baby-sitting.
Usually its taking more of the responsibility and work load and not usually getting much thanks for it.
There are exceptions, but generally its accurate.

Youngests have their place too. Its fun being the one who everyone adores and looks after. I know because I am one.
Just as eldests can come to resent the special place the youngest occupies, so also the youngest can come to resent always being considered the baby.
Maybe that is what was going on with the youngest son. Who knows?

But what we see is that as the elder brother comes home and learns the news that its not just him and his father anymore, he is not pleased.
It's not exactly that he didn't want his brother home again. Undoubtedly he wondered how he was doing too. And undoubtedly would not wish him any hardship.
Well no more than he deserved, anyway.

But what gets under his skin is the manner of his coming home.
He leaps right from the outhouse to the main house in one giant leap.
I can imagine him thinking it quite ok if he had come home and seen his brother moving into the servants quarters just as his younger brother expected.
Let him do some time in penance for a bit. Eat with the servants. Live with them.
Do the work they do, then maybe...
Maybe in a month or two he would be welcome into the house at meal times. Now and then.
Eventually he might even be allowed to move back into his old room and be a family member again. In a fashion.
But you know one thing that would not change.
He would always know that his presence there is at the grace of everyone else. Where he had been might never be mentioned, but it would be felt.
He would not for a very long time if ever be allowed to resume full status as if his leaving had never happened.
No, he would wear that quietly for the rest of his days.

And that would always put him in a slightly more distant orbit than everyone else.
Elder son would always be in the driver's seat as far as belonging was concerned.
In family discussions, younger son's opinion might be asked for, but he would never presume that he had as strong a vote as brother and dad did.
He lost that in the far country.

But dad blows all that notion.
Younger son is home and he is restored!
He is restored big time.
And elder son is as mad as a dog with a bee in its ear.
Now all of a sudden he feels that all his dutiful living has earned him nothing.
It seems that he measures his worth is by comparing it to someone else's worth.
If the wasteful son is worth this partying, then his time and life has been a waste.
It ought to have bought him at least as much, probably MORE..

He won't come in the house.
When his father learns he is still outside, he comes out to get him.
But elder son is implacable. No way is he going to legitimate this whole thing by his presence.
He protests by his absence. Its all wrong.
His father cannot pretend he is not overjoyed to see his lost son home again.
But elder son cannot even look at him as a brother anymore.
Notice the wording his brother is "that son of yours"
Father still refers to him as your brother.

How can I not be overjoyed. Your brother who we thought was dead is alive. Was lost and now is found.
And therein is the rub.
As children of the heavenly father, anyone else who also calls him, Abba Father, is our brother or our sister.

Peter at one point asked Jesus a question. "How often can my brother sin and I still have to forgive him? Seven times"
The answer Jesus gives is seventy times seven times. What he is actually saying is that as long as he is a brother, you forgive. Period.
The question then is when do people stop being my brother?
And in another passage the answer is simple: You can stop calling the sinner "brother" when you are prepared to stop calling God, "Father".
In the father's triangle, there is no inside position and no outside position. There are only sons.
His responses to them simply depends on what the circumstances dictate.
To the elder he says, almost incredulously..... "What are you talking about? It's all yours. It always has been."

So who is on the outside position with you?
What do you do to get on the inside track?
Is there someone lost to the Father that you know about?
Jesus says to the pharisees for whom this parable is told, by the way, that there is more joy in heaven when one sinner repents than for ninety nine who don't need to repent.
The pharisees were mad at Jesus for hanging around with sinners and not giving them their due credit.
They had been upright, done right and encouraged others to live that way too, and they figured they ought to receive a bit of recognition for it.
Jesus just said, "it is the sick who need a physician."

What he could have said is "if you are so close to God's heart, you should know what grieves God and what delights God. And in that case you would have been embracing these sinners long before now."
But of course they didn't know God's heart.
They were too busy trying to impress God and others to really be close to God.
What a loss, when you think about it.

What they wanted to hear from Jesus is "Father really likes you best, you know."
They would have smiled and purred like cats.
But for all the world all they could see was that Jesus seemed to like these sinners better than them.
And so doing, placed themselves on the outside of the equation.
Just like our elder brother does.
If I cannot be better, I must be less.
But it doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work that way in families, though at times we parents have to admit we may play favorite from time to time.
But then we come to our senses and ask what the distant child is missing that we can supply.
We don't always get it right. As Jesus says, we are sinful too.

But God gets it right.
There is no inside and outside at the table with Him.
A child of God is a child of God. That makes them brother and sister as far as we are concerned.

You want the inside track with God?
Actually there is a way.
Be like God. Look for lost sons and daughters and bring them home.
Then you will understand the joy of God.
God won't love you anymore than them, but sharing God's joy, it won't matter anymore.


Preached  March 18, 2007
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian Church
Victoria, British Columbia

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