Coffee With Sister Vassa: The Joy of our Father

 Coffee With Sister Vassa

Dear Parish Faithful,

A bit more on the Lord's great Parable of the Prodigal Son/The Compassionate Father/The Angry Elder Son:

THE JOY OF OUR FATHER

I’m struck this year, as we re-read and re-discover the Parable of the Prodigal Son two weeks before Lent, how our Lord is seeking to convert both the “obedient” and “disobedient” among us, from our usually-distorted vision of our Father in heaven. The point is, as my friend Nadia Kizenko said in her recent sermon on this parable (find it on YouTube), “God wants us to be happy.”

The younger, disobedient son experiences restlessness in His father’s house; asks the father for his part of the inheritance (as if his father were dead), goes off to do his own thing, ends up experiencing famine and suffering, then comes to himself, rises and returns to his father, having prepared a little speech about his unworthiness, etc. When he comes back, the father comes out to greet him with overjoyed kisses, interrupts the son’s little speech halfway and tells the servants to dress the son in “the first robe” (στολὴν τὴν πρώτην) and throws a big party in his house.

When the party was already well under way, we’re told that the elder son is in the fields, - that is, outside the father’s house and outside the party and its music. Because that’s what he did. He worked and served his father, but somehow did not expect nor want to celebrate and enjoy the music of his father. When he learns what is going on in the house, he doesn’t want to go in. He’s even angry with his father, for celebrating with his disobedient brother.

Both sons initially treat the father not as a father, but more like a patron. It’s a joyless, transactional kind of relationship. “Give me,” is what the younger son has to say to his father in the beginning of the story. But he learns through his restlessness and the ensuing journey into hunger and suffering, to return and to say, “Make me…ποίησόν με, create me” (like one of your hired servants) – although the father interrupts him, before he can say this part. The older son, on the other hand, speaks to his father of the things he (the older son) does for Him, and how he “never transgressed,” unlike his brother, hence the elder son expects the father to provide a reward for him in return.

Meanwhile, the father takes joy in being a father, not a patron. The provocative aspect of this story is that it’s through leaving his father’s house (as a young man eventually should) that the younger son experiences growth, I mean, by making his own mistakes and coming to realize who he is (by “coming to himself”), and that is, a son with a Father; a child of a loving and compassionate God. Meanwhile, the older son, who never stopped working for his father, who never experienced either restlessness or famine or suffering, never grew out of an infantile attitude toward his parent. The older son never noticed the playfulness, if I could put it this way, of true, divine love. God wants us to celebrate with Him; to celebrate in His house, and when we work, to work in freedom and joy, throughout our ups and downs, as we grow through them in love and communion with Him.

This is the newness of Christ’s message: It’s not focused on a set of rules, which guarantee us a certain number of rewards from an impersonal patron, insofar as we keep these rules. When our risen Lord cooked breakfast on the coast of the sea of Galilee and served Peter, who had “fallen” by denying Him thrice, Christ did a similar thing to the father in this parable. Note that Christ also did not demand an apology from Peter. He just let Peter affirm that he loved Him, thrice. What a joy. Let’s joyously head toward Lent, and not be afraid to mess up in our Father’s house, even as our own mess-ups break our hearts. Let us recognize our broken hearts as hearts open to compassion, for ourselves and our brother or sister, who also might need our warm welcome in God’s house with us in it, His imperfect children. Happy week of the Prodigal Son, dear friends. Sorry this was long. xoxo

Hearing the Parable of the Prodigal Son

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

 

Have I Ever Really 'Heard' the Parable of the Prodigal Son?

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

As we move forward in the pre-lenten Sundays and the upcoming week of the Last Judgment (MATT. 25:31-46), perhaps we can "meditate" throughout this week on the Parable of the Prodigal Son from yesterday's Liturgy. When thought over deeply, we begin to understand how inexhaustible it really is!

This parable is chosen at this particular time in order to draw us toward repentance (Gk. metanoia); to remind us that Great Lent is the “school of repentance;” and that without repentance, our other “lenten efforts” become rather meaningless – if not spiritually dangerous. What will it take to convince us that we, too, need that “change of mind” and return to our heavenly Father that is the truest expression of living according to the Gospel?

As I ponder that question, I ask myself further: Have I ever really heard this parable in the way that Christ refers to “hearing?” And that would mean being shaken at the very core of my being. Am I only paying “lip service” to this greatest of the parables, as I listen to it as a wonderful short story that is exciting to analyze and discuss; but not quite capable of moving me any closer to genuine repentance? Again, these are the questions that come to my mind as I have heard this parable in the Liturgy for over forty years now as a priest.

Yet, if we have spent some time in analyzing the richness of this parable, then we realize that it is not only about the prodigal son, with the two other characters – the father and the older brother – acting in a clearly subordinate manner or for the sake of rounding out the story. They are both integral to the parable and hold equal weight as we try and grasp the parable as a whole. Without the father and the older son, the parable would suffer from a certain one-sidedness or incompleteness.

This is absolutely true when it comes to the very core meaning of the parable - which is repentance. We are deeply moved by the movement of the prodigal son toward his return to his father’s home. We first read of his journey to a “faraway country” and rapid and total decline wherein he wastes his inheritance in “loose living.” An all too-familiar tale. This is followed by a spiraling descent that has him longing for the pods that serve as food for the pigs he has been hired to tend. His re-ascent begins with his “coming to himself” after what must have been a painfully honest self-assessment of his stricken condition of estrangement from even basic human fellowship. This culminates in the thought of returning to his father and begging for mercy and the actual movement of “arising” and doing it.

None of this would have born any fruit, however, without the compassion and love of the prodigal son’s father who embodies the forgiveness that completes his repentance. If the father had been stern, or absorbed with his own sense of being offended; if he had chastised his son with the predictable and perhaps satisfying retort, “I told you so;” then the parable would collapse with an all too-human reaction that would be plausible but unworthy of the Gospel that Jesus came to proclaim. For the father of the parable is a figure of our heavenly Father’s compassion, love and forgiveness that Christ came to offer to all and every sinner. The father remains unforgettable as a “character” precisely because he confounds our expectations in his boundless love fully revealed by running out to his son, falling on his neck and kissing him. This is how the Father “Who is without beginning” acts toward his wayward creatures who have spent their inheritance – the “image and likeness” of God – in the faraway country of self-autonomy and the “swinish” fulfillment of the most base desires. Our repentance results in a cosmic joy that God shares with the angels and the preparation of the “banquet of immortality.”

The older son represents precisely that all too-human response referred to above of hurt feeling and an offended sensibility that leaves him insensitive to his repentant brother’s return and salvation. No matter how justified such a response would seem from our human perspective, it remains outside of the Gospel’s “transvaluation of values.”

This is our “invitation” to Great Lent offered to us by the Lord Jesus Christ: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (MATT. 4:17). To help us understand the beauty of that movement of repentance, the Lord delivers what just may be his “parable of parables,” the one we usually name after the prodigal son. So before we get out our lenten cookbooks, we must first really “hear” this parable and pray to God that He will direct and guide us toward true repentance. 

The lenten cookbook will not save us – but repentance will.

On Humility

Source: legacyicons.com

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

The theme of humility was "front and center" at the Liturgy last Sunday when we heard the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Lk. 18:10-14). The kontakion of the day reminds us of this in a very straightforward manner:

Let us flee from the pride of the Pharisee and learn humility from the Publican's tears. Let us cry to our Savior: Have mercy on us, O only-merciful One.

This prompted me to share some of the great insights into humility from St. John Klimakos (of the Ladder) during the homily. I am reproducing those passages here so that we could further reflect/meditate upon them this week; and for others who may not have been at the Liturgy this last Sunday.

_____

HUMILITY

From STEP 25 of the Ladder of Divine Ascent

St. John Klimakos

Where there is humility there will be no sign of hatred, no species of quarrelsomeness, no whiff of disobedience – unless of course some question of faith arises. The man with humility for his bride will be gentle, kind, inclined to compunction, sympathetic, calm in every situation, radiant, easy to get along with, inoffensive, alert and active. In a word, free from passion.

Holy humility has this to say: “The one who loves me will not condemn someone, or pass judgment on anyone, or lord it over someone else, or show off his wisdom until he has been united with me. A person truly joined to me is no longer in bondage to the law.

The person who asks God for less than he deserves will certainly receive more, as is shown by the publican who begged for forgiveness but obtained salvation (Lk. 18:10-14). And the thief asked only to be remembered in the kingdom, yet he inherited all.

_____

Though perhaps the most important words belong to the Lord himself, as we declares at the end of the parable: " ... for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

 

Pharisee and the Publican

 

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

Who Do I Resemble?

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

The Gospel reading yesterday at the Divine Liturgy — the first of the four pre-Lenten Sundays—is Luke 18:10-14. In it we discover our Lord’s parable of the Publican and the Pharisee.

As with all of the parables of Christ, we can understand this parable in two very different ways. We can listen to it carefully, reflect upon it through the course of the week, and discern what in the parable “speaks” to us today. Or we can take a “ho-hum” attitude—essentially forgetting the parable by the time we return home from the Liturgy—while moving on to the next distraction on our busy schedules (Super Sunday!), and conclude that the parable does not really apply to us anyway. Presented in such stark terms, I am not leaving you much of a choice! But even with the best of intentions, we need to remain vigilant. The mind strays ...

For those who actually “hear” the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, the first question that may arise is very basic: Do I resemble the Publican or the Pharisee in my attitude toward God and my neighbor? Other questions follow: Am I also afflicted with self-righteous pride, as was the Pharisee of the parable; or is my goal at least the slow and patient road of learning and practicing humility? Is the Church a society reserved for the pious; or is it a healing center for sinners? Then there is a blunt but honest question: Do I even care? Somewhat unusual for the parables is that the intention of this parable is clearly stated before Christ actually delivers it: “He also told this parable to some who trusted themselves that they were righteous and despised others” [Luke 18:9]. Is this a fair description of me when I enter the church on any given Sunday? If so, what could I possibly do to change such an attitude?

Even with the best of intentions, we could turn this great opportunity for “self-examination” into the ho-hum approach of selective forgetfulness or selective remembrance, wherein we forget the parable but remember the score of the Super Bowl - for weeks on end!

That would be a colossal example of a missed opportunity. Perhaps one way to spare everyone from the ho-hum approach would be to provide the insights of others during the week – Church Fathers or contemporary writers – on this parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. This way, at least the material that lends itself to meditation will be present, and then we can choose to avail ourselves of it – or not. I will try and provide some further material through the week.

A good beginning could be this passage from the Blessed Augustine: “How useful and necessary a medicine is repentance. People who remember that they are only human will readily understand this. It is written: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble….’ The Pharisee was not rejoicing so much in his own clean bill of health as in comparing it with the diseases of others. He came to the doctor. It would have been more worthwhile to inform him by confession of the things that were wrong with himself instead of keeping his wounds secret and having the nerve to crow over the scars of others. It is not surprising that the tax collector went away cured, since he had not been ashamed of showing where he felt pain.” 

From a time closer to our own, we read this from St. John of Kronstadt: "When taking into account our own virtues, do we include self-love or other unseemly motives that were in fact the true reason for our good deeds. The poison of sin has penetrated deeply into our souls, and, unbeknownst to us, its poisons almost all of our virtues. Is it not better to scrutinize oneself more often and more closely, and to notice our faults in the depths of our soul in order to correct them, rather than to display externally our virtues?"

When we contrast pride and humility; self-righteousness and honest self-examination; false piety and heartfelt repentance - which of these describes us the best?

St. Simeon & St. Anna

Source: stgeorge.org

 Dear Parish Faithful,

We recently chanted an Akathist Hymn to St. Simeon and St. Anna (based on Lk. 2:22-40). Akathist hymns are highly rhetorical, and display a very creative and imaginative way of reading the scriptural or historical events being recounted. Yet, they also convey a strong tendency to illuminate both doctrinal and moral teaching that are very much at the heart of our Orthodox Faith.

Be that as it may, at the end of the Akathist, this prayer was included. I find it a wonderful prayer that extends the particularity of honoring the holiness of these two NT saints, to include a very moving and general exhortation for embracing all children at all times, because the Son of God has sanctified childhood as the "Divine Child."

Saint Simeon, you received the Christ Child in your arms. Saint Anna, you stood alongside the Divine Child. We especially pray, therefore, that not only will we always recognize and receive Christ but that we will also be open to all children and attend to their needs. May married couples receive children into their lives and cherish them and raise them to believe in God. May single persons and the childless receive all children and protect them and nurture them. May we all become children of God and pray for one another and encourage one another in the Faith. Saint Simeon and Saint Anna, for this we pray and for this we thank you, and for your lives of holiness we praise you always. Amen.

Perhaps a prayer to periodically add to our Prayer Rule.