The Recklessness of Youth

   We have comparatively few in our congregation who would fall into the age bracket of today’s Prodigal. 

For those of us who have crossed that threshold and been in that situation, we’ll no doubt remember some things that today we find troubling.  Then we used the word “carefree.”  Today, we’d couch the attitude to be careless!  We were “fun loving” when we should have been sober minded.  We thought we would live forever, only to find that our best friends began to perish around us, leaving us devoid of friendship in years when we perhaps need it the most.  And so today we mistakenly think we have the wisdom of the ages while we continue to live lives that remain focused on self, on wants, on consumption.

We were prodigals then, and we remain prodigals now.  Let’s again go to definitions:

prodigal: adj, rashly or wastefully extravagant.

Yes, that pretty much describes me, along with most of the generation that I grew up with, who by the grace of God remain living and breathing on this earth.

How do we (I) differ from the youth in today’s Gospel?  I dare say not by very much.  He was selfish.  So am I.  He was wed to the pleasures of the world.  So am I.  He was self-serving.  So am I.  He didn’t see the love given him by those closest to him.  Nor do I.  He recklessly squandered the good things his Father gifted to him.  So have I.  Indeed, not much separates us from one another!

Until, that is, when extreme hardship hits.  Unlike him, I am not in peril of dying from hunger.  And yet, with all the trouble and hardship we see in the world, do we not understand (yet) that it doesn’t take very much to lay waste to all the ‘good’ that surrounds us?  A year ago, Ukraine was a beautiful land, with many spiritual resources, a prosperous economy, safety in the homes and streets.  Now, much is laid waste.  Several days ago, Turkey was operating ‘normally.’  In one ‘natural disaster,’ over 25,000 are dead, families torn asunder, with poverty, homelessness, hunger, and disease now the order of the day.

The Prodigal had his world fall apart on him as well.  When it happened, there were two possible paths for him to take: 1) to continue to live in misery and want; 2) to repent and admit guilt over the way of life he’d chosen, and to go home.

Turkey is a study in how fast things around us can change.  Ukraine is a study in sin eroding the morals of a society that was once focused on love, but now on hate—a situation that can only be remedied by repentance, the repentance of fellow Orthodox Christians on both sides!

The Father in today’s parable is the single greatest example our Lord has given us on how we should view our heavenly Father.  He is the definition of love.  He loves us so much that He gives us leave to live as we choose, so that we might, like the Prodigal, “come to our senses” and return to Him, to seek Him in that same repentant state, not asking for anything more than to be a servant—the state we should have embraced as our own from the beginning.  For truly, there IS no higher calling than this!