Sunday of the Prodigal Son / St. Simeon and Prophetess Anna; St. Nicholas of Japan / 1 Cor. 6.12-20; Luke 15.11-32
F/S/HS. Brothers and sisters, this morning is the third of five Sundays where mother church gives us a wealth of teaching in preparation for Great and Holy Lent, which begins a little over two weeks from now. This morning, one of our Lord’s most magnificent of all parables, the parable of The Prodigal Son.
Most of us know the parable well. About a youngest son who demands to receive his inheritance from his father. He leaves home and goes off to a far country where he blows his inheritance and stoops to the lowest level of immoral living. He then (v. 17) came to himself–some editions read he came to his senses–he came to himself and realized that he has sinned against heaven and against his father back home. And so he returns home, full of contrition and repentance.
And this son’s father, who is the prototype of God our Father. A man who has waited with unconditional love for his son to return. And when he does return, this father neither rebukes nor criticizes his son, because he sees his son’s contrition of heart and his repentance.
What this father does do is drape the best family robe over his son. He puts a ring on his finger and gives him new sandals. Recall Rembrandt’s painting of the Prodigal Son, which renders a young man entirely haggard standing before his loving father, a tattered sandal on one foot, nothing on his other foot.
Furthermore, this father provides a fatted calf and requests that everyone come to a party, for my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found (vss. 22-24).
And finally this son’s older brother, who, when he hears the festive celebration back at the family house while working in the fields, and finds out that it is for his younger wayward brother having just returned home, throws a fit of anger at his father, essentially condemning his father’s unconditional love and lamenting that he, a dutiful son, got shafted because no party was held in his honor.
My son, the father lovingly pleads with his oldest son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your younger brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found (vss. 31-32).
Brothers and sisters, this morning I want to use our Lord’s parable of The Prodigal Son to address a subject that I frequently encounter, especially during your confessions. The subject is our thought life and, specifically, when are our thoughts of the nature of sin, and when are they just thoughts and not sin?
So many of us, me included, confess thoughts that we believe are sins. Judgmental thoughts. Angry thoughts. Gluttonous thoughts. Lustful thoughts. Covetous and jealous thoughts. Thoughts that distract us from prayer and worshipping God, or a given task at hand.
And I think to myself when I hear your confession: You must be assuming that your thoughts are sin, because otherwise you would not be confessing them. So on occasion I will stop you and ask you, or ask you after your confession: Tell me about that struggle with your thoughts and why you are calling them sin? Well, it was during Divine Liturgy and I was having judgmental thoughts about someone. I inquire further: And what did you do with those thoughts when they came to you? And your answer: I tried to cut them off. I said the Jesus Prayer, over and over. And? I ask. Well, it worked for a few minutes but then the thoughts returned. And? I respond. Well, I just kept trying to cut them off.
Why then are you calling your thoughts sin, I inquire further. And your answer: Aren’t distracting thoughts during Divine Liturgy sin, judgmental thoughts especially? And I answer: They may be but not necessarily. Because it sounds like you tried each time to cut them off. In other words, I’m not hearing that you willfully joined one judgmental thought to another judgmental thought, but that you instead noticed the thoughts and then willfully sought to cut them off. Hmmm, you might answer.
And so we make an appointment to talk. And during our time together I share the traditional Orthodox teaching on the four-fold stages that constitutes sin. The first stage begins with, yes, thoughts. A thought assault you, say a judgmental thought about another. Shame and guilt well up in you because of the thought.
Second, you listen to that thought and start joining it to additional thoughts? Third, those thoughts turn into a scheme, for example to badmouth this person to a sympathetic friend. And fourth, you follow through with that badmouthing.
Bishop Kallistos Ware of blessed memory asks this important question: Where along these four stages did your sin begin? And his answer, which is the answer of our ancient Orthodox Christian tradition. Sin begins at the second stage, during the act of willfully joining one thought to a series of other thoughts. Sin does not begin with the first stage. Mere thoughts of judgment are not necessarily sin.
Here’s another way of making this same point. Bishop Kallistos asks: Is anger at another sin? No, not necessarily he answers. Look at St. Paul’s counsel in Ephesians 4.26, where Paul quotes the psalmist (4.4), who says Be angry and do not sin. In other words, the mere feeling of anger, the emotion of anger, the thought of anger is not necessarily a sin. It is what we do with that anger: Whether we join it to additional angry sentiments, or act out on that anger in some harmful and sinful manner.
And so let us poinder where the Prodigal Son’s sin began. It is not necessarily sinful to want to leave one’s parents and home and go out and experience life. It is not necessarily sinful to ask your parents for financial help to leave home. What is sinful is to so covet your inheritance that you demand it from your parent, as this son did: Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me (v. 12). What is sinful is to take that money and then blow it on wanton carnal living. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, Paul says in this morning’s Epistle reading (v. 13).
And the prodigal’s older brother! He is angry. It is not necessarily sinful to feel anger at younger brother, given what he has done both to himself and the havoc he has wrecked on your family. It is not necessarily sinful to feel anger at his father, for loving his wayward son so unconditionally. What is sinful is to belligerently refuse to attend your brother’s party, as this older son does.
What is sinful is to give no gratitude to God for a life, your brother’s life, that was lost and is now found. This older son’s heart is bereft of gratitude; given all that his father has provided for him over the years, he does not have thanksgiving in his heart for his father’s provision. Which is sinful. And what is sinful is to not sit down with your father and hear his side, but instead jump to all kinds of conclusions about both his younger brother and his father, as this older son does.
Our Church fathers and mothers say that one of the goals of our spiritual life, one of the primary characteristics of the saints, is that they have obtained mastery over their thought-life. Thoughts come and go. Sometimes very dark and shaming and judgmental thoughts.
In fact, our church fathers teach us that a trick of the evil one is to make you think that your dark and shaming thoughts are sin, in order to spiral you into guilt and shame. Our task, our goal, is to cut these thoughts off before they become sinful. Our task is to not join them to additional thoughts, which is where sin begins.
Our task, our goal is what our church fathers and mothers call dispassion. Just let the thoughts fly over, and don’t build a landing strip for them, counsels the wise St. Paisios.
Which is what the father in our Lord’s parable of the Prodigal Son has mastered: Dispassion. Surely, observes our church fathers, this father was at times angry with his prodigal son. He was likely scared and fearful for his life. He was deeply hurt by his son’s joining himself unlawfully to the flesh of another, outside of holy marriage. Yet he did not allows such thoughts and feelings to overrule what was needed in that moment: Unconditional love for his son, who was dead and is now alive, was lost and is now found.
Our dear Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, help us all as we prepare for Holy Lent to come to our own senses, to find contrition and repentance for our sin, and to love with the unconditional delight that was this father’s delight and love for his prodigal son. And our dear Lord help us discern when thoughts are just thoughts and not sin. And where are thoughts are indeed sinful, to truly confess them towards cleansing our soul, mind, and body. F/S/HS
