In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever.

Brothers and sisters, we're given this powerful story and we call it rightly after the Prodigal Son because he is the dramatic figure that is changed over the course of the parable. And so it's easy for us to recognize how we are to learn from his example—one who goes so badly astray, returns, and finds welcome with his father. It's easy for us to see why we should care about his example.

But what about the older one? It's easy for us to dismiss him as self-righteous. The Lord does not.

The father embraces the younger son, but at the end of the parable, we hear him inviting the older. And this week for the Prodigal Son and last week with the Publican and the Pharisee, we do not hear the Lord condemning or rejecting dutiful obedience, but instead calling for something more than that.

The older brother did work hard, never asking a reward. The father does not deny him that claim. Doesn't say he's wrong about anything. Likewise with the Pharisee last week, Jesus doesn't say that the Pharisee wasn't doing all those things in the commandments, but rather there was something more that was needed. There's something lacking in the older brother—a warmth of heart, a joy in his father's love, and a gladness for his family.

But even here there is something for us to admire, that this older brother despite this coldness of heart still faithfully does the work that he's called to do. He carries on with it diligently. In fact, as he says, he's slaving away at it day after day.

How many of us would work with that kind of determination if we felt that we were unrecognized, unrewarded, unseen in our diligence? How many of us would stick fast to our duty in those circumstances? Frankly, how many of us are faithful in our responsibilities in the best of circumstances?

And don't we often treat others like that older brother, taking their slaving away for us as just our due, not needing our thanks? "Just of course, that's what they do. They're the ones that are, you know, they always work too hard. They're always busy doing something. They never have any fun. They're kind of a bore or unpleasant to be around." And we take it for granted that of course things just sort of get done around us by those older brothers in our lives.

Brothers and sisters, we remember this Sunday, the Prodigal Son, the example of the Prodigal Son, the younger brother, because we do need to learn from him to make our own this warmth of heart that he discovers—coming to himself in a foreign land in the midst of all his misery and foolishness and destructiveness, coming to his senses, repenting, going back to his father—because that's exactly what we all need to do this Lent.

And this is something that in his own way the older brother needs to do as well—to set aside this stern faithfulness that is all that he knows and learn the father's compassion while still remaining faithfully at his side. It's possible to do both.

And we too with that older brother need to learn the heart of the father who embraces that Prodigal Son as he returns, who embraces the older brother as well out there in the fields as he sulks in resentment. The father has a heart large enough for both of them, and we need the same.

We are tempted to reject our brother, older or younger, in our own lives. But if we come to ourselves, learning the compassion of the father and turning our hearts to those that we struggle with, then we will find that there is nothing that cannot be restored, nothing that cannot be reconciled. And we will come together, younger and older, to the father, and he will welcome us and lead us into our true home.

Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever.