Sunday of the Prodigal Son; Synaxis 3 Hierarchs: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom

In the name of the Father and of the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. So we are drawing near the beginning of Great and Holy Lent, and Great and Holy Lent is a pilgrimage. In ancient times, people from the Byzantine Empire, even as far as the British Isles, would go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Can you imagine how difficult that might have been by either ship or horse or carriage and so on? But people with great zeal would go to the holy places in order to celebrate and understand in their hearts, the truth of the resurrection of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.

And I say this because we are being invited to go on a pilgrimage together, which is called Great and Holy Lent. And it’s actually difficult to some degree. Eating immodestly and giving up many of the pleasures of our life and denying ourselves meat and dairy products for those who are strong enough to endure this for several weeks leading to the resurrection, the crucifixion and then the resurrection of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.

So here we have the prodigal son which is announcing this struggle that we face. And it begins, “And he said a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that fall to me.’ And he divided his living to them. And not many days after the son, the younger son, gathered all together and he journeyed into a far country. And there wasted his inheritance with prodigal, riotous living. And when he had spent all there arose a severe famine to the land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country. And he sent him into the fields to feed swine, and he would gladly have filled the stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.”

So the father here, although he is presented as a living being here on earth with two sons, very simple analogy, but really the father is God the father on high, that’s being presented to us. And the two sons are of course created in the image and likeness of God. And their inheritance, their real inheritance is life eternal in the kingdom of God. And this of course is life itself and in the grace of God. And the land that this young man, after he demanded his inheritance, this land that the man went to, symbolic really, of self-indulgence and the carnal life of the passions. So we’re not speaking, in one sense we’re speaking of a historical, or proposed reality in the world. The truth is this is a spiritual message to us.

And we, all of us to some degree, depart from the path that leads to salvation through our own ignorance and through our own passions and through our pride and our condemnation of others. And so we have all of these obstacles, as it were, and in a sense by consenting to these various sins and a life really of wantonness, we have taken the inheritance that God gave us, which is salvation, and we have defiled it. And I think that while this is a very powerful thing to say, that it is true that to some degree all of us have defiled the inheritance that we have been given by God freely.

And so it is that the Holy Church and all its divine wisdom is giving us a path of return. And what’s also fascinating is we don’t take this pilgrimage just once in our lifetime, but we do it every year. And the reason is, is that we live in a cyclical way. And so that, and we understand that we sink down and down. And so our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ comes to us on a yearly basis and offers His hand. And we take His hand and He lifts us up. And so when the young man went off and joined himself to this person in this far off country and lived this life of its riotous living, I think we know perhaps what that means. Really, basically what he had done is he had turned his back on God the Father, as we often do, and he united himself to darkness.

And so we brothers and sisters in Christ, our God, as we approach our great and holy Lent, need to look deep within ourselves and realize that in many ways we have turned our back on the light of Christ. And we need to reverse that direction and turn our faces toward our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ in anticipation of the resurrection.

So the young man suddenly came to himself, it says. He had this moment of realization and the beginning of repentance. And he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough to spare and I perish with hunger? I will rise and go to my father and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.’” And so we have this beautiful statement of repentance. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of us could perhaps even remember this statement of repentance and approach as it were great and holy Lent with the anticipation of the resurrection of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ in the spirit of this man who wants now to return to his father. And he’s of course he says, “I’m no longer worthy to be your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”

And he arose and came to the father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion. And he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And so this remarkable, there’s no questioning. The young man wasn’t questioned. He just was absolutely embraced and taken into the arms as it were and probably and into the heart of the father. And grace was restored to him. And the true knowledge of God in the love of the father was again revealed to him.

And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and am no more worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Bring out the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry.” And this best robe, it’s a beautiful image. But really in the spiritual realm, it’s the robe of God’s light and grace that he bestows upon us. So as we come to him in repentance and of course in the participation and the witnessing of the death and resurrection of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ through the divine services, our Lord wraps us in the robe of his light, his eternal light of salvation. And we, of course, should desire this with all of our hearts and all of our mind and all of our soul that we might be wrapped in the robe of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ and continue our life in piety and in righteousness and in love.

And so we have this beautiful, these beautiful images, the best robe, the robe of salvation and the ring on the right hand and even to give him the power, as it were, of blessing those around him and shoes on his feet, lifting him up a little bit off the earth. This earth that tends to be symbolically lifting him up from the earth, which tends to defile us and celebrating, as it were, in joy, which is what we do in Pascha. We celebrate in joy knowing that out of God’s mercy, really nothing that we’re going to do is going to make us worthy, actually, except one thing, a change of heart and embracing our Lord in love and in humility.

And now we hear about the elder son. The elder son was in the field and he came and drew nigh to the house and he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, “Your brother has come and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.” But the elder brother was angry and would not go in. Imagine such a thing.

So I think what’s clear is we have the prodigal son who went out, but the son who remained at home actually in no way understood the love of his father. He did not embody it. He did not receive it. He had this hardness of heart. And in a sense, both the prodigal son and the son who stayed home were in the very same position. But the son who stayed home is having great difficulty with this.

And therefore, his father came out and pleaded with him and he answering said to his father, “These many years I have served you. I never transgressed your commandments at any time. And yet you never gave me a young goat that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this your son came who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.” And I think we can see the hardness of heart of the brother who stayed home and how even though he didn’t depart in the flesh, he had departed from his father in the spirit.

And the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad. For this your brother was dead and is alive again. And he was lost and he is found.” And so we hear this your brother who was dead has been resurrected. He’s alive again. And again, amazingly, the son who stayed home remained with hardness of heart and was unable to receive the very grace in the household in which he dwelled.

Brothers and sisters in Christ our God, as we anticipate great and holy Lent. And I can be honest with you, I groan once in a while. I think this is this is not easy. It’s not an easy path. And then I think the glory of the resurrection will come upon us. The light of Christ will flood this church. We will be lifted up and and know that he is our true God. And that we worship him in knowledge and truth. In the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​