A few years ago, I wrote about the Prodigal Son - the blog is available in the archives for March 2019 or just click here https://go.authorsguild.org/sbx/sites/barbaralaymo/blog/archives/2019-03 Looking back, I was focused at the time on the two brothers, and the over-and-under functioning reciprocity between the two of them. What I failed to observe was the father, who seems to me to be a pretty ordinary parent - focusing on one child, expecting the other to understand.
Most of us have seen these patterns somewhere in our lives. What was Jesus trying to tell us? Perhaps that we would do well to step back and observe these processes, without judging each other. That all of us are playing a part, siblings and parents, and doing the best we can. That each of us would do well to look to himself or herself, rather than so much attention on the others. To this point, see more from Jenny Brown at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK5mHJmuXBE&list=PL3KVSk8FQniz-tFltosWYrFCVligVQLZH