Our Gift of Freedom
Luke 15:11-32
(Note: A homily delivered on 2/12/2012 at St. Stephen on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. Again, with some much-needed editing.)
On the third Sunday before the beginning of Great Lent, the Orthodox Church appoints the reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Someone has said, that if, by some means, all the Holy Scriptures had been destroyed and were somehow lost forever except for the parable of the Prodigal Son, we would still have the heart of Jesus’ teaching.
This is a wonderful parable and most of us are very familiar with it. You will recall that the parable of the Prodigal Son is about a young man who lost his way in life. He left his home, he left his family, and he took the things that his father had been saving up for his son’s future. He joined himself with a crowd, friends who were also going the wrong way and then he wasted, or as the scripture says, scattered his inheritance, his future, in riotous living, in a way that produced no benefit and added nothing to his life. Then, finally, he found himself in the lowliest of places, feeding the pigs (which may be interpreted, feeding his own passions or sinful desires). One can only imagine what it would be like to reach that point. We can try, and we probably should try, to somehow grasp what that was like. Remembering where we’ve been, having a bleak picture of life where we are now, realizing what we’ve lost, recalling where we came from. So, it would not be unlikely that this young man would have little or no hope that life was ever going to get any better.
Most of us here this morning probably have not reached that point. But I’m going to venture to say today that, as the scripture teaches, this is a picture of the human race. This is a picture of what has happened to mankind since the fall in the garden and, to some extent, to every one of us who has shared this experience. Many of us have left home, many have wasted, and many have associated with some going the wrong way. I wonder whether most every one of us this morning would say, “I wish I had it to do over again”. “I wish I hadn’t done that, gone there, been there”. As we examine ourselves sincerely, we probably feel that or wonder, “Is there really any hope for me?” “I know what God wants me to be. But can I ever get there, given the mistakes that I have made?”
This young man’s life, as Jesus described it in the parable, was not the way life ought to be. This was not God’s plan for the persons He created in love.
We were made to be with God, not apart from God. You’ve heard me say that numerous times. That’s what life should be like. Fr. Alexander Schmemann in his book, “Great Lent” (which I hope everyone will read) said, “anyone who has never had that experience of being away from God, be it only briefly, who has never felt that he is exiled from God and from real life, that person will never understand what Christianity is really about”. Fr. Alexander goes on to say, “the person who is at home in the world and in this life and is not wounded by the desire for God will not really understand repentance”. That is, if we don’t feel like anything is wrong or perceive that we are away from God, then were not going to do anything about it. There’s no reason to because we are home, at home where we are. But I just simply do not believe that any of us is satisfied or would be satisfied anywhere along this journey – away from home, with unruly friends, or feeding the pigs at the sty. It just doesn’t seem to me that, with the image of God in us, we can be satisfied with that. God help us to know that.
This parable is about the power of repentance. Repentance is looking at ourselves honestly. It is accepting the fact that we have made wrong decisions and not blaming anybody else. It’s realizing that I have made wrong turns because of my own selfishness. But repentance doesn’t stop there. Repentance is doing something about it. Repentance, in this context, is having been standing by the pigsty with a greedy pig looking at you and you giving them what they want, but now stopping and saying, “I’m not doing this anymore, this is over. I will arise and go to my Father and I’ll crawl and tell him I’m sorry. I’ll do anything that I can to try and recover the hope of living a real life, the life God created me to live”.
Repentance is possible because of a special gift that God has given us. That special gift is something we can call freedom. Every person has it just like all the other gifts which our Lord has so graciously bestowed upon us. Freedom. Freedom of will, freedom of choice, freedom to think, freedom to discern, He has given us freedom. But what we do with that freedom is what determines where our life goes.
In the case of this young man, he was free all right. He was free to go to his father and to say to his father, “I want my future, hand it over”. He took that future and in his own sense of freedom, left home. As he went out into that world, he was free to make whatever choices he wanted. He was free to choose those with whom he would associate. He was free to put his inheritance where he chose. He was free to spend it this way or that way or the other way. He wasted it because he was free to do just what he wanted to do. The fact that he got to the pigsty and the bleak situation where he found himself was a result of the gift of God of freedom. Yes, he lost it all; he was in a far, far country; the family was far away; the friends had deserted him because he was out of money. He had nothing else to spend on fun or pleasure or enjoyment or self satisfaction and there was nowhere else to go. His free choices had led him to feed the pigs. As he stared at the mud with the husks in his hand and into the eyes of the hungry pigs, it was as though he was seeing his own life in a mirror. It was all over …. or was it?
He had no home, he had no family, he had no money, he had no friends. But herein is the good news, the one thing he had left which nobody could take from him or from you or from me. He had his freedom. He had his freedom from God. Even in that awful situation, with all that had happened to him, he could stand on the edge of the mud and still make a choice. He had the freedom to say, “I will arise and go back to my father”. So do we, and that freedom is the power of repentance. There is no one, by the mercy of God, who is incapable of repenting. We may think things are overwhelming. We may think we have gone too far. The devil will be quick to tell us that. I tell you this morning by the mercy of our Lord, we can make a choice and not only when we get to the bottom, but thanks be to God, we can make the choice along that terrible spiral down to the pig pen. You know why we can make that choice? Because of something very, very special. The freedom we have and the ability to repent comes because a very special thing happened that we all know and love, and, in a sense, it’s a reflection of the parable of the Prodigal Son.
There was a time when the eternal Son of God dwelt with the Father. There was perfect unity and communion in the heavenly places; and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit enjoyed a life that we can only somehow partially imagine. A glory that is inexpressible and that would last forever and ever. Then, far away, man rebelled against the laws of God. So, this Father gave his Son a gift, an inheritance, and sent him away. The Son of God went to a far country, not to satisfy his own desires, but to save a wayward people. That Son traveled long and far and became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. That gift of humanity, human nature, which He received from the Father, He was about to use. It included the gift of reason, the gift of discernment, the gift of faith, and all the gifts we have as human beings, but unlike the Prodigal Son, He didn’t waste them.
The Son of God came into this world and found himself wasting no thought, no word, no deed, no minute but was absolutely focused on doing good things and saving mankind. He stayed away from the kinds of friends that the Prodigal Son associated with. Yes, He reached out to the sinners, but He drew them to Himself, He didn’t follow them. He called to Himself disciples and followers. He gathered around Him simple people, obedient people, loving people, people who wanted to have a better life, ultimately a life in the kingdom. So, with His friends, His disciples and others, the Son of God, now the Son of Man, reached into every corner of society. He Himself visited those lost in human degradation, He confronted the evils of sinfulness and the works of the devil, and He plumbed the very depths of darkness when He was killed and descended into the pit of Hades to save us. All of this without asking anything for Himself and never expecting praise and honor and glory. But He came to take what the Father had given Him and set about to make it something that would help everyone else in their lives. Then, He voluntarily gave Himself to be crucified and buried, only to rise again. This time He said, “I will now arise and go to my Father” and He did. Having risen from the dead and trampling down death, He said, “I’m going to my Father, and I’ll prepare a place for you that where I am you can be also” (John 14:3). As to the details of His return to the heavenly places, we do not know. We cannot comprehend that, but in a likeness to this parable, the Father may well have been standing by, as it were, heaven’s gates to welcome His Son. He joyously welcomed His Son now that He had come back home and had accomplished what He had sent Him to do. And surely, the angels rejoiced with the Father.
From that time, He began to pray for us and to prepare a place for those of us who would also say, “I will arise and go to my Father”. We have that opportunity because of Christ. Because of what He has done, because He has overpowered wickedness and evil, and trampled down death, we can exercise our God-given freedom to repent and to say, “no more of this, no more of this”.
Can it be that some here may have left home; may have gotten to the point in your life, either now or in the past, that you decided that you could do it all on your own? There appears to be a rampant outbreak of disrespect for parents among our young people. Many of them are leaving home, prematurely, at alarming rates, not always physically but often mentally. Have they forgotten the care, support, love, discipline they have received and the sacrifices their parents have made for them? But the alluring call of the world twists their thinking and distorts their discernment.
Now, certainly, there is a natural time when children should leave home to establish their lives and families. They would rightly take with them the “inheritance” of love, learning, memories, and traditions they gained in those years. And it should be with the blessing and encouragement of their parents rather than in rebellion.
Furthermore, there are so many – youth and adults – who have left their Father’s house, the Church. Again, maybe not physically, but mentally and spiritually. Far too many have forgotten the blessings we have received from our parents and our God. We have become separated from our families and from the Church.
We may ask ourselves, “am I like the Prodigal Son and have left home? Am I lost, empty, and ashamed?”.
Wherever some may be along that road, or if you find yourself being a slave to the pigs of passions, greed, lust, anger, pride and all the rest of them, drawn away from the Father, there is still time to exercise your freedom. Remember that our Father is waiting by the gate, and He has already given us the gift of freedom to repent. No matter how far we’ve gone – two steps or two hundred thousand miles – we have the freedom, the freedom to return to the Father and to say, “I’m not feeding these pigs anymore. I’m not associating with those friends who frolicked and fled when I had nothing for them. I want to go back to my Father and see if it’s possible (and it is!) to recover again my future, the inheritance in the kingdom of God.
Hopefully, during this Lenten season, all of us personally, individually will take some time to examine our lives. I will and I know you will. So that when Pascha/Easter comes, we will be able to say, “we’re back home, we’re back home”. That’s what Fr. Schmemann was talking about. When we come to see that we have been exiled but that we can return, then we know what Christianity is really all about. Thank God for the gift of freedom.
Fr. Andrew
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