“The Older Brother Comes Home”
Luke 15:11-32, Malachi 3:13-18
October 25-26, 2003

     His strategies were diabolical. For example, he would go so far as to put a cast on his arm or leg, show up on a college campus and wait until a desirable female victim walked by. Then he would “accidentally” drop the books he had brought with him and persuade the co-ed to help him to his car. When he got her there he would abduct her, molest and murder her, and leave her body in some deserted, disgusting place. Once he left the body of a twelve-year-old girl in a pigsty. Before he was finally caught, Ted Bundy killed at least 28 women.
     He was executed for his crimes in the electric chair on January 24, 1989. Some time before his execution, however, Bundy repented of his sins and received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
     The state never pardoned Ted Bundy. But did God? Maybe his “repentance” was just another one of Bundy’s pathological ploys. But what if he was sincere? Is God’s mercy really that vast, His love that deep? Does the Gospel reach that far? Does the death of Christ make atonement even for the sins of such a hideous criminal? We love to sing about amazing grace that saved a wretch like you or me, but what about a wretch like Ted Bundy? I’ve even heard people say, “If Ted Bundy is in heaven, I don’t want to go there.”
     How do you feel about that statement?
     On the one hand, let me caution you to be very careful with such a sentiment. If you don’t want to go to heaven because of who else may be there, consider carefully your only alternative. And imagine the eternal company you’ll keep in that place. But if that’s what you want, it can be arranged!
     Further, if God’s mercy is not wide enough for someone like Ted Bundy, then where exactly does God draw the line? Could Bundy have made it if he had only killed 27 women, or 26, or just one? If he had done it in a wartime situation? Or if instead of murder he had only raped? Only stolen? Only lusted? Only lied? If Ted Bundy went beyond the bounds of God’s grace in Christ, then where does God draw the line?
     On the other hand, many of us can understand why someone would say something like that. “If Ted Bundy is in heaven, I don’t want to go there.” We recoil at the idea that someone so repugnant could be forgiven, that such a scum should get away with what he did. Many of us have spent all our lives trying to be good people, trying to do the right thing, at least most of the time. Sure we’ve made mistakes, and even bent the rules now and then. But we’ve never done anything that horrible. Why should a cold blooded, mass murder -- just because he repents and receives Jesus -- why should he get into heaven with good people like us?

     That’s exactly how the older brother felt in the parable we just read. He was the “good boy.” Firstborn children are often like that: dutiful, responsible, outwardly obedient and compliant. Second children, perhaps because they feel they can’t compete with their older siblings, have a greater tendency to be rebellious and troublesome, like the prodigal.
     It isn’t always that way. Sometimes it’s reversed. Sometimes all the children are compliant, and other times all the children are rebellious. So no one should ever get the idea, “I’m a firstborn child, so I’m destined to be better than other people.” Nor should anyone ever think, “I’m a second child, so I have an excuse to be bad.” And let me emphasize this. Parents must never presume how a child is going to behave because of his or her place in the birth order. Birth order traits are not universal, and they certainly don’t determine our fate. It just happens that often certain traits show up in what Professor Oglesby called a “first type child” while other traits often show up in a “second type child.”
     Older brother types work hard at being good. They want to please their parents. They try to earn first place in their parents’ hearts. They feel a need to be better than everyone else, and they expect to be rewarded.
     It strikes me that many church people are like the older brother. They do so many good things. They come to church, they say their prayers, they serve on committees. They don’t cuss or get drunk. They’re decent, respectable people. Model citizens.
     Of course, all of that is good. We should come to church and read our Bibles and be decent and respectable and all those things. The problem is that many church people have the disastrous idea that God loves them because of how good they are. Consciously or subconsciously they think God’s love can be earned. So they’re trying their best to be among God’s favorites.   
     The tragic flaw with older brother types is that they don’t understand unconditional love. They cannot get their minds around the fact that they are loved for who they are, not for what they do.
     The older brother in the parable is the classic example. Listen to his words. After his younger brother has returned from the far country and the father has welcomed him home with a party and a feast, the older brother refuses to join the celebration. When his father comes out to talk to him, listen to how the older brother responds. Verse 29. “But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.’”
     Parents, how shattered would you be if one of your children ever said that to you? It would tear my heart out. “Is that what you thought? You thought you were slaving for me? Obeying my orders? You didn’t know that everything I taught you to do, I taught you because I love you? How could you not understand?”
     The father doesn’t despise the younger brother because he was bad. He loves him unconditionally. And the father doesn’t love the older brother because he is good. He loves him unconditionally. But older brother types have an extremely hard time hearing that.
     It’s the same way with the children of God. I have seen so many church people, even church officers, serve faithfully and diligently until they finally burn out. But there is no joy in their service. They find no reward in their obedience to God because they feel they are slaving for him. They think they are carrying out his arbitrary orders. They want desperately to earn God’s love. But they never feel as if they have achieved their goal. They never feel loved. They never feel like they’ve done enough. It seems there is no end to God’s demands. And so they start to think God has cheated them.
     We encountered this attitude in our Old Testament reading today. In Malachi 3:13-15 we read, 13 "You have said harsh things against me," says the LORD.
"Yet you ask, 'What have we said against you?'
14 "You have said, 'It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? 15 But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.' "
     Older brother types want desperately to earn God’s love. But they cannot earn it. Never. Because it is already theirs.

     To fully understand this story about the older brother, we have to read it in it’s context. In the 15th chapter of Luke Jesus is criticized by Pharisees and other religious leaders because he associates with tax collectors and sinners – prodigals. Second type children. Jesus responds by telling them three parables.
     In verses 3-7 he tells about a shepherd who lost one sheep. He leaves the rest of the flock behind and searches high and low until he finds the lost sheep. And when he finds it, he gets his friends together and has a party. Jesus says, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
     In verses 8-10 he tells about a woman who lost a precious coin. She searches for it with all her might until she finds it. And when she finds it she calls her friends and neighbors and has a party. Jesus says, “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
     In the third parable, the one about the two brothers, it’s the younger one who goes away, but the father never goes looking for him, like the woman searched for her coin and the shepherd tracked down his sheep. However, when the older brother hears the about the party for his younger brother, and won’t go in, the father comes out to look for him. The father searches for the older brother, not the younger one. Why? The reason is clear. At the end of the story it’s the older brother who is lost. It’s the good boy who misses out. Not because he hasn’t been good enough, but because he can’t accept unconditional love.     
     Jesus is saying to the Pharisees – those older brother types par excellence – you guys are missing the party! You’re trying to rely on your own goodness, your own righteousness, your own ability to play by the rules, but you’re missing the point. The Father loves you. He loves you unconditionally. And he simply wants you to love him in return. As Jesus said about them in another place, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Matthew 15:8, quoting Isaiah 29:13)
     At the end of the story, the older brother is still standing on the outside. Inside everyone is celebrating, reveling in the father’s remarkable mercy and compassion, feasting on the father’s delectable grace and love. Outside the older brother shivers against the coldness of his own heart, starving for what has been freely offered to him.
     We have to wonder; will the older brother ever come to his senses, as his younger brother did when he was starving in the pigsty? Will the older brother ever come home? And what would happen if he did?

     The story never tells us what would happen if the older brother ever came home, but history does. Today we celebrate the life and ministry of one of the greatest older brother types of all times, Martin Luther. Today is Reformation Sunday. It’s the Sunday closest to the day when Luther nailed his “95 Theses” to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. That was on October 31, 1517. His intention, of course, was to debate certain abuses that had developed in the Medieval Church. His intention was to reform the church he loved. The result was that he was excommunicated. He was kicked out of the Roman Catholic Church, and that’s how Protestantism was born. But let me share with you some more details of Luther’s fascinating story. And let me demonstrate why I say that, even though he sparked one of the most significant revolutions of all times, he was basically an older brother type.
     At the age of 22, Luther had graduated with a Masters Degree from the University of Erfurt – sort of the Princeton or Duke of his day. He had gone home for a visit and was on his way back to start Law School. Martin’s father wanted him to become a lawyer. On the journey, however, Martin got caught in a thunderstorm, which scared him to his core. He fell to the ground and cried out, “Help me, St. Anne, I will become a monk!”
     True to his word, when Martin got back to Erfurt, he went to the nearby Augustinian monastery and became a novice. For the first time in his life, at least in any major way, Martin went against his father’s wishes. But he did so only because he believed that he was obeying the will of his Father in heaven. But young Luther couldn’t grasp God’s love.
     In the monastery Luther was scrupulously obedient. He fasted. He prayed. He was diligent in his work. He sometimes slept in the snow without a blanket in order to mortify his flesh, so that he might be more pleasing to God. He was so meticulous in his confession that his mentor and friend, Johan Staupitz, once told him not to come back to confession until he had something meaty to confess! Later Luther wrote about those days, “I kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I. All my brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out. If I had kept on any longer I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, readings and other works.”
     Do you see why I call Luther one of the greatest older brother types of all time? But like a typical older brother type, Luther never found peace in those actions. Again he says of those days, “But I, blameless monk that I was, felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience. I couldn't be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners.”
    By the time Martin was in his late 20’s he had earned his doctorate, and Staupitz assigned him to teach Bible at the University of Wittenberg. It was there, as he was studying the first chapter of Romans, that Luther’s life was changed.
    In his studies, Luther was captivated by Romans 1:17. “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”
     Luther wrote, “I meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context: "The justice of God is revealed in it, as it is written: 'The just person lives by faith.'" I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that is by faith. … ‘The just person lives by faith.’ All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g., the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.
     Finally Luther learned that he could not earn God’s love, and he didn’t have to earn God’s love. Finally Luther began to fathom the fact that God loved him unconditionally. Finally he understood that all we need to do is trust what God did in Christ. Trust. Believe. Have faith. “The righteous will live by faith.” Finally Luther got it! Finally the older brother came home. He said he was born again. He was suddenly free to accept the Father’s unconditional love. That event changed Luther’s life forever. And it changed the history of the whole world.
    What Luther recovered from Romans was the basic gospel message. We were created for a loving relationship with God. But we are separated from God by our sins. However, God loves us so much that in Jesus Christ he became a human being. Like the shepherd searching for his stray sheep, like the father coming out of the party to find his lost older son, Jesus came looking for you and me. He died on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins and rose again to win eternal life for all his people. And when we trust in him, when we receive him and believe his gospel, when we put our faith in him, all our sins are forgiven. Our relationship with God is restored, and we receive the gift of eternal life. Ephesians 2:8-9 puts it beautifully. Many of you have these verses memorized. “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith – and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”
     Now that doesn’t mean there is no place for good works. Luther didn’t stop serving God once he discovered that he was saved by grace through faith. He was as diligent as ever. He continued to teach. He preached. He was the first one to translate the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into German. He wrote over 30 hymns and countless books. One of my favorite quotes of Luther is this, “ I have so much business to do that I find I cannot possibly accomplish it all unless I spend at least three hours a day in prayer.”
     Luther continued to work, to invest himself in the purposes of God, but now he did it with a grateful heart instead of a fearful one. Now he served out of love, not slavish obedience. And God used Luther’s industrious work to change the world. In my research this week I came across a startling statistic. More books have been written about Martin Luther than any other person in history, except Jesus.

     For the last two weeks we’ve been looking at this parable known as “The Prodigal Son.” Last week Chris and David preached about the younger son, the rebellious son who basically told his father to drop dead, then took his inheritance and wasted it in a profligate lifestyle.
    By the way, it is true that Pat and I were on vacation in Montreat, North Carolina last week, and we did go out to eat 5 nights. But I think it was a bit of an exaggeration to say that we had gone to a distant country to squander our wealth in wild living.
     Anyway, when the younger son came to his senses, he realized his sinfulness and came home, where the father forgave him and received him back into the family.
     This week we’ve looked at the older son, the good boy, the first type child who always tried to please the father, but couldn’t quite grasp grace. He couldn’t get his mind, or his heart, around the father’s unconditional love.
     In this congregation, we have both types of people. We have our share of prodigals. Some of us have lived pretty checkered lives. Drug abuse. Adultery and other forms of sexual wantonness. Unscrupulous business practices. Many of us have found ourselves in the pigsty, far from God. Some of us have experienced him running to greet us, kissing us, cleaning us up and preparing a feast in our honor. We have learned, much to our joy, that no one is beyond the bounds of God’s grace. No one. Others of us are still in the pigsty, looking for the way back home.
     Like most churches, we also have our share of older brother types. Many of us have always tried to be good. Our idea of being naughty was stepping on a crack in the sidewalk because we were mad at our mommies. Some of us have discovered and accepted God’s unconditional grace and love, and we’ve put our trust in Christ. Others of us are still standing outside in the cold, trying to earn our way into the party that has always been there for us.
     To one group I want to assure you of this. The father does not despise you because you’ve been bad. He loves you unconditionally.
     To the other group I want to assure you of this. The father doesn’t love you because you’ve been good. He loves you unconditionally. God loves you unconditionally.
     Jesus said that the angels in heaven rejoice whenever one sinner repents. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a younger brother type or an older brother type, a prodigal or a Pharisee. Dear friend, God loves you unconditionally. And once you start to trust in his unlimited grace in Jesus Christ, life becomes a celebration of love, freedom, meaning and joy. And so, on the Father’s behalf, I invite you today to come on home. Come on in. Join the party. Amen.