Which son are you? (Part 2)

Luke 15:11-32

The older son. Many sermons have been written about him and I am sure we have all looked at him and thought how terrible he acted. Surely, we would all rejoice in our brother coming home. But, before we are so quick to judge him, let’s take a look at ourselves. This morning as I was reading this, I saw the older brother in my mind and I truly believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “This is the church”. I’m sure the older brother can personify many things, but I think he can definitely personify the church today.

I remember as a child a lady that used to come to my small church. She was beautiful, but apparently lived a life riddled with sin. She would come to church for a while and sing in the choir. I remember her vividly because she was beautiful, but also because she would usually be in the altar crying during the invitation. She was not a spectacle, but definitely memorable because not many people in my church were that open with there emotions. I can remember even as a small child, people talking about her. Of course, not everyone talked about her, nor did everyone seem to judge her. I don’t recall the words, but the attitudes were clear to me even though I was probably only 6 or 7 years old. Basically, the attitude “She is a sinner and she has no place here” and “She is insincere in her confession because she has done this before and will do it again”. It seemed that people had no compassion for her much less forgiveness, as if she had sinned against them in the first place. In our pride sometimes we think that Christians who have walked away from Christ owe us an explanation when in reality the explanation has already been given to us in scripture:

“My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

If the Father accepts a sinner, even runs to one, why can’t we? I don’t know what happened to that beautiful young woman, but I know I became her for a while. Oh, how thankful I am that He didn’t turn me away and say I was insincere. Let’s allow God to be the judge of the heart and let’s open ours as well as the doors of the church. After all, “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” (Matt 9:12)