Arrogance, Envy, and The Prodigal Son(s)

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So we talked last time about arrogance and envy and how people pretty much swing between these two positions depending on how they see others or, more often, how they assume others see them. A healthier way, though, is to view others as inherently equal in value and as having important qualities in common with us despite external cues that seem to indicate otherwise.

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It’s interesting to think of Christ in this light. He was neither intimidated by the religious rulers of his day nor indifferent to the most menial member of the community. He was completely himself whether talking with Samaritan women, the religious elite, or lepers.

The story of the prodigal son resonates here.  As you’ll recall, in that story a father had two sons. The younger one demanded his inheritance from his father and left to spend it on drugs, sex, and rock and roll. (I paraphrase.) One day he wakes in a back alley with used syringes scattered about and is faced with the fact that both his fortune and his friends are long gone. Having hit the proverbial rock bottom, he accepts his failure and heads home. Maybe the old man will allow him to live in the gardener’s cottage.

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Then the most shocking thing happens. His father welcomes him,  embracing him and forgiving everything. He has a designer wardrobe made ready and a new Mercedes appears to whisk him away to a grand party already in progress at their club.

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The older brother knows nothing of this.  But at the end of another 12 hour work day, he checks his phone to find dozens of tweets and texts from business associates as well as family members.  His kid brother has not only returned, but everyone they know is already celebrating. This is utterly shocking, outrageous!  What could his father possibly be thinking? Honoring this spoiled punk! And what about him? Hadn’t he remained with his father and helped to run the family business? Hadn’t he taken all the responsibility of work that by rights his brother should have shared?

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Ah, the shifting from arrogant to envious and back again is dizzying. The younger brother arrogantly takes his “deserved” inheritance but returns humbled, envious (that is, feeling unworthy). The older brother seems confident of his superior position, arrogant. He is after all the good brother. Yet his father’s ridiculously embarrassing reinstatement of his kid brother knocks him to envy. “You’re throwing a party for him! You never threw one for me!”

Then comes the great equalizer. When the father embraces the younger son and reminds the older son, “All that I have is yours,” he is in effect saying, “Your status never changes with me, ever.” Imagine that. A father for whom our value never wavers, no matter what.

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Both brothers make the mistake of quantifying the father’s love, grace, and gifts. But this father has infinite supply of all these things. In the kingdom of God there is no reason to be either envious or arrogant. Yet how easy it is to eye others as if there were limited supplies of good humor, wisdom, grace, or attractiveness and we may not have gotten our share.  But if God is our father, we have access to an unlimited supply of these good things. We don’t have to be envious because someone else is remarkably grace-filled. We have access to that infinite supply as well. Joy? My “share” is not diminished because someone else is overflowing with it.

Yet the greatest gift is not even these things. The greatest thing the father has to give is relationship. That is what the younger brother returns to. That is what the older brother has had access to all along. And they both almost missed it.