We usually tell the story of the prodigal son as a story about sin and forgiveness, which it is. But read it again with a Caribbean family’s eyes and you will notice how much of it is about property. It opens with a son demanding his share of the estate before his father is dead. It closes with an older son standing in the yard, refusing to come inside, complaining that he has worked the land for years and never been given so much as a young goat. In between is the love of God, shown in a father who does something no dignified landowner would do.
“Give me the portion that falls to me”
In Luke 15:12 the younger son asks his father to divide the estate now. In that world, as in many families today, such a request was a kind of insult. It said: I would rather have your land than have you. And the father, astonishingly, agrees. He divides his living between his sons.
Many families have seen a version of this. The son who presses the ageing mother to sign over the house. The daughter abroad who wants the family land sold so she can have her share in cash. The sibling who treats a parent’s illness mostly as a question about the title. It is painful because property carries so much more than money. It holds a family’s history, labour and sense of who they are. To demand it early is to treat all that as a transaction.
The younger son takes his portion, converts it to cash, and goes to a far country, where he wastes it. Land that took generations to build up is gone in a season.
A father on the road
Then comes the moment at the heart of the story. The son, starving, rehearses a speech and turns for home. “But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20, NKJV).
Older men of standing did not run. It meant hitching up your robes and showing your legs in front of the whole village. The father does it anyway, before the son can finish his apology. He has clearly been watching the road. He does not ask what happened to the money. He calls for the best robe, a ring and sandals, and orders a feast.
This is what the love of Jesus looks like. It is not earned by good management and it is not cancelled by waste. It watches the road for us. It runs.
The brother in the yard
The older son hears the music and refuses to go in. His complaint is about fairness, and it is not unreasonable. He stayed. He worked. He never asked for his share early. Now the one who wasted the family’s wealth gets a party.
Every family with property has an older brother somewhere. The sibling who stayed home and cared for the parents while the others lived abroad. The one who paid the property tax every year and fixed the roof after the hurricane. When the family meets to talk about the house, that person often carries a long and quiet list of what they have given and what others have not.
The father’s answer is gentle: “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours” (Luke 15:31, NKJV). He does not dismiss the older son’s faithfulness. He simply reminds him that he has never been short of anything. The inheritance was always his. What he lacked was not property but joy.
What this means for our homes
Jesus told His disciples, “As I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34, NKJV). In a family that owns property together, that love is tested in very practical ways.
- It may mean welcoming back a relative who wasted what they were given, without pretending the loss did not happen.
- It may mean honouring the sibling who stayed and worked, saying out loud that their care has been seen.
- It may mean refusing to let the family’s land become the thing we love more than each other.
- It may mean parents talking honestly and early about their wishes, so no child has to demand a portion.
Grace does not mean there are no boundaries. A father who runs to his son may still have to think hard before handing him more money. But the posture of the heart changes everything. We stop keeping accounts as though love could run out.
An open ending
Jesus never tells us whether the older brother went inside. The story ends with the father pleading in the yard and the music still playing. It is left open, perhaps deliberately, so that each of us can decide. Will we stand outside counting what we are owed? Or will we go in, and join a feast we did nothing to deserve either?
For reflection
- In your family, which son are you most like when it comes to property: the one who wanted his share, or the one who kept count?
- Is there someone you need to run towards, or someone whose faithfulness you need to acknowledge?
A prayer: Father, thank You for watching the road for me and running when I turned towards home. Keep me from loving land and houses more than the people You have given me. Teach me to love as You love, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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