The Prodigal Son

The religion class I am taking right now is the first half of the New Testament, aka The Gospels. So really I should be posting on this blog more! But anyways, last class we talked about the parable of the prodigal son. We all know it well, so I won't waste your time recounting it. But I wanted to focus on one person in particular- the brother who stayed home, did his duty, and was righteous. I've always found the situation to be a bit unfair to that brother. That he should be forced to welcome his brother who had sinned so much with open arms, and completely forgive him right away. After all, he had been working so hard while his brother frittered away his money and had fun.
I thought a lot about this after class. Of course, a lot of people in the church could probably identify with this brother. It seems unfair that those who have been so righteous should be at the exact same level of glory as those who repent near the end. However, I realized how important it really is to welcome people back from sin and be nonjudgmental. People who have sinned go through a lot of pain to arrive where they are, which is something we often forget. And we're not losing any glory by welcoming these people back, instead we will be gaining companions! Being nonjudgmental is something I always strive to do, especially since I myself am far from being perfect.
There are of course a lot of other interpretations of this parable. We could count each one of us as the prodigal son, since we all sin, while the other brother could be thought of as people like the Pharisees, who just think they are being righteous while they are also guilty of sin. Anyways, those are my thoughts on this parable, I've always thought it is an interesting one.