The younger son's request is worse than it sounds: 12"Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me." He asks for his inheritance while the father is alive, which amounts to treating the father as already gone. The father grants it. The son turns it into distance, a far country, and 13"squandered his property in reckless living," until a famine leaves him feeding pigs, unclean animals for a Jewish son, and longing for the pods the pigs eat. 16"no one gave him anything."
17"When he came to himself" is the turning point. He rehearses a speech: I have sinned against heaven and before you, treat me as one of your hired servants (verses 18-19). It is a good plan, humble and realistic, and he never gets to finish delivering it.
His father sees him while he is still a long way off, which means the father has been watching, hoping, close enough to the road to spot a distant figure. The father felt compassion, ran, embraced him, and kissed him. A landowner running to meet a returning son is a picture of eagerness, and it happens before a word of confession is spoken. The son delivers the first half of his speech, and the second half, the part asking to be made a servant, never leaves his mouth (verse 21). The father is already calling for the best robe, a ring, shoes, and the fattened calf. Each is a mark of a son restored. 24"this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
The story could end there, but Luke keeps going, because the parable was told as much for the Pharisees and scribes grumbling at the edge of the crowd as for the sinners drawing near. The older brother hears music and dancing and has to ask a servant what it means (verses 25-26). His anger is immediate, and his complaint exposes his heart: 29"these many years I have served you," and 29"you never gave me a young goat." He has lived in his father's house like a servant earning wages, keeping a resentful account of what should have been a gift. He calls his brother 30"this son of yours." The father corrects him: 32"this your brother was dead, and is alive."
The father goes out for both sons. He ran to the younger on the road, and he came out to plead with the older at the door when the older refused to go in (verses 20, 28). The father's answer to the older is as tender as his welcome of the younger son: 31"Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." Everything the older son thought he had to earn, he already possessed by being a son in the house. The parable ends without telling us whether he goes in, with the music still playing inside. Luke leaves the door open, because the question was for the Pharisees standing outside the party, deciding in that moment whether they would go in.
Prayer
Father, thank you for running toward us while we were still a long way off, before we had finished confessing or proven anything. Forgive us the older son's resentful accounting, the quiet belief that we have earned what was always given. Whatever far country we have wandered into, or however many years we have served without knowing what we already possessed, call us home, and let us go in to the celebration you have prepared. In Jesus' name, amen.