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Last Sunday
saw the beginning of our entrance into the period known as the Triodion:
the service book which will take us up to the midnight service of Holy and
Great Saturday, just before the start of the Resurrection service. The
period of the Triodion is a period of abstinence, temperance and
self-restraint: a time for increased spiritual warfare with the purpose of
purifying both the soul and body. The main thing that puts a stop to
self-restraint and desecrates the spiritual purity of a Christian are the
so called carnal sins and in particular fornication. That is why the
Church, wanting to protect her children from the carnal passions and to
help them preserve their spiritual purity, has chosen for this Sunday two
particularly instructive readings. The Gospel reading which narrates the
wonderful parable of the Prodigal Son which presents us with a vivid
example of the youngest of two sons who left his father’s home and
rebelled against his father’s will. This tragic young man wasted his
substance with riotous living and devoured his living with harlots. These
simple references by St. Luke the Evangelist are enough to show that an
unchaste life can lead and enslave a man in the carnal passions and in
particular in fornication. We find that the Apostle reading for this
Sunday also corresponds to these facts from the Gospel reading. The
reading is taken from the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. By
using a series of arguments, St. Paul underlines the seriousness of
fornication as a sin and at the same time stresses the sanctity of the
human body. Let’s therefore hear the reading:
1
Corinthians 6:12-20
“Brethren, all things are lawful unto me, but all
things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be
brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for
meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for
fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath
both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know
ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the
members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for
two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is
one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the
body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is
in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought
with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit,
which are God’s.”
12) “Brethren, all things are lawful unto me, but
all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not
be brought under the power of any.”
The
phrase “all things are lawful unto me” seems
to have been a kind of saying which circulated among the Corinthians or
more probably a well known saying by St. Paul which the Christians of
Corinth had misinterpreted. St. Paul begins with the freedom a Christian
has concerning food or other natural things. By certifying this freedom in
all things concerning the use of food, Paul puts forth two requirements
that a Christian must take into account. Firstly, that his freedom should
not harm his interests. This is what he means when he says
“but all things are not expedient”. The fact
that we have the power and authority to do something does not mean that it
is always in our interest to do so. A Christian owes it to himself to
always act with the utmost discretion and to make proper use of the
freedom given him by Christ. We can say that St. Paul’s phrase
“but all things are not expedient” summarises
completely Paul’s understanding of ethics. The question of what is
permissible and what is forbidden is replaced with the conscious awareness
of what is in the interest and what is not for the Christian’s new life:
the Christian who has been born of the Holy Spirit.
Secondly, from
being free and lord of himself, he should beware not to become enslaved by
the use of things he is allowed. “I will not be brought under the power of
any” stresses St. Paul. Very often the uncalculated use of something leads
to misuse and abuse, and the freedom we have is transformed into bonds and
slavery and in the majority of cases it happens without us even realising
or being aware of what has happened. St. John Chrysostom says: “You are
free to eat. Well, remain free and beware not to become a slave to that
passion”.
13) “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats:
but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for
fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.”
To
explain what he has just endorsed in the previous verse, Paul now
underlines the physical purpose which food and the belly serve. Food is
destined for man’s belly just as the belly is destined to receive the
food. In other words it is the mechanism that works to preserve man’s
biological existence for as long as his earthly life exists. After this
present life, food and the belly are useless. With the General
Resurrection, God will abolish food and the belly, because there will be
no more use for them. Paul’s position on the importance of food which he
had taught to the Corinthians seems to have been taken by some and
extended and applied to man’s sexual life and in particular the
relationship between man’s body and fornication. In other words they
believed that this relationship could be seen as something completely
physical and necessary just as the relationship between food and the
belly. And as God would abolish during the Resurrection the belly and food
so also would he abolish the body and fornication. Thus their argument is
saying that as long as this present life exists, the belly can receive
food and so also can the body fornicate. This terrible misconception of
the Corinthians is what St. Paul will try to resolve with what he has to
say in continuance.
The
first thing he stresses is the difference that exists between the destiny
of the belly and the body. The belly is destined to receive food as long
as it is in this world, but in the future world it will be abolished. In
contrast, man’s body is destined not for fornication but for the Lord. St.
John Chrysostom interpreting this passage says: “The body was not created
to live recklessly and to fornicate, but to have Christ as its head.” The
body belongs to the Lord, just as the Lord is for the body. It is the
Lord’s dwelling place. By joining himself to the human body by becoming a
man, Christ established a permanent and eternal relationship with it,
which dictates to the Christian a completely new teaching concerning his
body, a teaching completely different from that which the pre-Christian
world received. We have to clarify that the term “body” used here by St.
Paul does not denote a part of man, but the complete man. The belly is
just one organ, whereas the “body” is the human entity.
14) “And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will
also raise up us by his own power.”
The
second argument that Paul stresses is the expectation of the Resurrection.
Christ, with his incarnation took upon himself the human nature
completely, thus a body also. This body of Christ which died upon the
Cross and was buried, God raised from the dead. Therefore in the same way
God raised the Lord “by his own power” he will also raise us when the time
of the resurrection comes. If we are members of Christ, which we are,
then, as Christ who is the head was raised, so also will the rest of the
body be raised. Thus, the outcome of Paul’s argument is that if our bodies
are to be raised and will not be abolished as the belly, then we are
obligated not to give them over to fornication.
15) Know ye not that your bodies are the members of
Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members
of an harlot? God forbid.”
Between
the Lord and the bodies of the faithful exists, as we have already seen in
verse 13, a close bond. Paul again returns to this unity and analyses it
deeper and thus builds another argument to show how uncompromising is the
association of Christians with fornication. The faithful, in other words
the bodies, are members of the body of Christ. Here it is very clear that
what Paul means by bodies is the complete man. We were renewed with
Baptism which freed us from the power of the devil and the tyrannical
influence of sin, and joined to Christ, making us members of his own body.
Belonging to the body of Christ, and partaking of the divine life already
in this present world, we strive for our sanctification. Thus when we have
such a relationship and cohesion with Christ, when we are members of his
body, how is it possible for us to want to make the members of Christ
members of a harlot. Paul’s question is truly shocking and that is why he
quickly adds “God forbid”. In fact this is an English expression and not
an exact translation of the Greek text, but it stresses the same meaning.
The Greek text says “Μὴ γένοιτο”
which means “Let it not be so.”
16-17) “What? know ye not that he which is joined to
an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that
is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.”
The
argument against fornication which St. Paul now puts forth is based on the
unity which comes about between the person fornicating and the harlot with
whom he has come together with. Fornication is unacceptable for the
Christian because the union that comes about from this relationship, in
other words the doer with the harlot become one body, is in complete
opposition to the fact that the body of a Christian belongs to Christ, of
whom he is a member. Thus there is a total contradiction between the
relationship of a Christian with Christ and the relationship which comes
about through the act of fornication. For the foundation of his argument
that sexual intercourse with a harlot means that the two become one man
“one flesh” Paul reverts to Holy Scripture and to the Book of Genesis
where it says “for two, saith he, shall be one
flesh” and was there said to show the union of the lawful marriage
which God established in the Garden of Eden. But this phrase
“for two, saith he, shall be one flesh” is
now used by Paul for the unlawful union.
Here
we could say that the argument presupposes that the marital union between
Christians should lead them to union with Christ. If the person who joins
himself to a harlot becomes with her one body, the person who joins
himself to Christ becomes one spirit with him. One would have expected as
very natural for Paul, who so strongly insists on the physical realization
of the union with Christ and in contrast to the union with the harlot for
him to say “one body “ also for the union of the Christian with Christ,
but he says instead “One spirit”. He has been talking about sexual union
and wants to exclude and avoid any possible misunderstandings among his
readers. Thus, the person who joins himself to Christ becomes “one spirit
with him. He partakes of the Spirit of Christ. He lives the life of Christ
which is at the same time life in the Spirit. He becomes spiritual with
the understanding that within him dwells the Spirit which guides and
strengthens him in his new life.
18) “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is
without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his
own body”.
Paul
now puts forth another argument. He begins with a strong warning to flee
fornication. The depth of the sin he is about to immediately mention makes
him want to warn beforehand with insistence to avoid it at all cost. Every
sin that man commits “is without the body”. This declaration by Paul of
course doesn’t want to say that whatever other sins other that fornication
have no bearings on the human body. Paul simply sees for a moment the
other sins that are committed as being “without the body”, because his aim
is to show how frightful are the consequences of fornication for him who
commits it “he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body”.
He doesn’t mention God or the harlot who are also effected by the sin in
question. This is not because these perspectives of the sin do not
interest Paul, but because he wants to stress the harm that exists for the
person fornicating. As a rule, the harmful consequences more or less of
all sins harm others more than the person who performs the sin. But he who
commits the sin of fornication harms his own body.
19) “What? know ye not that your body is the temple
of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not
your own?”
The
way in which Paul writes persuades us that as he unfolds more on the
subject of fornication that this teaching is not unknown to the
Corinthians. He probably taught them in person when he passed through
their city and then having heard that they misinterpreted his teaching
decided to put this right by writing to them. This seems fairly clear with
verse 19 which is presented, as were some of the previous verses, as a
form of question and which begins with the phrase
“What don’t you know”. He seems to be telling them that they should
know because he has already explained to them at some other time the
relationship of the body with the Holy Spirit.
The argument
that Paul presents here is that the body of Christians is the temple of
the Holy Spirit. Inside them dwells the Spirit which they received from
God and because of this indwelling of the Spirit their bodies does no
longer belong to them “ye are not your own” says the Apostle. The great
honour that God bestows upon man is truly unimaginable. He doesn’t just
bless him of just visits him, but renders the human body the temple and
dwelling place of his Spirit. Truly then, as temples of the Holy Spirit,
Christians do no longer belong to themselves and consequently cannot give
up their bodies to fornication. They belong to God and to the Spirit that
dwells in them. Thus they are obliged to preserve the temple of the Spirit
clean and spotless, dedicated exclusively to God.
20) “For ye are bought with a price: therefore
glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Justifying
even further why the bodies of Christians do not belong to themselves,
Paul writes “For ye are bought with a price”. Christians do not belong to
themselves because God has purchased them. They were once prisoners of the
devil. From their slavery they were led to freedom and became sons of God
though the payment of a price. The price that was paid was the Blood of
Christ. Being beforehand enslaved by the devil, now their ransom has been
paid by Christ with the priceless cost of his own blood.
The final
exhortation which Paul addresses to the Corinthians is to
“Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit”.
The debt Christians owes for what Christ has done to purchase their
freedom, is not only to avoid fornication and to preserve their bodies
undefiled. With their effort they are also called to make their bodies a
place where God is glorified. Thus if the human body and of course the
human spirit is a temple of the Holy Spirit, in this temple we are obliged
to offer worship to God. It is the same as what Paul has said elsewhere:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service”. (Romans 12:1)
*********
With
Christ’s preaching, many things, in the world changed. With many things
the Christian teaching influenced a change and brought about a rebirth.
One such change happened with the theory of man’s body. The views of the
pre-Christian world are well known: they elavated the soul and depreciated
the body. They supported that man’s substance was found mainly in the
soul. The body was just the prison and the tomb of the soul. The remaining
of the soul in the body was a prison sentence. Under such a theory the
soul is in complete opposition to the body. To these kinds of viewpoints,
the Gospel brought a new understanding. Christian anthropology offers a
completely different theory concerning man’s body.
Our body, says
St. Paul, belongs to God; and even though death will dissolve it, with the
power of God it will be raised again, just as was the body of the Lord. It
is still a member of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. This union
with Jesus and the presence of the Spirit in the human body constitutes
the guarantee and the possibility for us to live the life in Christ and
for our bodies to be transformed and become incorruptible. With this new
theory or teaching on the body it is natural for the Christian to feel an
obligation to avoid any kind of sin which diverts the body from its high
destination. Such a sin is fornication. Paul’s arguments which are a
result of the Christian understanding of the body are firm and unshakable.
Since the body is not ours, but belongs to the Lord; since the body is a
member of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit, it is frightful and a
very heavy sin for us to transform this highly honoured body into a member
of a harlot: to dishonour it in muddy sin.
But Paul does not stop here; he urges us to make our bodies a place where
we glorify God. He calls us to reveal it as a vessel holy and sanctified.
What we call salvation and sanctification does not belong only to the soul
but also to the body. Man is saved completely, that is both the soul and
the body. Together as one unit is man saved and with a united struggle he
achieves this. The soul struggles and the body co-struggles with the soul.
When this happens then we truly glorify God in our body and in our spirit.
That ends our
interpretation of the Apostle reading let’s now hear the Gospel reading
for this coming Sunday. It is the very moving story of the Prodigal Son.
The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke.
Luke 15:11-32
“The Lord said this parable: A certain man had two sons: And the younger
of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that
falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days
after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a
far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when
he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that 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 his fields to feed swine. And he would fain
have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man
gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired
servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with
hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I
have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be
called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and
came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw
him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in
thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said
to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a
ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf,
and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and
is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now
his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house,
he heard musick and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked
what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and
thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe
and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his
father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo,
these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy
commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry
with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured
thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he
said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.
It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother
was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”
With the Parable of the
Prodigal Son, the Lords want to reveal to us the wealth of his love for
man and to show the story of mankind which is represented by the two sons.
The younger son leaves the paternal home and becomes prodigal, in other
words reckless, but he is then humbled and repents for what he did and
enjoys the love and mercy of the Father. The other son, the older of the
two, appears to be near the Father, but in reality is very distant from
him, because he envies his brother, he doesn’t obey the Father and insists
on doing his own will which in the end deprives him of the fathers
banquet. Let’s then take a deeper look at the parable.
The man which
the parable speaks of is God who, wanting to show his love for mankind,
took upon himself the human nature and became a man so that we could
become gods. With the two sons he wants to show the qualities of the
father; his very strong paternal love, which knows how to embrace, to
kiss, to accept and to forgive sinners. From this father the younger son
asks to be given his share of the inheritance. What is this inheritance?
They are the divine graces which the father has granted us so that we can
be like him. It is our very existence, the earth which God took and the
breathe that he breathed into it, the grace of the Holy Spirit which he
placed in us, the spiritual part of our existence, to give life to the
material part of our nature. To give enlightenment to the mind that
governs and the other powers, our thoughts, our wisdom, our will and
desires to guide them upwards to heaven. It is the possibility to reveal
our lives with love and communion with God and other human beings
according to the image of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Thus man
is both material and spirit, earthly and heavenly. He was created to be
united and inseparable and to live and exist as a god-man: to be the image
and glory of God. Each separation of the divine from the human is a
rejection of the relationship with God, it divides and breaks man to
pieces and brings about his death. This is the substance which God has
granted us and which the younger son asked of God to divide into two; to
divide the divine from the human.
The journey of
the younger son is the journey of the fallen man, a journey towards death,
to a real hell, because it is a journey of rejection and abandonment of
God. It begins from the moment where the younger son asks to leave the
paternal home and the presence of his father. And when we say to leave, it
doesn’t mean to leave to another place, but to another way of life: to not
be under the guardianship of God and without having to observe his
commandments, which are life. The younger son believed that he could by
himself become a god. He thought he was capable of everything. He made bad
use of the divine grace of independence, of the freedom that God granted
us so that we can choose a way of life with him of without him.
That is why God the Father
doesn’t try to stop his son from leaving, because he gave him that freedom
and also because he doesn’t want near him people who don’t love him and
who think that they don’t need him. He leaves them to mature in their own
time, to understand their inadequacy, to test and experience their freedom
and by themselves to return.
So the
Prodigal Son, the fallen man, gathers everything, the divine graces, the
substance of the father, and departs from God’s way of life, from the
personal relationship with him and begins a different life without God. He
is now interested in living a biological life, and to satisfy the desires
of his material existence. By abandoning God, the sinful passions now take
his place. These now govern and direct him and he becomes enslaved to
them. His substance, the graces which God gave him, are scattered and
wasted on the various passions so that he can enjoy the pleasures of sin.
But the pleasures are only momentarily and don’t last. As soon as man
partakes of these temporary pleasures they are gone and he desires more.
The devil doesn’t allow complete fullness and satisfaction so that man
does not stop sinning. It is a reward of the demons when man is enslaved
to them. It is the death of the soul resulting from the absence of God.
The
Gospel reading talks about a great famine and the Prodigal being in great
want. This is a spiritual hunger brought about by being deprived of God.
All the foods that satisfy the body are like husks that the swine eat if
the “Bread of Life” is absent. The body is nourished but the soul dies of
starvation and then follows the decay and death of the body. Because the
sensual life does not satisfy man, he feels the hunger and the bereavement
of being deprived of God and having wasted the divine graces. Nothing
remains of the spiritual and divine. His deprivation, his loss, is
complete. The Greek word for prodigal is άσωτος which not only means
someone who leads a reckless life but also someone who is deprived of
salvation ά-σωτος. Deprived of God and the relationship with him, deprived
of the blessing to love and be loved, his life, his whole nature is black
and destitute.
No one can
replace the emptiness of God. Without God he is only flesh that decays and
dies. He becomes similar to the animals and more rather like the pigs in
the story. His life has because a pig’s life, in other words full of
passions and unclean. To this he was prompted by the citizens of the
country that were far away from God, in other words the demons. To this
place is lead the man who sees the Lord’s yoke as heavy. He becomes
subject to the yoke of the passions and falls to the level of an animal.
His glory and his honour which God had granted him have been taken away by
the swine.
After
realizing his fall and his failure to enjoy life as he had visioned and
planned, the Prodigal Son “came to himself”
that is he came to his senses. It follows then that when he acted as he
did he was “outside of himself” or out of his senses. The realization of
our fall is a precondition for our repentance.
The beginning
of repentance is mourning and regret. It is the beginning of salvation.
Now the Prodigal son begins to understand that his disposition to be at a
distance from his father was the counteraction of his carnal nature to not
be subject to God and his will. Because he gave in to his self-ruling
material and earthly nature, he was enslaved by it and reached as far as
hell. Now that he was dead and lost, he begins to understand the cost of
his departure and dissociation from God the father. His only salvation is
“I will arise and go to my father”. No matter how far he sank into
debauchery and a reckless life, no matter that he was living in hell,
inside him the image of his father was never ever destroyed. His thirst to
return o the father was a leftover of the original way of life he had with
love and communion with the father.
The feeling that he had a father became his salvation. When he had
abandoned him he called him father and now that he is to return again he
calls him father. So the Prodigal arises from his fall and returns to his
father.
Now the father
seems excessively compassionate. With his silent love he awaits with great
patience until his return. And seeing him still a long way off, runs and
completely embraces him and kisses him to show him that he is welcomed and
accepted, not as a servant, but as a son. With his kiss he purifies him
and sanctifies him.
In spite of
the fathers love, the Prodigal, who is now saved, confesses he sin: “I
have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be
called thy son.” It is as though he is saying; “I am to blame for
everything.” He doesn’t throw the blame on his father whom he originally
thought had him follow strict rules and because he felt pressured decided
to leave. He now believes that he alone was guilty and avoids making
excuses to justify himself. The father’s commandments now seem as an easy
and light burden.
The father
re-establishes him to his original position as a son and dresses him with
the original robe. The English text says the “best robe” which is in fact
a wrong translation. In Greek it is (την πρώτη στολή) the first robe or
the original robe which properly interpreted means the first body that
Adam had before the fall with the divine graces befit for a son. He does
not make him a servant, but a beloved son. He offers him a ring on his
hand which is the betrothal of the future life and the kingdom and is a
sign that he begins again his relationship with the heavenly bridegroom.
The ring also signifies his reinstatement as a son and heir because rings
were worn by free men, by lords and masters, by someone with authority and
power and not by servants.
If the
beginning of repentance is mourning and regret, the end is the
reinstatement to the paternal home. A new life begins of love and
communion with God and other men according to the image of the Holy
Trinity. Man is now a partaker of the life of Christ. The shoes on his
feet signify the return of the Spiritual graces of Baptism, the spiritual
wealth and power of a son and heir because servants had to go barefooted.
They also represent the authority to preach the Gospel, because a
Christian is he who is of benefit to his neighbour. It is also the power
to step upon snakes and scorpions, in other words upon Satan. And being
given all these gifts, the Prodigal Son is given the greatest of all
gifts: “the fatted calf”, the Body and Blood of Christ, who was sacrificed
to give us life. Now he is delivered from the famine and starvation
because he will be nourished with the “Fatted Calf”,
who “being ever eaten, never is consumed; But sanctifieth them that
partake thereof”. It is the food and sustenance for all who remain in the
father’s house.
The Criterion
which the Parable gives us to analyse the two sons, who represent all of
us, is the beloved relationship with our Father which is in heaven and
with each and every man who is our brother. Can we love God the Father
with all our being and can we receive within us every man without
exceptions? This is what will save us.
The younger
son reached the point of death, because he wounded and rejected this
relationship. He returned to life when he repented, confessed and
re-established his relationship with his father. The older son outwardly
appeared to have preserved his relationship with the father, but in
reality it was non-existent. As it tells us in the Parable, when his
brother returned he was in the fields and when he came close to the house
and was informed of the great joy in the house he became angry “and would
not go in”. If he was a true son of the father, who is all-embracing love,
if he was the image of the father then he should have been happy and
should have expressed his love also. But he didn’t do it because inside
him were passions secretly hiding until a moment when they could manifest
themselves. Inside him were the passions of jealousy, of hatred and pride.
These confused his spirit and clouded his reasoning. He loved only himself
and thought of himself as righteous, incapable of making a mistake. What
was missing in him was humility. His father rejoiced at the wellbeing of
his son but he was angry and desired that he should be punished; he would
have taken great joy so see his father send away his younger brother. Thus
in reality he was not in communion with the father, he was not associated
with him in any way.
The younger
son was saved by his feeling that he still had a father. The older son
doesn’t even call him father. His relationship with the father is not
based on internal love but on a formality. “Lo, these many years do I
serve thee”; he worked the inheritance which was his, but he had no love
either for his father or for his brother. He claims that he never
disobeyed the father at any time, yet now that the father pleads with him
to show love and compassion for his long lost brother he disobeys and
refuses to enter the house. He doesn’t even recognize him as a brother,
but says “this thy son”. The story shows us that someone can appear to be
close to God; he regularly attends Church and boasts that he keeps all
that the Church requires of him, but if his relationship with God and his
fellow men is not based on love then he doesn’t live according to the
image of God. The Church is a community of people that love each other.
At no point in
the parable does the older son appear to accept the fact that he made a
mistake and then to confess it and receive forgiveness. For everything the
father is to blame, because he received back his child, because he killed
the fatted calf, because he never ever gave him a kid that he might make
merry with his friends. He smears his brother’s name by pointing out that
he had devoured his living with harlots, he was not interested in his
brother’s wellbeing but in the waste of wealth which wasn’t even his. He
humiliates and dishonours his brother to show his own superiority and
excellence. He self-excluded himself from the father’s paradise of love
because he had no love. he remained without salvation and became himself
ά-σωτος – prodigal, because he didn’t “come to himself” that is, he didn’t
come to his senses and as the fathers of the Church say: for the pure in
heart God is light that enlightens and for the impure fire that burns.
So where do we
find ourselves? Which of the two do we represent? May God find us worthy
“to come to our senses” that we may make the right choices so that we
might not be deprived of the father’s house and the banquet of the Fatted
Calf.
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