Recently I have been reflecting on how much more difficult it is to think generously than to act generously. Most Christians will make all kinds of sacrifices for others but find it much more difficult to think generously of others, especially if we do not think they deserve it.

That is where we are so different from God. God is an extravagant and generous lover but unfortunately we are meaner with our love. God loves even those who do not “deserve” it, for example the Prodigal Son. Perhaps it is because I am an elder brother but I find it difficult to understand what is wrong with the elder brother’s complaint to his father. He is offended by his father’s generous love for his selfish and undeserving brother. I think I would be deeply hurt as well.

But this is the challenge of the parable. It should be called the parable of the Elder Brother. God is challenging us to think more graciously and generously, to free ourselves of all our efforts, efforts that blind us to good in others. Unfortunately the elder brother’s efforts had redefined for him what was good and holy and who was “deserving.”

It is part of human nature that we are prepared to make all kinds of sacrifices as long as people respect and value them. Psychologists talk of a “sacrificial contract” – ‘how could you do this to me after all I have done for you?’ Like the Pharisees we are blinded by our virtue. It is almost as if our virtue, our sense of responsibility and our sacrifices are our greatest impediments in learning to think and love generously.

The other type of people we find difficult to think generously of, are the ones we “know too well.” Familiarity breeds contempt. When Jesus returned to the synagogue in Nazareth (Mk 6: 1-16) his townspeople reject him, despite being astounded at his wisdom and his powerful deeds, because he is too “ordinary.” They knew him too well to see the good in him.

It is interesting how, like the elder brother and the people in Nazareth, we can be heroic in our service and survive all kinds of tests and struggles but fall on things as small as jealousy, resentment and familiarity. Jesus through the parables of the elder brother, the workers who are paid the same at the end of the day and the steward who is forgiven much but cannot forgive his fellow is challenging us to have big minds and big hearts and to learn above all to think generously of all, even the “unremarkable and undeserving.”

Fr Noel Connolly
director@columban.org.au