It’s as if someone asked me to do a book review on the books that’ve deeply impacted my life in the last few years. Except noone has. So read if you’re interested. Imagine my sweet Caleb napping and my sweet Caden looking for something to do that doesn’t require yelling if you’re not interested.
Okay. Last year I wrote a post with some quotes and my long-time friend recommended a book to me in the comments. When I visited her in our hometown, she loaned this book to me. (I still have it. She truly should’ve known better. That is a joke. She loves me anyway.)
First, he defines prodigal: recklessly extravagant; having spent everything
Then he talks about how we usually hear Jesus’s story in Luke 15 described as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” However, it is a story about two sons, both very lost. And the people to whom He is directing this story are more like the elder brother than the younger, wayward son.
Most of us know the amazing ways this father deals with his younger son; the son who disrespects him, asking for his inheritance, essentially wishing his father dead. The father takes this all, including a loss of honor and the pain of his love being rejected. Keller writes, “Ordinarily when our love is rejected we get angry, retaliate, and do what we can to dimish our affection for the rejecting person, so we won’t hurt so much. But this father maintains his affection for his son and bears the agony.”
Not only that, but when this son comes home, this Middle Eastern patriarch, the “dignified pillar of the community,” runs to him! He tells the servants to bring the best robe (i.e. his own robe) the “unmistakable sign of restored standing in the family.”
However, if the message of the story were simply that, Jesus would’ve stopped the story there. But grace and forgiveness aren’t free or even cheap. So the story continues on with the elder brother…
When the older brother hears of all this he is furious. Why? Because by bringing the younger brother back in the family means he is now – again – entitled to one-third of the family wealth. Even though he already spent his 1/3. The elder brother’s slice of the pie is smaller now. And when he thinks of all he’s done for his father, “never disobeying him,” he is outraged. Why should he take a cut because his younger brother made bad choices?
Keller writes about how Jesus’s listeners would’ve been “on the edge of their seats.” They would’ve wondered if the family would be reunited, if the frustrated elder brother would honor his father and come into the feast with him. But Jesus stops the story there. Why? Because his story is directed to his enemies – the “elder brothers” right there with Him – and is pleading with them to change their hearts.
Maybe you’ve already heard that before. But the part of the book most interesting to me was when Keller talks about redefining sin. Both the younger and elder-brother mentality sought control. The younger by demanding the father’s goods without his authority; the elder by obeying him perfectly and, therefore, feeling entitled to tell the father how he ought to parcel out his robe, ring and wealth. The problem was neither wanted the father just for the father’s sake. They both rebelled from loving him.
Jesus was driving home the point that both of these attitudes are wrong. Keller puts it beautifully when he writes, “In [the gospel’s] view, everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this and change. By contrast, elder brothers divide the world in two: ‘The good people (like us) are in and the bad people, who are the real problem with the world, are out.’ Younger brothers, even if they don’t believe in God at all, do the same thing, saying: ‘No, the open-minded and tolerant people are in and the bigoted, narrow-minded people, who are the real problem with the world, are out.’
But Jesus says: ‘The humble are in and the proud are out.’ The people who profess they aren’t particularly good or open-minded are moving toward God, because the prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it.”
Isn’t that wonderful? Mostly because most of us, if we are honest, have both younger and elder brother mindsets. I know I do. I like the way Keller introduces us to the solution: “Jesus’s parable creates something of a crisis for the thoughtful listener. He has vividly portrayed both the world’s two spiritual paths, the basic ways each offers for finding happiness, relating to God, and dealing with our problems. However, he exposes them as…dead ends. He clearly wants us to take some radically different approach, but what is it? Where do we find it?
We will find the answer when we realize that Jesus deliberately left someone out of this parable. He did this so that we would look for him and, finding him, find our own way home at last.”
After talking about how we must have the father’s initiating love and a deeper repentance than just confessing wrong behavior, Keller writes about what we really need: A True Elder Brother. In the first two parables in Luke 15, Jesus talks about a lost sheep and the shepherd that goes to look for him… as well as a lost coin and the woman who upturns her whole house until she finds it. But in the story of the sons, no one goes to look for the lost son. Why not? And whose job is it?
We know the answer by now: a true elder brother would have gone after his brother. In love, he would’ve taken the time, the expense, and the frustration of searching him out. He then would’ve brought him back at his own expense – since his bad-choices-making brother had already spent all his money. Writes Keller, “The younger brother’s restoration was free to him, but it came at enormous cost to the elder brother. The father could not just forgive the younger son, somebody had to pay! The father could not reinstate him except at the expense of the elder brother. There was no other way. But Jesus does not put a true elder brother in the story, one who is willing to pay any cost to seek and save that which is lost. It is heartbreaking. The younger son gets a Pharaisee for a brother instead.
But we do not.
By putting a flawed elder brother in the story, Jesus is inviting us to imagine and yearn for a true one.”
We know Jesus is the true elder brother. We know He spent everything and came from heaven to earth to seek us out. We know He paid for us and took our place. We know we have absolutely no rights in the family of God, save for what He did for us. It’s a beautiful parable. And the Truth of it is the only thing that will change our hearts.
I hope this made you want to read the book! Because Keller doesn’t end it here. And my review doesn’t do it justice. It’s super short – but very meaty. I liked it.