Sermon on the Gospel of the Prodigal Son
Preaching in the Russian Church; Lectures and Sermons by a Priest of the Holy Orthodox Church: Chapter VIII
(First read: Luke, xv. 11-32.)
You have heard today’s gospel. The parable of the “prodigal son” is not a thing new to you. You have heard of, you have seen the prodigal sin and fall low, down, deep into all the consequential miseries of iniquity. If you do not know, you have heard of the boundless mercy of a pitying God. You may understand how a good father takes back to his heart his beloved child, once lost, but found again. You know the parable of the prodigal son. Then why is it that the church, year after year, recalls to our memory this parable? She does so in order to strengthen us in the way of salvation. Until we have passed the final limit, and receive our sentence at the hands of the Divine Judge, we belong to the Church Militant, i.e. while we are on earth, we are obliged to continually struggle for the good.
In order to obtain conscientious peace, love, spiritual prosperity, and holiness, we must always battle with the evil. The more high and purely spiritual the condition is, which we strive to attain, the more fierce is the fight, and our warfare must be constant with wrong, infidelity, superstition, prejudice, and corruption. Indeed, we must overcome ourselves, we must get the better of self.
You, no doubt, have seen men and women wasting their living in the most hideous visible form of sin, but dare you stand in the awful presence of the Most Pure Being and Creator, and say that you are not a prodigal? Do you not wish to come back to God the Heavenly Father? Sinners, yes, we are sinners! One of the greatest meditators on the ways of Divine Providence—the Prophet-King David—in his confession to God, says: “Thy commandment is very broad.” And, in this light, there is not a commandment, or a law, which we have not transgressed.
Surely my time was not spent with harlots, some might say, but did you make careful use of your time, which is not yours, for it belongs to Him who gave it, and did you without wasting, treasure it so that it now bears a hundredfold of profit, pleasing to the Receiver of virtue in abundance? I had never lost control of myself, so that, by unawares, my table proved to be a scanty board of husks, and my companions a herd of swine. Yet, you may not assert that you beautified your soul with a holy character, nor did you enrich your intellect with an everlasting wisdom; and your heart, is it clean, does it expand so that the Holy Ghost freely makes His abode there? Does it know the needy and the deserving? Does it go out toward its neighbor, yearning to share with its very existence—giving up all self-interest, and even the comforts of an earthly life?
We, all of us, make up one household. We are members of one and the same family. And you will never taste of true happiness, nor know what it is to be blessed, until you have learned this lesson. You may be a younger son or daughter, but if you be the prodigal, remember, that in your Father’s House there is bread enough, and to spare; come to yourself; consider your life, remember the free and confiding innocence of your first youth, now that you are firmly fastened, and yet lost, look within and find yourself. And when you have found yourself, you will easily find God. He will see you, while you are coming, yet far off, your Father, and He will be moved with compassion, He will fold you in His arms and kiss you.
If you are not a younger member of the family, may you not be the elder son of the Father? You may not be a lavish spendthrift, nor a wanderer, and you may enjoy the quiet of home, but are you secure? The enemy may sow tares in the field of your heart, while you are comfortably asleep. You may live in your father’s house faithfully and continually, you may have the oversee of all the work, and the servants, yet are you secure? No, if you do not give yourself concern about the whereabouts of your younger brother, you are not secure for all time. You may be the oldest, you may know all the secrets of the household, the keys of all chests and doors may be in your possession, you may live in the Grace of God, and enjoy the light of your Heavenly Father’s countenance, still, remember the elder son in the parable! For the want of charity for an erring one, a sinner, an inexperienced one, for one who labored under a wrong opinion, he—the heir and first-born—came in danger of losing all at the end. He was the cause of much anxiety to his father who came out and entreated him. This one’s pride (a false pride it was) that suffered. The father had to reason with his son, who thought his sense of justice was being injured. In the absence of virtue, and charity—the principal one—we see the elder son blind to his own condition, for he dared to assert his rights, while justice belonged to the real owner, his loving Father.
And now, my brethren, if we be the elder members of God’s family, let us think of the responsibility, and not fall from Grace, but continue in His House. To the young, and to the prodigal, if their conscience be not yet lost, the Divine voice calls, come to your Father, and tell Him all, He waits with open heart. Amen.
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