SUNDAY OF THE PRODIGAL SON
H AV I N G foolishly abandoned Thy paternal glory, I squandered on vices the ealth which Thou gavest me. Wherefore, I cry unto Thee with the voice of the prodigal: I have sinned before Thee, O compassionate Father. Receive me as one repentant, and make me as one of Thy hired servants.
(1 Cor 6: 12-20, Luke 15: 11-32)
Dr. M. R. Brett-Crowther
Great Lent is
a time of fasting, almsgiving, repentance: a time when we say No to our will,
and Yes to the will of God. Fasting
does not mean that the Church believes that the human body is evil.
Paul says in today’s epistle that ‘there are no forbidden things;
maybe, but not everything does good. … I
am not going to let anything dominate me.’
The Christian is in control; the Christian is not controlled by
pleasures.
Paul
distinguishes the human body from the question of eating and drinking.
‘Food is only meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food; yes, and
God is going to do away with both of them.
But the body – this is not meant for fornication; it is for the Lord,
and the Lord for the body. God who
raised the Lord from the dead, will by his power raise us up too.’ Food keeps
the body going, but the purpose of a Christian’s life is union with Christ.
The human body therefore has become
holy. Paul says that ‘a man who
goes with a prostitute is one body with her, since the two, as it is said,
become one flesh. But anyone who is
joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.’
Paul is making two serious points. First, every human relationship opens
a person’s life to another person. Second, since even a degraded
relationship unites the partners, our life in Christ unites Christians with God
even more.
Corinth was
like present-day Hollywood: a town of selfishness and idolatry.
So Paul warns the Christians in Corinth: ‘Keep away from fornication…
Your body… is the temple of the Holy Spirit…. You have been bought and paid
for. That is why you should use
your body for the glory of God.’ Paul contrasts the redemption by Jesus of the sinner from the
slavery of sin, with the purchase of a prostitute’s services. Paul is saying
that everything has a price, including eternal life; but that price can
only be paid by Christ, and he buys our freedom for us.
The gospel
completes the meaning of the epistle. Here we have two sons: one is like a
Pharisee, the other is like the Publican or Tax Collector: a person who had
polluted himself by working for the heathen Romans. We usually think of the
prodigal son – the one who wasted everything – as the lost sinner.
But really God, the Father of both the sons, has lost both of them –
and loves both of them with the same long-suffering.
The elder son who stays at home has been a dutiful son, but he has not
become a loving son. The other, who has taken everything, and has wasted it –
he has lost God through losing self-control.
He has been dominated by everything. But the elder son has been dominated
by a desire to inherit the estate. He
is dead in spirit. The prodigal son
is also dead in spirit. But he
changes. One day he wakes up.
We can
imagine someone who has entered the selfish fantasy world of drugs.
One day he wakes up in his spiritual prison: he wants to be free.
‘“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve
to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants.” So he left the
place and went back to his father.’
The younger
son had ‘left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of
debauchery.’ He had lived like
the pagan Corinthians who were tempting the Christian Corinthians. The gospel
tells us that after the money ran out a severe famine began, and this prodigal
son had to work for a pig farmer. This
shows the extreme condition of the lost son’s sinfulness.
Pigs were unclean to Jews. For
a son to be almost a slave of a Gentile pig farmer was as terrible as it would
be for a Christian to become addicted to crack.
The prodigal had the strength of will not to eat the pigs’ food – and
the strength of faith in his father’s love.
He holds back, and he hangs on.
The story
tells us that ‘while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was
moved with pity. He ran to the boy,
clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly.’
The son admits how sinful he has been.
The father instead restores him to honour. ‘Bring out the best robe and
put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have
a feast… because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was
lost and is found.’
This is
genuine love: which suffers long and bears everything. And it is responding to
genuine faith – the sinner’s faith in the Father’s love. But the first
son, the one who has kept the farm going, with the regularity of a Pharisee, he
is angry. He does not show love. His
father comes out of the house, pleading with him to enter to take part in the
celebration. He complains: ‘I
have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered
me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of
yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property – he and his women
– you kill the calf we had been fattening.’
The first son has been dominated by thoughts of his rights to property.
He now exaggerates his merits. The
second son admits that he has none. But
he had at least the strength of faith – the strength of faith which admits
being wrong: like the Tax Collector. It
is the failing of the Pharisee and of the elder brother to assume that they are
justified. It is the strength of
the sinner to admit failure.
The gospel
gives Jesus at this point words which say that even fornication can be forgiven.
‘The father said, “My son, you are with me always and all I have
is yours. But it was only right we
should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to
life; he was lost and is found.”'
This parable demands that we all think how terrible our own behaviour can be, and that we all attempt to come close to the true house of our spiritual life. The main lesson of Great Lent is that we are lost in selfishness but found through love. In the words of St John Chrysostom:
‘I believe, O Lord, and confess that Thou art verily the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who didst come into the world to save sinners of whom I am the chief.’
If we say that, we say the truth; and we will be heard, forgiven, and healed:
‘Rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.’
© Dr. M. R. Brett-Crowther.
21 February 2003