The older son thought he was a thoroughbred in a stable of mules. He held his wayward brother a notch beneath the respect he held for common cockroaches. He blistered his father for favoritism and a glaring lack of fairness just as the Pharisees blasted Jesus for receiving sinners and tax collectors and eating with them (Luke 15:2). He was in a full-blown meltdown. If he had known about the ring and the robe, he would really have been ticked.
The father lovingly responds to the anger directed at him (vv. 31-32). This understanding father fielded the hostility flung at him as wise parents do. He felt the sting as did Jesus when criticized for doing the same thing.
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Affectionately: tenderly without a loss for words the father addresses him as his “child.” This father fails to disown either one of his sons. He reaches out lovingly.
Assuredly: You are with me always. We find no recrimination, no putting him in his place. The father does not inflame the situation but acts diplomatically, sensitive to his son’s feelings. He seems to recognize the years of faithful work. The embrace of the younger son did not mean the rejection of the older son. (Note the contrast between “never” and “always.”)
Graciously: everything that is mine is yours. The older son had been bent all out of shape. You never gave me anything. At the very beginning of the story when the prodigal demanded his inheritance the text plainly says that the father divided the inheritance then and there to both of his sons (Luke 15:12). The father did not have to give the farm to his son. It was his to give. The older son had so much given to him he had not bothered to count it. This outgoing father had been incredibly generous to both of his children. The older son was the recipient of grace.
Invitingly: it was an absolute necessity to rejoice and be merry because your brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found (v. 32).The father does not apologize for his action or back off of it. He sticks by his guns but explains why he threw the party. He invites the angry brother to rejoice with them, to accept the wayward boy as a brother again, to come on in and find his dancing shoes. Don’t miss the party. Some do. The father reaches out to liberate his son from his bondage to resentment.
We lift up the father in the story once more as a singular revelation of God, not only a God of grace but a loving God. He loved both of his children. God loves his children, including disreputable sinners like the prodigal son and reputable sinners like the elder brother.