Prodigal Son 2022 Fr. James Jorgenson

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ.

Today's Sunday is, as we hear in the Gospel,

the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. And it is that

time when we are on our journey towards Lent,

which is our journey towards Pascha. The Prodigal

Son, of course, is an allegory. It represents

you and me, and I would say also it represents

collectively the Church of the New Testament

and even the Church of the Old Testament. But

before I get into that, which is our primary

focus, this is a good Sunday for us to recall

and to think about. the prodigal sons and the

prodigal daughters, the prodigal brothers, the

prodigal sisters, maybe even the prodigal parents

that we have in our life. And what do I mean

by that? Our children, our brothers and sisters,

say, who were raised in the faith, And then they

just drop out, stop going to church, and even

sometimes they announce, for whatever reason,

I don't believe in any of this anymore. How anguishing

that is for parents. It breaks their hearts.

It breaks our hearts if a beloved... brother

or sister stops attending church. Either maybe

they just reject it all or maybe because they're

just indifferent. Who knows the reason? But it

is necessary for us to pray for these prodigal

sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, whatever

it might be. The best example I have of that

is in one of my former parishes. There was a

woman who prayed earnestly before the icon of

the Theotokos. And after a while, we got into

a conversation about that. And she said, you

know, Father, I've been praying for my son who

stopped. going to church doesn't show any interest

in religion. And she prayed daily and then when

she goes to church prayed before the icon of

the Theotokos. And you know what happened? He

came back. The prodigal son returned. He started

coming to church and the joy that came into that

mother's heart replaced the anguish. that she

had before. So this story is an incentive for

us to pray for those individuals, those loved

ones in our family that, at least from our perspective,

should practice their faith a little bit more

fervently. But of course the main focus is that

the prodigal son is an allegory. It's a story

that represents something else. And of course,

you and I are the prodigal sons. But also in

an extended sense, the prodigal sons were the

Old Testamental Hebrew people, the Church of

the Old Testament, and even collectively us as

the Christian Church, the Church of the New Testament.

In Psalm 8, The psalmist meditates on the loftiness

of our status as human beings created by God.

He says, what is man that thou art mindful of

him, and the son of man that thou dost care for

him? By the way, that expression, son of man,

in Hebrew theology, evolves into a messianic

title, which is how it's used in the prophecy

of Daniel. And especially in St. Mark's Gospel,

this is preeminently a title for Jesus, Son of

Man. Son of God and Son of Man are used interchangeably

in the Gospels. But this term, at least in Psalm

8, refers to the dignity of us as human beings

created by God. What is man that thou art mindful

of him, and the son of man that thou dost care

for him? Yet thou hast made him a little less

than the angels, and dost crown him with glory

and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over

the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things

under his feet, all sheep and oxen, all... the

cattle of the fields, the birds of the air, and

the fish of the sea. Many of the fathers postulate

that this is what made the devil jealous because

God created these material beings and bestowed

upon them such dignity. A couple of the fathers

even say that's what also provoked the devil's

jealousy was that it was revealed to him that

the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity,

would become a human being, part of this created

nature which on a certain level is inferior to

the angelic nature. But of course, the other

side of that is, we sing in one of our church

hymns, the mystery which was hidden from everlasting

and was unknown even by the angels became known

through you, O Theotokos, referring to the incarnation

of the Son of God. Be that as it may, the devil

was jealous of us. This is why he tempted Adam

and Eve to revolt, to disobey, to turn away from

God. Adam and Eve to become the first prodigal

sons, to reject that glorious heritage and status

which God bestowed upon human beings at the time

of creation. The Jewish people in the course

of their history turned away from God as well.

The Hebrew people, once they were in the promised

land, began to adopt some of the practices and

even religious practices of their pagan neighbors.

And this provoked God's wrath and he permitted

the Assyrian Babylonians to come and take many

of the Jewish people into captivity. They were

deported to Babylon. And there in Babylon, the

Hebrew people lament their condition with very

good reason. The church at Matins last night

or this morning begins to sing Psalm 137, which

is the lamentation of the Hebrew people separated

from God, separated from their homeland, Zion

and Jerusalem, when they were deported to Babylon.

So Psalm 137 sings and laments. By the waters

of Babylon, There we sat down and wept when we

remembered Zion, Jerusalem, the promised land.

By the willows there we hung up our lyres. How

shall we sing the Lord a song in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand

wither. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my

mouth. If I do not remember you, if I do not

set Jerusalem above my highest joy. This is the

anguish of the Hebrew people in exile. This is

the realization as well that in today's gospel

the prodigal son had. when he remembered what

he had and what he lost. This is what we, during

Lent, meditate on as well. And it becomes for

us individually and collectively, because the

whole Lenten period by the 4th century in the

liturgy of the Church evolves into Lent as we

have it now. It becomes a time when we as individuals

joined with the catechumens in preparation for

baptism. And it is an effort on the church's

part to make us regain that baptismal holiness

that we have lost through sin. So let us continue

on this journey to our true fatherland, our true

homeland. which is communion with God. It is

the father who looked so longingly from the rooftop

to see the return of his son. Not like the grumpy

son, the older son who was grumpy when the young

man returned. But the father looked out, waited

for his son. So our heavenly father looks out.

for us on our journey back to a deeper realization

of our status and our holiness as baptized Christians.

Amen.