Tag: sin

The Prodigal Son

The Prodigal Son

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous

Luke 15

The prodigal son- the most beautiful of the parables. This parable came at a time when sinners were gathering around Christ. The Pharisees and Scribes were seeing this and thought to themselves, “this Man gathers sinners together and eats and drinks with them.”

Every word that follows is in response to their judgement. The son comes to the father and asks for his inheritance. The father does not say no, nor does he try to challenge him. He respects his freedom entirely. He not only gave away the inheritance that his son asked for but he allowed him to sell his inheritance.

In the Jewish Michener – one of the writings of the Rabbis on the interpretation of the law – it was permissible to give a child their inheritance before the father passed away, but never could you sell it before the father passed away. The son goes in haste, within days, and sells his entire inheritance. What shame this would have brought upon his father in the eyes of the entire community.

At the time that this happened, the prodigal son’s actions were the equivalent of him saying to his father, “I wish you were dead.” The son did the unthinkable, but we observe how the father reacted in complete respect for his freedom. Christ also demonstrates in this parable a completely different take on sin and sinners. The sin was not the mark of somebody that had made a mistake. It’s not a cross that was put against someone’s name. It was not a catalogue of sins that the sinner would have to account for, one by one. On the contrary, it was a broken relationship – moving away from the unity with God. The son humiliated the father, left him and went as far away as possible.

An old Jewish tradition was called the Kezazah shaming. When a Jewish person lost their inheritance to the Gentiles, they would be greeted with the Kezazah shaming upon their return to their village. The people would get pots and fill them with burnt corn and nuts and break these pots as the person returned to their village. While they did this, they would shout repeatedly, “you are cut off.” It was intended to be a deterrent so that a person would be extra careful with their family’s land.

The prodigal son knew the shame that would befall him if he returned because his immediate action was to tend to the pigs. Pigs were not a kosher food and would not be kept by Jews. The prodigal son must have been working for Gentiles as far away from his father’s home as possible.

And yet, the father never forgot the son; he remained watchful. Christ portrays the image of the father standing in the middle of the village square with his eyes fixated on the entrance. The prodigal son was the last of three parables Christ taught about the lost in response to the judgement of His dining with sinners. He starts with the good shepherd that lost one of his 100 sheep, the good woman that lost a coin and ends with the good father that lost his son. All three are symbols of Christ. The heroes of the parables are those that find the lost and rejoice.

The hero of the parable of the prodigal son is the father. Christ is telling us that He is the father, He is always watching and waiting for the son that has wasted his inheritance. We look at the son who became a herder of pigs whose only food was the food of the pigs. We read that he realises the state he is in and says,” I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:18-19). He doesn’t say, “I will go and be a slave,” but a, “paid servant.” He wants to go back and earn what he lost. He knows that the Kezazah shaming is what awaits him and he knows he has a lot to make up for. The son was not searching for mercy and repentance, his mind was not on the broken relationship but on the lost money. Christ was teaching us that no father truly care more about the money that was lost over the broken relationship with his son. Christ is saying to us, “When you sin, you haven’t lost My money, you haven’t discarded something of Mine but you have broken your relationship with Me.” This is what sin is.

The son returns to the father that has been waiting all along. The father who is Christ, the One who eats with sinners, who yearns to repair every broken relationship. The actions of the father depict Christ’s love for the sinner. The father runs to his son after waiting day after day for the son that has shamed him. We read, “But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). He was inwardly moved with compassion. Christ is inwardly moved with compassion for every sinner that returns.

The father ran to his son, possibly to stop the Kezazah ceremony from even commencing. Running for a wealthy middle eastern man was shameful, they would never run in public. Yet, he ran, he humiliated himself for the sake of the son. He embraces and kisses the son before he could even open his mouth. This is Christ speaking to his children. This is Christ’s feeling for the sinner that returns in repentance. He embraces him even before he repents. The son could only manage the beginning of his speech – ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ Before he can say, “make me like one of your hired workers,” he stops. He doesn’t need to say those words, he doesn’t need to earn back his inheritance for his father that has accepted him back. The relationship is healed. The father embraces him and overlooks his weakness. This is Christ self-emptying for us – a son that has rejected Him and wasted his inheritance and come only because he was hungry, but Christ overwhelms us with His love.

Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Ravenna in the 5th century says, “The father fell on his neck and kissed him. This is how the father judges and corrects his wayward son and gives him not beatings but kisses. The power of love overlooked the transgression. The father redeemed the sins of his son by his kiss and covered them by his embrace in order not to expose the crimes or humiliate the son. The father so healed the son’s wounds as not to leave a scar or a blemish upon him. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and his sins are covered.”

Not only does the father return the son to his original state, but he elevates him for joy for his son who was dead was now alive. This is the nature of who Christ is. He created us out of the super abundance of his love so that we could be with him and we could be united with Him.

Finally, we see how the older son complains after a hard day of labouring in the field to return back to the festivities for his brother. He says to the father, “these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him’” (Luke 15:29-30).

Again, we see the nature of Christ when dealing with the older son. He pleads with him to return, gently encouraging him to share his compassion. He doesn’t condemn him for being judgmental nor scold him. He gently pleads that he becomes more like him, and share in his joy to have his son back. Christ calls us to love the way He loves. To seek the healing of our brothers and sisters and nothing else. All Christ wants is to shower us with His mercy. We were never just statistics of sin, but temples for His dwelling out of the super abundance of His love.

When they accused Christ of eating with His sinners, this is how He responded to show Himself as the father, sinners as the younger son and those that condemned Him as the older son. St Isaac the Syrian says, “among all of God’s actions, there is none which is not entirely a matter of mercy love and compassion.”

God is not waiting to pass or fail us depending on our actions. He waits to hear from us and to bring us to perfection. How then can we not turn him? How then can we not confess? How then can we not run team recognising that we have broken our relationship to him? Knowing that He is ready to forgive and heal us of all sin. May we all know who Christ is in the deepest recesses of our hearts.

Filling the Gaps

Filling the Gaps

by Bethany Kaldas

‘When You said, “Seek My face,”

My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”’

Psalm 27:8

I know a lot of regular people who think they are terrible human beings—I’m sure you do too. You might even be one of them. It’s easy to understand why. After all, we get front row seats to our own misdeeds, every cutting remark, every envious thought or impure desire. If we look at humanity in general, we see selfishness and greed sown into almost every action, every word, and when we dare to look within, we can see the monstrous weeds those seeds grow into.

Lately, I find myself asking: Why do people do evil in the first place? If I’m being perfectly candid with you, it was my own sin that inspired such a question. I constantly find myself in the dilemma Paul captured so perfectly, of doing what he willed not to do and not doing what he willed to do, but in my own life. I follow impulses I know will end badly, boarding trains of thought destined for ruin. And I find myself asking—why? Why do I do these things?

I know, I know—we’re selfish. I’ve asked this question before and that’s the answer I most commonly receive. Humans are innately selfish, we’ve evolved to put ourselves first. But even if that’s true, I still don’t think that can fully explain sin. After all, some—perhaps most or even, all—sins are really sins against ourselves more than anyone else. Especially in modern times, we’re constantly doing things we know are bad for us. We are not only enemies to each other, but our own worst enemies too. And a lot of the time, we know that very well.

So…why? And Where does it come from?

‘Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.’

James 4:1-3

We have a desire that is not sated, a longing not fulfilled. This verse from James implies it is a desire for pleasure—and I do not deny that at all—but if pleasure really is the missing piece, then why are we not fulfilled by sin? Why does the glutton not stop once he has cleaned out his fridge? Why don’t the proud content themselves with the admiration of their loved one, instead of continuing to demand it of strangers? If pleasure was what we needed, then sin should be self-defeating—once we have sinned, we should sin less. So why does reality tell us the opposite?

‘You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’

St Augustine of Hippo

I want to say that every human who ever lived has been seeking God their whole lives—every single one. Just wait—hear me out.

We were made in the image of God—in the image of Love Himself. Naturally, all those made in His image seek love. Surely that is easy enough to accept—there’s not a person out there who doesn’t need to be loved, it’s just part of what we are.

But we are fallen—we are broken. We are full of cracks and holes and we want nothing more than to fill them—but our image is distorted, deformed. We are filled with a desperate need…but we do not remember what it is for.

And so, we search.

 

‘And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.’

C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

We seek to be filled, so we overeat, or eat the wrong things, or abuse the planet and each other in the hopes of finding something that will satiate our empty hearts.

We seek to be strong, so we demean others, or force ourselves over them, or spit on them, we hate them, we murder them with words and works.

We seek to be happy, so we act rashly for short-term gain and long-term loss, we follow our instincts and impulses, blind guides that promise a thrill but leave us empty and more broken than we began.

We seek to be loved and to love, and so we lust, we lie, we flirt and demand attention—wherever we can find it, even if we know it will end in heartbreak and even deeper loneliness.

We seek to be valuable, so we puff up, we focus on ourselves, we neglect our kin, we envy others, we sabotage them, we sabotage ourselves and then expect pity and wallow in the dread that nobody cares.

I say these of myself first and foremost, but I believe most, if not all, of us can sympathise.

If you take any sin, and you look at it hard—you dig deep down to the roots, I think you’ll find that sin is not, in fact, a desire for evil. It is hamartia—it is ‘missing the mark.’ It is a misplaced, misremembered, deformed desire for the only One Who can fulfil that desperate yearning…it is a desire for all God is, but without God Himself. It is a failure to remember that He is what we need—that He is our Beloved, that He is our satisfaction, our strength, our joy, our love and value. He is everything—He is oureverything. But we forget, we seek Him without Him—we seek after gifts, forgetting the Giver, forgetting that it was Him, and nothing else, that we actually need.

‘Man is a hungry being. But he is hungry for God. Behind all the hunger of our life is God. All desire is finally a desire for Him.’

Alexander Schmemann (For the Life of the World)

Consider even the very first sin of man. Was the great crime of Eden disobedience? Was it gluttony? Lust for power? Was it the desire to be like God?

No, it could not be—we are calledto be like God—it is the goal of a Christian life. That wasn’t the problem. The desire to be like God is only an issue when you want to do it apart from God Himself.

Alexander Schmemann goes on to describe the forbidden fruit as such in his book, For the Life of the World:

‘Not given, not blessed by God, it was food whose eating was condemned to be communion with itself alone, and not with God.’

Alexander Schmemann (For the Life of the World)

The nature of sin has not changed. The brokenness of humanity is not only the holes we now bear, but our desperation to fill them with all the wrong things. Our hearts are all fractured—if someone says otherwise, they are in the worst denial. Sin is like trying to fix a broken mirror by shoving a wooden plank into the cracks—it only makes the holes bigger, it only distorts the image further.

We all desire to be whole, but it is not possible to be whole without Him—because He is the piece of us that is missing. Perhaps, if we recognise this, we will be one step closer to actually searching for Him. And when we do, we find Him waiting, with open arms, full of all those things we need to be whole again…because it was always Him.

 

‘O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;

You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;

Yes, I have a good inheritance.’

Psalm 16:5-6

Facing Reality (Barriers to Repentance)

Barriers to Repentance 7/7

Facing Reality

by Shery Abdelmalak

If I am accountable to my own standards then I am righteous in my own eyes. Where was this logic adhered to? Judges – a time of utter chaos. By accepting this logic, we choose internal chaos over the healing of repentance, since our sins must first be brought to light before we can be healed.

Humans are creatures of habit and of routine. Change is a scary thing for us all. Sometimes we even prefer to accept our sins than to overcome them. We choose to remain in our human states than to pursue the heavenly. We choose to be waves of the ocean, tossed back and forth, lacking stability and a firm foundation. We must look to be righteous in God’s eyes, and pursuing His standards and not our own.

“I can’t repent because I don’t remember my sins”

Pray to remember. We are held to our own standards and it is our duty to expose our sins for the purposes of overcoming them. To him who knows good and does not do it, to him it is sin (James 4:17). We are not called to live an indifferent life. We are called to sanctification. If those around you do not see a difference between you and others, then something is wrong. Pray for your weaknesses and your sins to be revealed to you. Something as simple as eating a meal would cause tears of repentance in Abba Isidore. He says,“I am ashamed of myself because, being a rational being, I eat the food of an irrational creature; I desire to live in Paradise where I shall enjoy the food that is imperishable.”Abba Isidore knew that there was always something higher than him and repented for things that none of us would classify as sin.

“Spiritual life is too hard. Why do I have to give up so many of things that I love?”

Don’t go looking for weaknesses without first arming yourself with Christ. HH Pope Shenouda III says, “You reveal your weaknesses to obtain power from him. You reveal with regret all your sins, then He will grant you Absolution and forgiveness.” You are choosing to fight a losing battle if you do it alone. If this is the case, then your reluctance is a given. Arm yourself with Christ. Empty yourself and you will be filled with all strength and knowledge to withstand the wiles of the devil.

“But I know myself. I know how God made me. I can’t change that.”

If this does not implore you to repentance then how could you truly know yourself? If you knew yourself, you would recognise your worth can only come from the One that dwells within. Delve deeper and see your true self. It makes no sense by human logic that looking for flaws could be joyful but God doesn’t play by our rules. In Him, our weaknesses are turned into perfect strength.

A monk once asked the Abbot of the monastery to pray for him as he was struggling to overcome the devil. The abbot then spoke to the devil about this monk…

“Please go easy on this servant. He is struggling greatly with the temptations you have you put before him.”

“Who? I haven’t been anywhere near him.”

There are two keys things to note from this interaction.

  1. The monk that claimed he was fighting against the devil was really fighting his own will.
  2. The abbot of the monastery was in communication with the devil. He had a relationship with the devil.

The fight against the devil will only commence when we fight against our own wills and desires. Otherwise, the devil will not waste his time on you. The true tragedy in our spiritual lives is when the devil makes no effort to fight us at all. Only when our weaknesses and sins are given over to God in true repentance, will the devil ever validate our spirituality by giving us any form of challenge in temptation.

To have a relationship with God is one thing, to have a relationship with the devil is a whole new level. When the Jews saw the works of St Paul and St Peter that even their handkerchiefs and aprons were enough to heal the sick and exorcize evil spirits, they began to imitate their actions.

“We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches!”

“Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”  The devils answered, before overpowering them and prevailing against them so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded (Acts 19:15).

The devil will only make himself known to those who fight in repentance to be near to our God.

St Athanasius recounts the struggles St Anthony faced during his time in the desert;

“Straightaway phantasms of this kind caused a phantom earthquake, and they tore apart the four corners of the house, and entered into it in a body from all sides. One had the form of a lion, another had the appearance of a wolf, another was like a panther, and all the others were in the forms of serpents, vipers, and scorpions. The lion was roaring as a lion roars when he is about to slay; the bull was ready to gore him with his horns; the panther was prepared to spring upon him; and the snakes the vipers were hissing.”

Reading this, knowing would be more than enough to scare anyone away from a life of spiritual struggle. Not for the one that is filled with Christ. At this moment, he laughed. St Athanasius continues, “The blessed man Anthony was not disturbed by their commotion, and his mind remained wholly undisturbed.”

St Anthony was filled completely with Christ, even to the very cells that comprised his being. He was not his own. He belonged wholly and completely to Christ. He had the authority of Christ trample under foot serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enemy.

The devil doesn’t fight fair. Lucky for us, neither does God. For while we were still sinners, He died upon the Cross for our salvation (Romans 5:8). How could routine ever compare to a life with Christ? Let us pray to overcome routine and face the reality of our weaknesses so that Christ may dwell in our hearts and minds. Glory be to God forever, Amen.

In the Tomb

Lead me to the Cross

In the Tomb

by Andrew Massiha

So you’ve probably just came out of the Good Friday service, ready to smash down anything you can get your hands on after not eating the whole day. The holiest week has come down to this. Abouna leaves us with the final psalm, “I lay down and slept.” What next? How do I sustain my spiritual life?

Let’s go back one step, to the final church rite on Good Friday which is the burial of Christ.The burial begins with the deacons singing the famous hymn, ‘Golgotha.’The tune of this beautiful hymn originates from the times of the pharaohs and this was the tune they used to bury their kings with. The church, in its wisdom, combines our heritage with our faith and uses this tune in the burial of Christ with words which explain the events that have taken place on Good Friday. Whilst the hymn is being chanted, Abouna has prepared before him a white cloth filled with red rose petals and an icon of the burial. He places the icon of the burial on the flower peddles and then puts fragrances and spices and wraps the cloth. He then places two candles or lamps on either side to symbolise the angels that were present at the burial, one at the Head of Christ and one at the feet.

So now that we know the events that have just taken place, what can we, as Christians, make of all this?

The first thing we ought to do is understand the significance of what a burial is. We know that a burial is the time when someone is put to rest as they have departed from this world. The weight of our sin has been lifted so we bury our sin and await our resurrected form in Christ our Saviour. The old has passed away and He is making a new creation out of us all. He is willing and able to change our sinfulness into righteousness, depending on what we are prepared to let go of. This Good Friday, what are you still holding on to? What stands in the way of you and theresurrection? During this time of burial, we must strive to hear the voice of our Lord saying, “Arise, go your way; your faith has made you well”(Luke 17:19).

We make a choice at thetime of burial. Do we choose to remain in the death of the tomb, with our sin, or do we strive for the glorious resurrection to come? We can leave Good Friday at, “I lay down and slept,”or we can strive to rise and carry on –“I awoke for the Lord sustained me!”

Let us therefore strive to leave the tomb with Christ,with our sins buried,and with our hearts filled with joy because the sin of man has been conquered and death has been destroyed!

The burial is the time that Christ overcomes the perils of sin. Those three days are crucial. For starters, if Christ was to immediately rise there would be speculation of whether He had diedor not. Beyond this, there is aprocess that our Lord completed before the resurrection could occur.During this time, Jesus firstenters Hadesand defeats Satan, taking with Him the souls of the righteous. We were finally able to enter His Eternal Kingdom.

We need to remember the process that Jesus took so that we cannot be so harsh on ourselves when we are trapped by a certainsin. Sometimes,we may have the perception that if we pray, if we fast,if we do 500 metanias, the sin will HAVE to go away. This is not always the case. There is a process. Just as Christ had to go through a process in Hades to defeat the devil and all his traps set against us, we too,as Christians should learn a key lesson from this, that is, to understand the sin that I am fighting will take time to overcome. There will be ups and downs, but I have assurance in that Christ conquered death and the devil so there will be victory, no matter how unlikely in seems in the moments of shame of sins committed and repeated.

Good Friday gives us the extra push we need to leave our sins on the Cross and be made new. The questionsI must ask myself are, at the completion of Good Friday, has all holiness departed from me? If your final day is tomorrow, would you be prepared to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Are you spiritually ready to depart from thisworld just as Christ was ready, or is there something in this world still holding you back? Our Salvation came at a price. Time and effort for genuine repentance and prayer are what is required of me to be prepared for the resurrection that follows the burial.The resurrection is so close now and we must be sure that we rise a new creation!

May the burial of Christ remind us of the love God has for us, that He was willing to die on the Cross, rescue us from Hades and give us salvation through His Blood, to complete His creation, that is, you and me alike.