Homily for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
Today we began to sing the 136th penitential Psalm: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion; upon the willows in the midst thereof we hung our harps” (Psalm 136:1-2). The time of Great Lent is approaching. And in this wondrous and terrible Psalm, we hear both the lament of the Jews expelled from their earthly Fatherland, and the lament of the Christian who has lost his heavenly Homeland. We are all strangers and aliens, exiles on this earth. Our Homeland is in Heaven with God the Father, to which we must strive. We all hear and sing at the Divine Liturgy the words: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). These words signify not only a lament for sins, but a lament for the fact that man has not yet reached his homeland in Heaven. Gregory of Nyssa said that "truly blessed is he who has no permanent city on earth, who seeks the Heavenly Fatherland, who strives for Heaven." Such a person will certainly be comforted. He will find his homeland — the Promised Land; he will find that very Heavenly Jerusalem, the homeland of all Christians. As the Apostle Paul said: we all "died with Christ" (Col. 2:20).
When we were baptized, we were baptized into the Lord's death (we were immersed three times). And we died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. If Christ is our life, then we too will appear with Him in Glory. Christ died for us, and we died with Christ. Therefore, when the Risen Christ returns, then we too will begin to live. Now our life is a shadow, a flight from the death that pursues us. It is a state of slavery, where we have nothing permanent. Everything earthly is corruptible, destructible. Everything we have (apartments, cars, clothing, food) is temporary. Time consumes everything. In this corruptible world, there is nothing permanent to which we can cling with our hearts. And if we cling with our hearts to the corruptible, then we condemn our hearts, ourselves, to corruption as well. If you put good apples next to rotten ones, the rot from the bad ones will spread to the good ones, and they will rot. The same goes for the heart. If it's attached to something earthly and perishable, it too will begin to rot!
We cannot live a real life here, as the psalmist sang: "How can I sing the song of the Lord in a strange land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget me; let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not make Jerusalem my chief joy" (Psalm 136:4-6). We must remember that we are exiles. The Heavenly Jerusalem is our homeland, to which we must strive. The enemy deceives us, telling us that for the sake of temporary life we must cling to it and not let it slip away. At his instigation, people dream at any cost, just to live another day. Clinging to the temporary is like grasping sand: you grab a handful, and it spills out through your fingers. There are enemies who prevent us from reaching the Heavenly Jerusalem.
“Remember, O Lord, the day of Jerusalem to the children of Edom, when they said, ‘Destroy it, destroy it, even to its foundations’” (Psalm 136:7). The earthly prototype is the sons of Edom — the Edomites, a people who lived in the south of Jordan, who destroyed the remains of Jerusalem when it was captured by the Babylonian armies. Scripture understands the sons of Edom as forces hostile to God — spirits and people. Their motto is Nietzsche's famous aphorism: "Push him who is falling." The Church asks that the evil of the wicked be turned back upon them, so that the wicked will not go unpunished by God.
"Daughter Babylon, you desolate one! Blessed is he who will repay you for what you have done to us! Blessed is he who will take your little ones and dash them against the stones!" (Psalm 136:8–9). Daughter Babylon is the capital of global evil, spreading pernicious teachings, magic, and lawlessness throughout the world. Daughter Babylon refers to the global community, which currently defends the sinner's right to sin but does not defend the righteous's right to righteousness! Babylon says that lawlessness cannot be condemned because it violates freedom of conscience, etc. It is Christ who will put an end to global Babylon.
"To shatter the infants" signifies that blessed will be he who destroys Babylon's sinful thoughts before they have developed further. "To shatter upon a rock" signifies to shatter upon the confession of faith in Jesus Christ. Blessed is he who conquers sinful thoughts, who crushes them with the power of the Lord's Cross. Blessed is he who mercilessly destroys evil thoughts within himself. Such a person will be welcomed into his homeland; such a person will find his fatherland. And he will live there forever — in the Heavenly Jerusalem. Let us seek the Heavenly Fatherland, let us think of It. Let us strive toward It, and then the Almighty Lord will help us crush all the Edomites who rise against us. He will help us escape the snares of Babylon, the city of evil, and reach the gates of the Heavenly Jerusalem, where all the saints will meet us, and may the Lord help us.
God bless you all!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
