“This is the deep meaning of repentance: to accept the invitation of the loving father.”
The Preacher’s Workshop is a semimonthly blog showcasing homilies that exemplify excellence in rhetoric, exegesis, narrative, and imagery. This new resource for preachers is part of St. Vladimir’s Seminary's Compelling Preaching Initiative, which is generously sponsored by the Lilly Foundation.
This Lenten homily comes from the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Detroit YouTube channel. The description from the original recording reads, “February 20, 2011 -- Metropolitan Kallistos Ware delivers his sermon on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son in the presence of Metropolitan Nicholas at the Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Westland, MI.” A link to the video can be found below.
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What to Look For
- 1. Sermocinatio - The homily presents a faithfully imagined inner voice of both the prodigal son and the loving father. This creative expansion of themes already present in the parable makes the story more personal and relatable. The characters’ thoughts are expressed in terms that are contemporary and relatable. This invites the hearers to stand in the shoes of the prodigal son: his concerns are our concerns; his call to repentance is our call to repentance; and the welcome of his father is the welcome of our Heavenly Father.
- 2. Bold Call-to-Action - The Gospel of Jesus Christ includes a strong Call-to-Action. This homily repeatedly calls us to act: to repent, to come to a new hope, to make a new beginning, and to accept God’s loving embrace in humility and faith. Repentance is not just to see what is wrong. It is to see how, by God's grace, it might perhaps be set right.”
3. A Message of Hope - This homily was delivered at the beginning of Lent and gives a hopeful message to all those about to begin the fast, but the hope of God’s mercy and Christ’s resurrection sustains us all year long. The homily charges us to ask, “What do I mean to God?” The answer cuts to the truth of the matter: “We mean to God far, far more than ever we could imagine possible.” God is running towards us, God desires to be with us and to welcome us as sons and daughters of the Kingdom of Heaven.
“Sermon on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son”
by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware
As we are preparing for the forty days of the great fast, the Church sets before us the story of a feast to make us understand that the period of the fast is not just a time of gloom and sadness. That the fast is also a time of joy, of new hope, of freedom.
In fact, today’s gospel, the gospel of the prodigal son or the great feast, is exactly a gospel that speaks to us of the love of God, of His patience, of His forgiveness, of His joy when we return home.
Now often, when we are thinking of the story of the prodigal, we think primarily of the prodigal himself. We think of the three stages in his repentance.
First, he comes to himself. So we begin the repentance of the prodigal with a moment of self-understanding, when he realizes that he is alone, that he is in exile, that he is far from home, and he feels a great despair and loneliness. But that is not the fullness of repentance. Repentance is not just to see what is wrong. It is to see how, by God's grace, it might perhaps be set right.
And so the prodigal comes to a second stage in his repentance when he comes to new hope. He says to himself, “I could go home. I do not have to remain here alone in exile. I could return home again.” And that is the second stage in repentance: to come to new hope, to recognize that there is a possibility of making a fresh beginning.
But that is not enough. Just to have a feeling of hope, one must take a further stage forward. After feeling new hope, the prodigal proceeds to action. He gets up and goes home.
So there we see the meaning of repentance set before us as if in an icon. First, self-understanding—the realization of what is wrong. Second, new hope—the realization that things can be changed. And then thirdly, action.
But I would like us this morning to think not so much about the prodigal and his return. But let us think about another figure in the parable, and that is the loving father.
Notice in the parable how there is a double going out on the part of the father. We are told about the prodigal that while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion, and he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
So the father doesn’t just sit at home waiting for his prodigal son to return. The father—so we may imagine it—goes out each morning and scans the horizon, gazing with hope and eagerness. With the hope of seeing again coming back towards home a familiar figure, the figure of his son.
And then later in the story, the father goes out again. When the elder son will not come in to the feast, the father doesn’t just say, “Well, that’s his problem. We don’t care.” No, the father goes out a second time—this time to seek his elder son.
Now let us fix in our hearts very clearly the story of this double going out on the part of the loving father. God is seeking us far more than we are seeking Him. God does not just come out to meet us halfway; He comes out far more. If we take one step towards Him, He takes a hundred towards us.
So today’s gospel is not just a story of repentance; it is a story of the way in which our repentance is accepted. It is a story of the loving father and how he goes out in search of his child, and how he loves both his children—both the one that went astray and returned, and the one who remained at home.
Let us notice in the story that the father does not wait for the prodigal to say, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me like one of your hired servants.” The father will not let him finish the sentence. Immediately, unhesitatingly, he restores the exile to his sonship.
Nor is this all. The father not only accepts his son back, not only restores him to his inheritance, but he accepts him back with an unbounded, all-embracing joy. “Bring out the robe,” he says, “Put on the ring. The dead have come back to life. Let us feast.”
So what we see vividly in today’s gospel is not just the repentance of the prodigal, but the love of the father—love without limits.
Now the question before each one of us as we begin Lent is not just, “What does God mean to me?” We should reverse the question: “What do I mean to God?” And the answer is very much indeed. We mean to God far, far more than ever we could imagine possible.
The meaning of today’s parable, the message written on every page of Holy Scripture is this: God loves us.
Let us prepare for Lent by thinking of our sins, yes indeed, but far more profoundly, let us begin by renewing our sense of divine love.
It is said of the prodigal, “While he was yet far off…” Is that not true of us? We are far off from our true home. But God runs out to meet us; He puts His arms around us; He unites us to our home; He invites us into the feast. So this is the deep meaning of repentance: to accept the invitation of the loving father.
We are grateful to the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Detroit and the estate of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware for permission to transcribe this wonderful homily.
Please watch the YouTube recording here.
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Illustration by James O’Brien
