"First of hall, the idea that the son 'had to' go through all of these things to come back. I don't believe that is the case."
In this parable, the fact is that he did go through all those things...and that's what lead him to die to his own selfishness and become humble before his father. It doesn't have to happen the way it happened to the son in the parable, but all of us, in one way or the other, have to die to the self and become humble before God.
"I think it is eisegesis that the son realized how much he loved the father. I don't know that we see that here. He realized what he had done wasn't working. He remembered the good old days with the father. But he hoped that he could make a deal with the father to where he could be a servant. He just knew he couldn't be a son any more - after all, that's the way he himself would have treated any son who had done to him what he had done to the father- if even that good. So, devoid of anything he could offer the father but service, he went with his tail between his legs to beg for mercy."
The Fathers say that this is a demonstration that he did still love his father, because he was humiliated and returned with his tail between his legs ready to be a slave, but he did that because he remembered that he loved his father. If he scorned his father, the Fathers teach, he would not have returned. The truth is, many, maybe even most, people don't return.
"But there is another point that all of us have ignorred here. It is in the elder son."
Very good! The Fathers wrote at length about the elder brother and to tell the truth, I have heard more sermons from orthodox priests about him than the younger brother!
In Orthodoxy, we call this parable "The Parable of The Two Sons". And you are very right about the Pharisees. What the older brother represents is a lack of love and mercy and compassion, but mostly a lack of love. He "did" everything right, played by all the rules, but condemned himself by his jealousy as one who had learned nothing except arrogance and a sense of entitlement which lead not to experiencing the love his father showed, not to becoming like his father, but rather the opposite, consumed with hatred.
That is certainly true, Kolo, but it is also true that the parable advocates rewards for those who disobey and who repent when all else has been lost. Their disobedience is without consequences. Yet the older brother, who was driven to arrogance and envy out of sense of injustice, is the villain.
In some ways, our society does this too, namely reward the negative and suppress the positive. No wonder the negative wins. The younger brother had a good time and when everything dried up and he was starving he all of a sudden 'repented.' He had no choice, but to 'repenet' or die. When he returned to his father and asked to be taken as a servant, he didn't do that out of 'humility' but out of knowing that he squandered his fortune and dignity willingly and knowingly and had no right whatsoever to demand anything. The older brother felt like a fool.
This is one of those homilies that always leaves me with my head shaking.