All I have is yours
Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 31, 2019
The celebration began. Now the older son had been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant said to him, “Your brother has returned and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.” He became angry, and refused to enter the house.
– From Luke 15
The older son had been working in the field. He was not an artist, nor a student. He bent his back to plant the seed and bent his back again to harvest it. He worked well with servants, who must have thought a lot of him. But as Henri Nouwen writes in Return of the Prodigal Son, “Something has attached itself to the underside of his virtue.”
Perhaps this story of Jesus could best be called the Parable of the Two Lost Sons. Looking at both the brothers, Nouwen asks whether lust or resentment is more difficult to turn away from.
I imagine the older son out baling hay, sweating through his clothes, covered with dust and the grime of his father’s field. He and the servants work late to get the hay into the barn before the night’s predicted rains.
If he weren’t baling hay, he’d be pulling weeds. If he weren’t pulling weeds, he’d be feeding livestock. There is no end to work on a farm. His brother was never any help. His father tired easily. He and the hired men did all the work.
When his brother left with his inheritance, the older brother laughed. Cynically, perhaps, but also relieved, because things would be much simpler without the nuisance of that relationship. Let the poor boy sink or swim. Just get him out of here.
So it’s easy to understand his resentment when the younger son returned to celebration and his father’s joy. What had this bounder done to deserve a party? The older son did all the work to stabilize and grow the business. He increased the farm’s cash flow, whereas his brother only took advantage.
Couldn’t his father see that? Well, yes, probably he could. But even more he saw both brothers as they were, caught in the act of loving themselves. Their father had so much love to give them … “All I have is yours!” But in order to prove themselves, both brothers turned away from their father’s gift, one as a rebel and one as a self-made saint, one withered by lust and the other soured in resentment.
Which brother am I? Why, I am both of course. I see myself in both the brothers. There are days when I grab what I can and run for the door, ignoring responsibility and craving pleasures of every kind. I sometimes make that choice. More often, I do the work in front of me and expect praise from any and every quarter. That need is less obvious and therefore more insidious.
Nouwen says I then become susceptible to “the pathology of the darkness.” In this hidden, sour space, is it even possible “to weed out the resentments without uprooting the virtues as well?”
The story doesn’t answer the question. The story does make clear the father’s unconditional love, waiting to be received. The father’s in no hurry. “Everything I have is yours. Come and see, come and let me love you.”
When the right time comes, the father will be there, arms wide open, loving me in my rebellion and my resentment. God’s only desire is to bring me home.
Lord, one of the psalms says that “in thy light, I see light.” And another, “Night shines like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Rescue me and lift me up, lift me out and let me see my life as you do. It’s so simple, then, to just be free.
Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son, Part II, “The Elder Son,” pp. 59-88, 1992
http://www.davesandel.net/category/lent-easter-devotions-2019/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1776
