I was ordained to the holy priesthood on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11 – 32). This fact elicited a few jokes from friends about being ordained on my “name day.” In a sense, the prodigal son is the “patron saint” of is all; for good or ill, he mirrors both our individual behavior and the spiritual history of the human race. He shows us what we have become through sin and reveals the path of repentance which leads us out of our predicament. Even more, his return home illustrates God’s gracious acceptance of and astonishing generosity toward the penitent.
Saint John Cassian sees an evolution in the prodigal’s outlook which parallels our attitudes toward God and our motives for serving Him. He writes, “There are three things which enable men to control their faults: either the fear of hell … ; or the hope and desire of the kingdom of heaven; or a liking for goodness itself and the love of virtue …. And these three things although they all seem to aim at one and the same end (for they incite us to abstain from things unlawful) yet they differ from each other greatly in the degrees of their excellence. For the two former belong properly to those men who in their aim at goodness have not yet acquired the love of virtue, arid the third belongs specially to God and to those who have received into themselves the image and likeness of God.”
The prodigal’s situation after leaving home corresponds to Saint John’s first way of dealing with sin and parallels our condition both as individuals and as human beings. The youth leaves his father’s hour possessed of wealth but soon squanders it. Famine strikes, and he becomes desperate. He hires himself out to a farmer, who sets him to herding pigs, a revolting development in view of the Jews’ ritual abhorrence of swine. Moreover, the youth’s employer reduces him to virtual slavery. In his hunger and degradation even the food given to the pigs looks inviting.
We too have abandoned our true spiritual borne, the life of communion with God. All mankind rebelled in the transgression of Adam and Eve, and we each perpetuate that rebellion through our personal sins. Temptation tells us that our new land will be green and luxuriant, and that we can both savor its bounties and continue to enjoy all God’s blessings, without the annoyance of obedience to His will. This promise is, of course, a lie. As Saint John Chrysostom notes, “Sin makes us swine, sin brings famine to the soul.” Sin strips us of everything good and beautiful, and ultimately deprives us even of life itself. We survive only through servitude to the vices – to pride, greed, lust, anger – and are constantly subject to their demands (see Romans 6: 16 – 21). Above all, sin is a famine which leaves us starved for God’s sustaining presence: we are created in God’s image “fashioned … for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we might pursue them” (Ephesians 2: 10). The absence of divine peace induces a craving which nothing can satisfy, certainly not the swill of the vices. As we confront the consequences of our his sins, little remains of our former relationship to God except fear of His displeasure. Saint John sees here the lowest motive we can have for serving God, obedience through fear of punishment. We recognize our sinfulness, but all that realization evokes is desperation. We are not yet ready to move to repentance and beyond.
The prodigal, however, “comes to himself” and decides to return home. He knows he has disgraced himself before his father; he is unworthy to be his son. He hopes, however, that, as a servant in his father’s house, he can again enjoy some taste of the blessings he so thoughtlessly discarded. Saint Cassian characterizes this second attitude as expectation, the penitent’s main motivation is anticipation of reward, symbolized by the hireling’s wages. “If anyone is aiming at perfection, from that first stage of fear which we rightly termed servile … he should by advancing a step mount to the higher path of hope – which is compared not to a slave but to a hireling, because it looks for the payment of its recompense ….” (Saint John Cassian). Certainly, this attitude is superior to cowering servitude, but it is not the fullness of the relationship we should have with God.
The young man returns to his father and tries to present his plan to be a mere servant. The father, however, ignores his stammered apologies, embraces him1 and restores him to his former place. This third stage demonstrates the true depth and power of repentance. We usually view repentance from a self-centered point of view, as something which we do. We alone cannot pass beyond this second stage which, “ … though it seems to look for the promised reward, yet it cannot attain to that love of a son who, trusting in his father’s kindness and liberality, has no doubt that all that the father has is his …” (Saint John Cassian). Repentance bears fruit only when our contrition meets the Father’s response, and it is from the latter that repentance derives its true power.
The father in the parable does not want to take on a new hired hand; he wants his son restored and whole. Thus, when the contrite young man reappears, the father sweeps aside his protestations, bestows on Him the rich garments and signet-ring of a beloved child, and celebrates as he would for the birth of a new heir. Indeed, as Saint Athanasius points out, the father makes the prodigal his son again as if he had begotten him anew.
Likewise, our heavenly Father does not want hired servants who obey Him from fear or hope of reward; He wants sons who do His will in love and joy. Therefore, when we come to Him in repentance He bestows upon us far more than our expected reward, pardon for our transgressions. He “begets us afresh in the image of the glory of Christ. These are the gracious gifts of the Father, by which the Lord honors and nourishes those who abide with Him, and also those who return to Him and repent” (Saint Athanasius).
The first two stages, our part of repentance, are insufficient because sin is not just a mistake to be erased by a pardon. Sin corrupts and disfigures; it obscures the divine image in us, it makes us less than human. We need restoration as well as forgiveness. “What – or rather – Who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made an things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, to bring again the corruptible to incorruption …. For He alone, being the Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate everything and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father” (Saint Athanasius).
In the Lenten season we focus anew on the death and Resurrection of our Lord, by which He makes ready to welcome us like prodigals back to our Father’s house. Only now, instead of killing the fatted calf for our reconciliation, He offers His own crucified Body and Blood; instead clothing us in a splendid robe, He clothes us in the eternal glory of His resurrection and the grace and power of His Spirit.
To receive these gifts, however, we must direct our steps homeward down the path of repentance, Saint Gregory the Theologian exhorts, “Only let us have mercy on ourselves, and open a road for our Father’s righteous affections.” The Father’s mercy depends upon our first having mercy on ourselves by giving up the pretenses and pretensions of sin and turning to Him with simplicity and contrition of heart. “We have so loving a Father, who eagerly desires our return. If we will only return to Him, He does not even bear to call in question our former deeds, if only we give them up. It is sufficient apology with Him, that we have returned” (Saint John Chrysostom). Let us hear and follow our Lord’s instruction contained in this parable. Let us experience the cleansing power of God’s mercy and grace. Let us pass from fear and expectation to the joy and assurance which springs from love.
***
