Sunday of the Prodigal Son 2024

Ambon Prayer 8

Our Venerable Father Ephrem the Syrian, Bishop of Nineveh; Our Venerable Father Isaac the Syrian, Bishop of NIneveh; The Passing of our Venerable Mother Olympia Bida (1952)

Title

Living as Free Sons of the Father

Outline

Our readings today differ greatly

On the one hand we have Paul’s argument using a dialogical style built around two maxims

The first maxim is “All things are lawful for me” designed to justify behavior due to freedom from Jewish legal codes.

Rather than disputing the misuse of the maxim Paul qualifies it in two ways: “not all things are helpful” and “I will not be enslaved by anything.” And in our society of increasing sickness and pervasive addiction these are good warnings. As an addict must often totally give up alcohol or perhaps internet use, so must we to whatever is addicting us.

The second maxim is “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” - one is permitted to eat anything is its original meaning - Paul qualifies by saying that both are temporal. Then he points out that the body as a whole is different, its goal is being with God, ultimately through resurrection parallel to Christ’s.

Therefore it is a misuse of the body to join it to a prostitute, as the Corinthians were justifying; it is a sin against oneself, a self-destructive stealing from God.

Paul’s conclusion is “So glorify God in your body.”

This is the purpose of the ascetic practices of the fathers; I think especially of the desert fathers.

On other hand we have Jesus’ parable of the lost-at-home son

This is for people who think of themselves as not sinning but despise sinners.

The younger son sins but good; he shames the father, wastes family goods, but in the end realizes what he has done, returns to the father in abject repentance, and is received, not as a hired servant - his hope - but as a son, an honored son, and the restored relationship is announced with a party.

The older son has always done his duty but has done so as a servant (“these many years I have served you”), not as a son seeking the glory of the father which was also his good, since it was all his inheritance. So he never approached his father asking to use a goat to celebrate, but resents that the father did not offer such to him and especially resents the younger son for living out the distorted “freedom” he wished he had and the father for welcoming the repentant rebel as a son, a relationship the older son does not experience.

So we are left asking where we are in this scriptures:

Are we forgetting that we belong to God and all we do should be for his glory and our union with him? Do we have addictions we need to deal with or counter-productive uses of our legal freedom? Then take appropriate action to remedy this.

Are we forgetting that we are sons, members of the household of God, obeying the father for the good of the household which is our good as well? Do we realize that all he has, even he himself, is ours? Then we need to repent that our hearts are in a “far country” and hurry home to the father and discover who we really are. This is the purpose of the prayer practices of the fathers; I think especially of the Jesus prayer that is designed to underly all of life.

Brothers and Sisters, let us not get caught up in the materialism and slavery to the passions in the world and let us not view our conformity to pious practices as a slavery, but let us see all our life as oriented to bringing us closer to realizing our relationship as sons and daughters of God and bringing honor and glory to the Father in this age of the world.