“Moral indignation in most cases is 2% moral, 48% indignation, and 50% envy.” – Vittorio De Sica – Actor/Director
“Anger is just a cowardly extension of sadness. It’s a lot easier to be angry at someone than it is to tell them that you’re hurt.” -Tom Gates – Author/Illustrator I am sad to say that I recently experienced some Elder brother feelings. You know, the ones described in the account of the lost or Prodigal
Son in Luke 15. Prodigal means to spend resources recklessly. The younger son asks his father for his inheritance early and wastes it all on prostitutes and riotous living. After coming to himself, he returns to his father repentant: desiring only to become a hired servant in the house. Instead, his father runs to greet his lost son and celebrates with a huge party; giving him a ring, a robe and a feast. The elder brother was, as they say today, ‘in his feelings’ about it. INDIGNATION is anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment. 28 “The older brother became angry and refused
to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 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. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ Was the elder brother upset because of the celebration being held for his sibling? Was it frustration for years of sadness, trauma or over-responsibility? Did he wish he’d been the one to go philandering and wasting? Or was it that he’d never taken full advantage of the opportunities that were freely offered to him by his father in the same house? It could be all of the above. 31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me,and everything I have is yours. 32 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.'”Have you ever felt like you’ve done ‘everything right’ but are not getting anywhere? Of course you know you haven’t done everything right, but that’s how you feel. Have you watched others break rules, and do what they’re big and bad enough to do and still get ahead? Has that caused you indignation with injustice, or even envy over time? When I identified these feelings, it took me straight to the prayer closet. The Elder Brother Syndrome needs to be checked. The Father loves us ALL and all that He has is available to us. |
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11:00 AM Worship
The Great Room Sunday Class
9:30 AM Youth Room Basement
at Wyoming Presbyterian
225 Wyoming Ave., 45215
For information 513-212-1131
