Content: General Introduction.

The sower. The wheat and tares. The seed that grows secretly. The mustard seed. The leaven. The treasure hidden in the field. The pearl. The net.

The Good Shepherd. The lost sheep and the lost drachma. The prodigal son. The publican and the pharisee.

The unmerciful debtor. The good samaritan. The unjust steward. The rich man and Lazarus. The rich but imprudent man. The minas. The talents. The Builder of the Tower and the King Preparing for War. The friend who asked for bread, and the unjust judge. The evil husbandmen. The barren fig tree. The marriage feast. The laborers who received the same wages. The ten virgins. The servants awaiting the coming of their Lord.

Since the time of the primitive Christian Church, parable has been the term for a story told by the Lord Jesus Christ to illustrate His teaching. The Greek root-word, parabole, means comparison. So a parable is a spiritual lesson of a story developed by comparison to everyday life. The Lord's parables draw memorable details from nature, human, social, economic, or religious life of His time. Characteristically, all oral teachers of the eastern cast of mind teach by comparisons and riddles, using homely images to stir curiosity and reflection. So His parables use images from life in this world to discover spiritual truth.

The Savior also told sacred insights in parables for three practical reasons. First, His parables were hard for many listeners to grasp, but His listeners could recall the vivid details from ordinary life long enough to discover the wisdom behind the allegory. Second, the Lord Jesus Christ told parables to make men expect a double meaning, and to make them want to discover the fullness of the divine plan for their conversion. Because the Church and Kingdom that our Lord founded differ so sharply from the Jewish expectation of the Messiah at that time, that the Lord's teaching had to be cautious and indirect. His parables use allegory to compare the recognizable world to the start, development, mixed character, and final triumph of Church and Kingdom. What may seem simple to us, of course, was a intriguing riddle to His contemporaries. And third, the Lord used the parable format because His followers could not readily forget or misinterpret the commonpiace images. The parable format preserves the purity of Christ's teaching in distinct but evocative images.

Narrative parables have another advantage over oral lecturing. Parables teach how to live by divine law both in private and in public. Christ's parables have lost no clarity, immediacy, or beauty during 20 centuries across many civilizations in many translations. In all settings, His parables show the unified spiritual and physical worlds.

"Books and words, created quite recently, yesterday and the day before," writes Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, "have become outdated, have fallen into nonexistence. They no longer say anything to us; they are dead. But these ingenuous stories, so simple in appearance, live on, full of life. We listen to them, and it is as if something happens with us, as if someone has glanced into the very depth of our life and said something which relates only to us, to me."

The Lord's parables have Old Testament traditional roots, uttered with the perfection and beauty on the lips of the God-Man. The parable of the prodigal son, for example, touches on people in all times and places. Our careful interpretation distinguishes its essential and accidental details. The typical parable teaches one truth that may be shared by other parables. A few parables have several truths to teach.

Most parables try to describe the Heavenly Father or the Lord Jesus Christ in His historical mission or in His future glory. Parables with two main characters usually show the Father and the Son. The Father's love in sending His Son is the main teaching of the Lord Jesus. The parables disclose the new Kingdom that God plans for the world.

Differing scholars may count all the parables as between 27 and 50 in number. One scholar may call a parable what another calls a metaphor. One can also count them in terms of the three periods of the Savior's earthly ministry. The first group has the parables told by Christ soon after the Sermon on the Mount, between the second and third Passovers of His ministry. This first group tells about conditions for spreading and strengthening the Kingdom of God: the parables of the sower, of the tares, of the seed growing secretly, of the mustard seed, of the pearl of great price, and others.

The Lord Jesus Christ told His second group of parables toward the end of the third year of His ministry. These parables tell of God's love and kindness toward repentant people. Here belong the parables of the lost sheep, the prodigal son, the unmerciful servant, the good Samaritan, the fool-hardy rich man, the wise builder, the unrighteous judge, and others.

He told His third group of parables not long before His Passion on the Cross. They speak of God's kindness and man's accountability before God. These parables also foretell Christ's Second Coming, the Dreaded Judgment, the punishment that will befall unbelievers, and the reward of eternal life that will befall the righteous. Here are the parables of the fruitless fig tree, the wicked husbandmen, the great supper, the talents, the ten virgins, the laborers in the vineyard, and certain others.

The first group of parables sets out Christ's teaching on the Church is mission and the Kingdom of Heaven among men. His Church started on earth as the 12 Holy Apostles and His other close followers. After the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles on the day of Pentecost, the Church spread quickly wherever the apostles preached. The Church is not limited by territory, nationality, culture, language, or anything else. God's spiritual power penetrates and abides in the souls of men, lighting their minds and consciences, and directing their wills toward good. In the parables, members of Christ's Church are called "sons of the Kingdom." They differ from unbelievers and unrepentant sinners, who are called "sons of the Evil One" by Christ. Ideal missionary conditions for strengthening the Kingdom of God in men are found in the parables of the sower, the tares, the seed growing secretly, the mustard seed, the leaven, and the treasure hidden in the field,the pearl and the net.

The Lord Jesus Christ told the parable of the sower from a boat. The parable appears in the 13^th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew and in parallel places in the Gospels according to Mark and Luke. The Lord was preaching from a boat to a crowd of people on the shore of the Sea of Galilee so that He could be heard better. The parable of the sower, the first of Christ's parables in time, is a prophecy of how mankind accepts the Gospel is good tidings in different ways, and how this Gospel acts differently on them, depending on the condition of their souls. The Evangelist Matthew sets forth this parable, thus:

The parable of the sower has the Lord Himself to interpret it. The Sower is Jesus Christ; the seed is the Word of God. The ground is the human heart. The good heart is the fruitful earth, but the evil heart choked by sins is the earth that is good for nothing. From the Scriptures, we learn that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). So Christ sowed the word of God everywhere in the villages and towns, and in the deserts, and on the sea. He chose His apostles so that they too would sow the Word of God. The apostles appointed their successors - the bishops and presbyters who continue the missionary labor of spreading of sowing the Word of God until this day.

The Church on earth continues the work of Christ. It sows in our hearts the Word of God. When the living Word of God is sown in this sinful nature of fallen man, a new life springs up. All men have some strength to receive the Word of God. True Christian life is constant work on the conversion of one's own heart, to prepare the ground in oneself to receive the seed. Men can differ in how they approach this task.

Concerning the parable of the sower, let us consider the words of Bishop Theophan the Recluse-each "judge for himself as to which category he belongs." Some people are inattentive and scattered without reverence for the Word of God. Their hearts are like a beaten path, where no good fruit can grow, because the seed of the Divine Word is strewn onto the ground of a coarse soul, trodden by passions, vice, and evil thoughts.

These souls are beaten paths, open to all distractions and commerce, always craving new amusements. Such people let their good thoughts be trampled by a new curiosity. When they may read or hear the Word of God, the enemy of our salvation comes to them secretly, just as the holy, righteous John of Kronstadt says "like a thief in the house of a careless homeowner, he carries away the Word of God from their hearts, so that they would not believe and be saved." Such people let the Word of God vanish.

Some of them hear the Word of God for a while, sensitive to anything good, but they take the Word into their minds but not into their hearts. Their surfaces have no depth, and their surface religion is seed wasted along the highway, unable to take root. They attend to the Word of God so that in favorable times, they believe; in misfortune, they betray their faith. They do not want to change their lives, to make them worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. They tolerate no "unseen warfare," on the "narrow path" of the Church Fathers. When adversity comes, they throw off their cross and they fall into despair, impatience, and murmuring. And their unrooted Word of God is torn and uprooted, never really sown in the ground of their hearts.

The seeds that fall among the thorns die too, are choked of life by people immersed in time and possessions. Their times are not to blame, their passion for time and possessions is. Such people may hear and understand the Word of God, and take it to heart, until care or temptation attacks them. They torment the Word of God that is cramped and choked in their hearts. No fruit of eternal life can grow because these people are worldly. The Word of God speaks of blessedness in heaven, but these people want distractions and comforts here and now: "We shall receive the good things of heaven someday. But the world is giving its good things to us now." Some may even understand that repentance is necessary, but they put it off: "We shall repent, we shall prepare for old age," they think, "but let us seize the days of pleasures here already." They forget that in old age they have neither strength nor opportunity.

Christ says that "only he that endureth to the end shall be saved" (Matthew 10:22). The seed that falls on good ground falls amid people who hear the Word of God, take it and keep it, resolve to follow it, and to offer their fruit of good deeds. Having learned the fullness of truth, they listen to its Word and serve it. These people follow the witness of Apostle Paul: "For not the hearers of the law. but the doers of the law shall be justified"(Romans 2:13).

In the Mystery of the Eucharist, the priest elevates the bread and wine, saying to God: "Thine own of Thine we offer unto Thee!" That is, "That which is Thine, we offer unto Thee!" So the parable of the sower also touches on "the mysteries of the Kingdom of God."

To understand this mystery, one's direction of mind and will must look to the mystery, and one's heart be disposed to accept it. The Word of God, the Seed spoken of in the parable, is part of us just as the Divine Word (the Logos) Christ is related to the Father, as "His Only begotten, Who with Him constitutes One" (John 10:30) and Who coexists with Him "from the beginning" (John 8:25). Just as the "Son lives by the Father" (John 6:57) and no one can come unto the "Father except through the Son" (John 14:6), and "he who has seen the Son sees the Father as well" (John 14:9), "for the Son has told us everything that He heard from the Father" (John 15:15).

The Word of God in the Gospel, sown by Christ in our hearts, is not foreign to us, not an alien book to study outwardly. The Gospel is life in God, present at our conception by the power of the Holy Spirit, which makes us conformable to God and more God-like. The Gospel is not information about strange events recorded by the apostles. The Gospel is the Word of God that explains kinship and communion with God to the human soul.

The Gospel makes the human soul recognize the voice of its Creator, its Heavenly Father, in its own heart. In the language of philosophy, the Word of God is immanent in us; that is, it is "in us, with us, and not outside of us" and not alien to us although it exceeds our mental grasp. The seed of the Kingdom of God sown in us, springs up, and grows mysteriously. Scripture says that a man "sleeps and gets up night and day and does not know how the Kingdom of God springs up in him" (Mark 4:27). The seed springs up in him unnoticed, miraculous. We cannot tell whether the seed increases by 30-fold, by 60-fold or by 100-fold. We know only that when our heart begins to burn, as within the disciples at Emmaus, that the Lord Himself is opening our mind to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:32), introducing His Kingdom to us.

In place of the desire to learn from the Gospel about God, our hearts begins to learn about Him from within our own hearts, showing that the seed has brought forth fruit. We cannot judge the quantity or quality of fruit borne from the seed in us, but we know that all the fruits from Him are too many to return to Him.

In the rhythm of the return to God the Father, the Son of Man on the Cross, summed up His earthly life: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!" In the Liturgy, when we pray for the sending down of the divine grace, we cry out: " Thy own of Thine own we offer unto Thee!"

Regarding the fruits of the seed of the Kingdom of Heaven, God says thus to man: "My son, give me thine heart!" (Proverbs 23:26). That is, "All that thou hast, O man, thy gifts and talents, thy deeds and thoughts and feelings, all that thou lovest and believest in, that is thy whole life, thy whole heart, give this back to Him Who gave it Thee." But we must give back to God pure thoughts and feelings, pure love and faith, a pure life and an immaculate heart. Following the psalmist, we make ready to say: "Ready is my heart, O God, ready is my heart" (Psalm 57:7).

But how do we prepare the heart, make it ready to receive the seed, the Word of God? The parable of the sower concludes with the words "He who hath ears to hear, let him hear!" Using these words, the Lord knocks at the heart of each man, asking each man to look into his soul, to know what group of people in the parable he belongs to.

In the parable of the sower, Christ asks everyone to receive the Word of God with all his being, to receive it into a pure and good heart. Apostle Paul said of himself: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

So that the Word of God might put forth deep roots in our hearts, we must prepare the ground of our heart like the wise farmer, clearing earth of thorns and weeds that hinder the good fruit. By repentance we free the Word of God to clear sins and to uproot evil from our hearts. The Word of God "through a Divine change" regenerates the very nature of Men, according to the holy Gregory the Theologian.

The parable of the sower shows that God does not save a man without participation of the man himself. The Lord puts His life-creating Word into the man's mind. The man must open his heart, accept the Word into it, and bring forth its fruit. In the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father," we repeat the words "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." And Christ answers this hope: "The kingdom of God is within you." This kingdom that we want, according to Christ's word, is gained only by exertion. The Lord awaits action by man, man's service to God and his neighbor, and man's pursuit of his own personal perfection.

The parable of the sower and the seed shows how the Word of God affects men differently, eliciting different responses. Jesus Christ's next parable-the wheat and the tares - speaks of the fourth part of the seed that falls on good ground, and how the enemy of man's salvation tried hard to blast the seed and the fruit in this good ground. This parable speaks about the origin of evil to people perplexed by temptation in the Church and by schism and falling away from the Church. Here is how the Evangelist Matthew sets forth this parable:

Having told this parable, Christ explains to the apostles and us that the sower of the good seed is the Son of Man, that is, the Lord Himself. His enemy is the devil Satan, the sower of the tares; the field is the world of His Church. The good seeds are the sons of the Kingdom, the children of the Church, in whom the Word of God has taken root in the heart, and rendered them into God's wheat, to gather into heaven, which is the Kingdom of God. The tares are the sons of the evil one, that is, the false teachers and evil tempters by whom Satan does his evil work.

The Fathers of the Church teach that the devil counteracts Christ in everything. "After the prophets," says Saint John Chrysostom, "false prophets appear; after the Apostles, false apostles; after Christ, Antichrist will appear." Christ calls men to the truth, whereas the devil and his servants, i.e., the false teachers and tempters, sow falsehood and ruin in the minds of men, and sows vices in their hearts, embellishing all with similitudes of truth and goodness. Christ calls such men the tares, who resemble the wheat externally. "Until the devil sees what to counterfeit," writes Saint John Chrysostom, "he does not begin anything and even does not know how to set to work. Therefore even now, when he has perceived that he can no longer carry off, or choke, or scorch that which has been sown and has taken root, he invents a different kind of deception, namely he sows his own seed."

The devil sows tares, says the Lord, while men sleep. In other words, the devil sows his tares secretly, unnoticeably, when the guards appointed to look after the field, that is, the pastors of the Church, keep watch carelessly and when the faithful themselves live carelessly as well and listen to false teachers. About this matter, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow writes:

Christ, of course, knows all this, and calls His followers to awaken spiritually, to stay on constant watch. Let us turn again to Saint John Chrysostom: "But how, sayest thou, is it possible to remain without sleep. It is not possible without natural sleep, but without moral sleep it is possible. Wherefore, Paul also said: "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith" (I Corinthians 16:13).

The Lord alludes to heretics where the shoot springs up, and brings forth fruit, and the tares appear as well: "At first they conceal themselves; but when someone enters into conversation with them, then they pour out their venom."

"Behold," continues Saint John Chrysostom, "the devil's malice. He did not sow before, because there was nothing to destroy. But when everything is already sown, he too sows, in order to ruin that which cost the husbandman many labors. Such is the powerful enmity that the devil has displayed against Christ in everything!" The householder sowed good fruit, but the enemy sowed tares there by night. When the first shoots appeared, he called the workers and showed them that tares were growing together with wheat. On seeing the field, the servants asked their lord: "How could this be? After all, didst thou not sow good seed?"

The servants of the householder offer to pull up the tares, so that only wheat will grow. But the householder rejects their proposal because pulling the tares might harm the wheat, which looks so much like tares. Weeding could mix them and cause the loss of an ear of wheat. With so many roots intertwined, uprooting tares could can harm the roots of an ear of wheat, so that it perish. This cost-benefit is important. We see sin and scandal in the secular world, and within the Church as well. The sight of evil men makes people say: "O Lord! Why dost Thou not now chastise the evil? Why dost Thou give them the opportunity to make use of all the good things of the world? Why do they squeeze and oppress the good?"

To such questions, Christ's parable answers: "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest, the day of the dread judgment, I will say to the reapers, My angels: Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them" (Matthew 13:30); "and they shall gather out them that do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth (verses 41 42). But gather the wheat into my barn [verse 30]. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (verse 43).

Many Church people imagine that they are zealous for truth and purity, and call for the tares to be uprooted. But zeal to excise every evil within the Church may be zeal to pull out as much wheat as tares, and so to harm everyone. The Lord forbids such a zeal against evil, because only God, the Knower of hearts, can tell the hypocrites from the righteous without error.

Many sinners, of course, repent and become righteous. Blessed Augustine says: "Many are correcting themselves, like Peter; many are forborne, like Judas; many will not be exposed until the coming of the Lord, Who will illumine that which is concealed in darkness and will disclose the thoughts of the heart." Indeed, many saints have been righteous people who fell into sin at some time. At the moment of their fall, one might take them for tares.

The Fathers also teach that temptations of the world and deeds of evil men purify the souls of the righteous. They help the souls to see weakness clearly, to feel guilt deeply, and to weaken the power of sin little by little. Gold is purified of dross by fire. The mix of good and evil men furnishes the good with occasions to be perfected, to win patience, meekness, humility, gentleness, and love. The lives of the righteous are tied to the lives of sinners. Bonds of kinship, like tastes, and outward circumstances mean that a shock to one shocks the others. For example, an unworthy father, drunkard, or profligate may carefully raise his pious children; the well-being of honest workers may be in the hands of an avaricious and crude proprietor; an unbelieving ruler may be a wise and beneficial lawgiver. For the Lord God to punish all sinners would upset the order of life on earth.

Moreover, Christ does not want the tares pulled out that grow alongside the wheat in the Church because he wants the righteous to learn patience and for sinners to feel His loving kindness. Saint John Chrysostom says that the Lord allows us to stop false teaching, but only by evangelizing the false teachers. We may not use force, as has happened in the Church many times. The Holy Fathers forewarn that - "Zeal that wants to vanquish every evil is itself a great evil, because it can bring about much harm."

The indignant Christian cannot take action when he sees evil except to curb the evil in himself. Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesenskij) wrote: "The Lord said: I say unto you, That ye resist not evil." The Russian and Slavonic texts of the parable do not coincide here. "Evil" is not evil as such, but is an evil person. In Russian this text is--"I say unto you: do not resist an evil [person]!" The Authorized Version (or King James Version) and then the New King James Version translate this passage (Matthew 5:39) "But I tell you not to resist an evil" [person]. Here the sense is slightly different-"To struggle with evil, do not address the man who does evil, but the evil that he causes." And do not try to put this person out of the Church, as the servants wanted to put out the tares. Try to convince him, try to explain his error to him. As Father John of Kronstadt said: "Sinful they are, but love the sinners and pity them."

Only unreasonable zeal strives to destroy every cause of evil. Apostle Paul says that this "zeal is not according to knowledge." Zeal can be an evil itself because it sows confusion and temptation in the Church. Christ says: "Let both grow together until the harvest," and the harvest is the end of the age. Blessed Augustine comments: "And so the Church until the end of the age will combine within Herself the good and the evil, without harm to the good. If it turns out that there are tares in the church, this does not hinder our faith and love; upon observing tares in the Church, we shouldn't fall away from Her. We ourselves must only try to be wheat, so that when the wheat will be gathered into the barns of the Lord."

Theophilact, Bishop of Bulgaria, also has also considered this matter: "If Matthew [who before his conversion was a tax collector hated by his fellow countrymen] had been wrenched from this life when he was numbered among the tares, then together with him the wheat of his word, which would subsequently sprout up from him, would have perished too. In the same way, both Paul and the thief, when they were tares, survived so that their virtue would spring up subsequently."

"Christ does not want the death of sinners, but desires that they come unto the knowledge of the truth and be saved [I Timothy 2:4]. In the warmth of His goodness and in the enlivening rays of his love he wishes to soften the hardness of their hearts and arouse in them a new life" (II Corinthians 5:17).

Lord Jesus Christ chooses His saints, such as the convert Saul, the persecutor of Christians. Saul-Paul was not the only convert to become a saint? Many pagans became confessors of the faith upon seeing the selflessness of ancient martyrs and people alive recently. The new martyrs and confessors of Russia have inspired many people to their steadfastness! The Holy Fathers likened the Church of Christ to Noah's Ark, which held clean and unclean animals together. The Church is a net, drawing in creeping things along with the fish. Both sinners and righteous make up the Church as the Body of Christ. The Church must take care of the unsteady converts and the beginners, and not tempt nor drive them out through "zeal not according to knowledge."

Christ continues to explain the Kingdom of God on earth, the Church, the society of believers who do His will-in the parable of the seed that grows unseen. The Evangelist Mark has preserved this parable for us:

According to Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), the man who cast the seed into the earth, is not God, as in the preceding two parables, but is each man who plants good seed (Christian teaching and piety) in his heart and public life. According to Blessed Theophilact of Bulgaria, the man of the parable is God Himself, Who became a man for the sake of our salvation, like us in everything but sin. Both interpretations are acceptable and edifying.

Whoever sows the seed-the preacher of the Gospel - casts seeds of faith into the souls of men. He cannot wait there to observe how these seeds grow into ears of grain, for gathering into the Kingdom of Heaven. The man who sows has few free moments. His special anxiety about the soil is wasteful and redundant. This parable is how the Lord assures the anxious to stay calm.

According to the word of Saint John Chrysostom, "The success of the preaching depended not on the apostles, but on the grace that preceded them. Although it was their affair to go and preach, yet the persuasion God Himself carried out, working in the apostles. So also the Apostle Luke said, that "their heart the Lord opened" (Acts 16:14).

As a seed grows into a plant by stages , so also a baptized man accepts the teaching of Christ and gradually undergoes transfiguration within, helped by God's grace. At the beginning of his journey, a man has good impulses that promise spiritual fruits, but which are unripe like shoots of young plants. The Lord does not control man's will. He grants enough time to mature and gain strength in virtue. "The seed grows as if without His (God's) knowledge," explains Blessed Theophilact, "because we are free, and for this seed to grow or not to grow depends on our will. We do not bear fruit against our will, but willingly, that is, we bear fruit from ourselves. At first, when we are babes, not yet having attained to the measure of the stature of Christ, we sprout a bit of 'green', we show the beginning of good; later, the 'ear.' when we are already in a condition to withstand temptations as well, for the ear already stands upright and has attained much development. And then the 'full corn' in the ear is formed - this occurs when someone bears the fruit of perfection." In other words, only the spiritually mature man is capable of offering to God the perfect fruit of his good works. When God sees a man who has become spiritually well formed, then He takes him from this life unto Himself, which the parable calls "harvest."

The teachings of Christ, with God's invisible help, give fruit in time and bring benefit. The grace of God acts on the soul gradually. "Divine grace, which in one instant can purify a man and make him perfect," writes Venerable Macarius the Egyptian, "begins to visit the soul gradually in order to test the human will." The Lord, confirming virtue in the heart of the believing man, is like the sun and rain, which raise up the wheat growing in the field, disclosing to the laborers the grace-filled fruits as an abundant harvest." To the ancient world, the germination of a seed into a whole plant was inexplicable. In the same way, the religious conversion of a man's soul is inexplicable, but done by the power of God. Religious conversion is the theme of the parable.

Lord Jesus Christ's preaching and parables distinguish between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven. The first kingdom - of God-is the Church that Lord Jesus founded on the earth, made up of those who believe in Him and do His will. The second kingdom - of Heaven-will number all the righteous people after the Last Judgment of all the human race. The first Kingdom of God-the Church-has two parts. This kingdom has the Church Militant, on its mission of seeking salvation while in the world and in time and struggling for eternity. It also has the beginnings of the Church Triumphant: the righteous people who are waiting. The Kingdom of God as the Church Militant prepares men for the Church Triumphant it will share with Kingdom of Heaven.

The Church began with the coming of Christ, Who cast into the hearts of men the Word of God, just as the sower casts seed into the ground. This Kingdom will end when the time of harvest comes, when all mankind on earth becomes one society of believers, one flock of the One Pastor, when all mankind come to one field, in which good seed is sown. Then will come the blessed life in the Kingdom of Heaven for the Church Triumphant.

Jesus Christ will participate in this Kingdom in its founding and in His sending the Heavenly Powers, the angels, to harvest the ripened fruit. Christ's leadership is a Christian article of faith now, but 2000 years ago His listeners on the shore of the Sea of Galilee lacked faith and could not understand many concepts such as the Kingdom of Heaven. These listeners needed such parables as the sower and the wheat and tares.

The enlivening energy in the seed meant that "the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." And if neither thorns, nor tares choke it, then it will itself grow up and give fruit. According to the word of Venerable Macarius the Egyptian: "It is incumbent on one who expects to receive from God the seed of grace, first of to all cleanse the earth of the heart, in order that the seed of the Spirit that falls on it would bear perfect and abundant fruits."

Christians retain the grace of God by their own efforts. On this topic, Saint John Chrysostom writes: "When is grace with us? When we do not offend this benefaction, do not despise this gift. Who then in offending this grace can preserve it and not be deprived of it? God has granted thee absolution of sins, how then can a good mood or action of the Spirit abide with thee, if thou dost not retain it by good deeds? The cause of all good things lies in the grace of the Spirit always abiding with us. It leads us to every good thing, and when it leaves us, we remain abandoned and we perish. Let us not leave it! It depends on us whether it remains with us or not. It remains when we take care for the heavenly; it leaves when we are immersed in the worldly."

Divine Grace is not impersonal magic. Without our human efforts, God grants no grace to us at all. The Fathers of the Church write that "God created man without his [man's] participation, but He cannot save him without his [own human] participation." In other words, God created man, and "gave him freedom to choose between good and evil." The Lord does not restrict the freedom of man although he wants every man to choose salvation.

Three of the Evangelists: Matthew (13:31-32), Mark (4:30-32) and Luke (13:18-19) report the parable of the mustard seed. Here is how the Evangelist Matthew tells it:

The Jews of that time had a saying: "Small as a mustard seed" In this parable, Christ compares the Kingdom of Heaven not to the small mustard seed, but to its growth into a big, bushy tree whose branches can shelter flocks of birds. The birds stand for the people of God who find shelter and salvation in the Church. At first, the mustard seed appears dead and small - the least of all seeds. But it symbolizes the mystery of resurrection after death.

Jesus Christ told the mustard seed parable just after the closely linked parables of the sower and the tares. The sower parable says that three parts of all the seed perish, and only the fourth part comes up to get saved. The parable of the tares shows how danger threatens even this one-fourth part. These parables could have disheartened the disciples; so few people find salvation.

The Lord offers encouragement, however, in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven (spoken of further on). This mustard seed, least of all seeds, comes up as the greatest herb, and grows into a tree sheltering birds in its branches. This success of delivery is possible for Christian preachers too. Although His disciples were powerless in political terms, the divine power in them enabled them to spread the Gospel throughout the world.

The Blessed Jerome writes: "The preaching of the Gospel is the least of all teachings. In the very beginning it seems improbable: It preaches man and God, a God Who dies, and the scandal of the Cross. Compare this teaching with the tenets of the philosophers, with their books and brilliant oratory, with the composition of their speeches, and thou shalt see how the seed of the Gospel is the least of all these seeds. But this [the teaching of the philosophers,V.P.], while penetrating deeply at first, does not give life; on the contrary it grows weak and becomes exhausted, and dries up like grass. But the Good Tidings, while seemingly small, upon being sown in the soul of the believer or in the whole world, take root like a powerful tree."

In such hot countries as Judaea, the mustard tree attains great height and girth, unlike mustard plants that are mere shrubs. A horseman can ride under Judaean mustard branches; large furnaces can burn its wood; and flocks of birds can sit on its branches, which do not break even under the weight of a man.

Many proverbs also mention the seed of the mustard tree as medicinal. Christ Himself is the mustard seed as well as the Sower. Like a seed, He contained the whole Church. And from Him it spread throughout the world. Christ is the one, eternal Head of the Church; without Him there would be no Church. Christ is the Sower as well, who willingly gave Himself over to death and through this death gave life to His Church - to all who believe in Him. He Himself said of Himself: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24).

Indeed, Christ was the little seed in the eyes of men. He was born in obscure Judaea, for 30 years he lived in obscure Nazareth, in despised Galilee, in the home of a carpenter. His teaching attracted a few disciples from simple fishermen and publicans. Finally, having given Himself into the hands of enemies, he died a shameful death on the cross. But He was resurrected, ascended to the Father, and spread His Church throughout the world like a great tree. In Him comes to pass the ancient prophecy of Ezekiel:

"I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon in high and prominent mountain: in the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell" (Ezekiel 17:22-23).

As from a mustard seed, His disciples spread His Holy Church throughout the world. The same conversion takes place in the soul of the man who responds to the teaching of the Gospel. In the beginning, the grace of God acts imperceptibly with the man's own efforts to convert his soul, to perfect it, and to make it a "temple of God." Clement of Alexandria writes: "It stings the soul with benefit for us." That is, at first the commandments of Christ seem bitter and unpleasant for our heart, attached to sin, but when we decide to fulfill them, they become healing and saving, for they renew and transfigure our hearts.

The Venerable Isaiah writes: "It is fitting for us to imitate the properties of this seed. When Scripture calls it the very least of all seeds, then by this it shows that we must love humble mindedness, considering ourselves lower than everyone, and have meekness and long suffering. Its ruddy color means modesty and chastity, so that we would not allow in our flesh anything depraved. Its sharpness signifies hatred for the passions and the vanities of the world. And that its sharpness is not otherwise revealed than when it is crushed and grated - by this it demonstrates that virtue does not bring any kind of benefit, if in cultivating it we do not bear labors and afflictions. So then, in accordance with the image of this seed let us examine ourselves: Are we like it in humbleness of heart, meekness of soul, fervency of love?"

The mustard seed also produces warmth just as Word of God warms the heart. Luke and Cleopas, the two disciples of Christ, experienced in themselves such a grace-filled warmth on the way to Emmaus, when they said with amazement: "Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way" (Luke 24:32). Mustard induces a craving for food, while the Word of God arouses hunger for the Heavenly Bread, thirst for salvation and for justification in Christ the Savior. The Lord speaks tells about this saving effect of His teaching again in the parable of the leaven.

The brief parable of the leaven is preserved by the Evangelists Matthew (13:33 35) and Luke (13:20 21). The Evangelist Matthew has it thus: "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."

Here Christ compares the Kingdom of Heaven not to leaven itself, but to its action on flour and dough. The Lord chooses analogy to a natural process to emphasize that His word is changeless like the laws of nature. Christ's trace of leaven [yeast] in a large volume of dough can stimulate fermentation, like the inner, hidden action of Gospel preaching can quicken the world and human hearts.

Apostle Paul writes: "Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?" (I Corinthians 5:6). Leaven, no matter how little, imparts acidity to the whole mixture of flour. The living, creative action of the Kingdom of God is likened to dough, raised by yeast. The heavenly leaven - the Divine Spirit - placed by the Savior in human souls quickens the Kingdom of God on earth, so that its true children can emerge.

According to the Serbian bishop, Nicholas of Ohrid, in the Kingdom of God, the three measures of the parable may signify the three branches of the human race: Semites, Japhites, and Hamites. The Savior brought heavenly leaven or grace to all without limit. According to Blessed Augustine, the three measures of flour signify the three main powers of the human soul: mind, heart and will, or the three powers of thought, feeling, and operation, gradually sanctified by the Holy Spirit. The grace of God penetrates and sanctifies the spirit, soul, and body of man. When armed with the power of grace, a man enters a new, Christian life. His mind becomes the mind of Christ, fully obedient to faith and capable of attaining the Mystery of Salvation. The desire and actions of a man rise to full agreement with the will of the Lord. In the heart of a man reborn and cleansed by grace, the peace of God reigns. The body of a reborn man itself becomes a pure vessel of pure faith.

The Fathers of the Church emphasize the purity: the heavenly leaven acts on dough made of unspoiled flour. Stale, spoiled flour will not turn sour, rise, nor yield to the action of yeast, just as the grace of God does not act in a negligent soul. For Divine leaven to do its work, we must repent and struggle with all vices, and prepare the dough of our soul and body in patience. Success in the struggle with one's selfishness and with one's "old man" is easy or quick. Every minute, every day, is a struggle with temptation and sin, in order to live as the Lord wishes.

Every conversion to Christianity begins with something small, as small as a mustard seed or a speck of leaven. We take this gift from Christ's Church. The closer and more sincerely we unite ourselves to Christ in this mystery, the more spiritual strength we shall gain to fulfill His commandments.

The parable of the leaven shows the hidden, transfiguring action of the Gospel and the grace of God. The parable of the treasure hidden in the field tells of the animation and joy a man feels when divine grace touches his heart. The Apostle Matthew alone has preserved this parable for us:

The parable of the treasure hidden in the field shows the priceless Kingdom of God, for which we ought to sacrifice all earthly goods. The people of antiquity had a practice of hiding treasures in a secret place, in time of war or disaster, hoping to retrieve them later. Of course, some one else could find these treasures and use them. Christ's parable at hand is about such discovered treasure: A man working and tilling a field finds a treasure hidden in it. He rejoices at the find, but keeps it secret. Hoping to make use of it, he carefully hides it again in the field, so that no one else would find the treasure. He sells everything that he owns and buys the field. Now he is the owner of the field and has the right to the treasure.

By the treasure, Christ means the Gospel and the moral life it teaches, supported by the Church. The Gospel is a genuine treasure, beside which all earthly goods are nothing. Man may obtain the whole world, but without a moral life according to the Gospel, he is nothing. On the contrary, he is rich whoever follows the Gospel although in all else he be poor.

But the Gospel is hidden from him who listens only with his ears and not with his heart. Perhaps the man of the parable had passed by that buried treasure hundreds of times, not knowing it until he discovered it. Just so, man may listen to the Gospel for years and not see its treasure, until it penetrates his heart, thanks to the word of a pastor or spiritual friend.

The man in the parable sold all he had to buy the field of treasure. Saint Gregory the Dialogist writes concerning the price of the Heavenly Treasure: "No fixed price exists for it. Every man must give up everything that he possesses for it. The Apostle Peter gave up his nets to gain the Kingdom of Heaven. The widow gave up two mites. He who has millions let him give up millions, and he who has nothing let him give up his will."

Blessed, eternal life is hidden in the treasure of the Gospel. It is only necessary to find the treasure in order to make use of it. But where is one to seek it; in which field? Here Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) of Moscow answers, with eloquence:

"In many places! For example, in the field of solitude and reverent silence, in the field of chastity and abstinence: only spare nothing in order to gain possession of such a field, and thou shalt find the treasure. But a field particularly close and accessible for all, is that in which the treasure of grace is secretly placed, that is, the Church. What a treasure is hidden in her sacred assemblies! In them is hidden the presence of Christ the Lord Himself, and in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3), as well as the treasures of all other gifts spiritual and Divine. What a treasure there is in the prayers and doxologies of the Church! In them breathes the grace of the Prophets, the Apostles and the saints; still more, in them the Holy Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26). What a treasure there is in the readings of the Gospel! The same power, which, proceeding forth in Christ's word, cast out demons, healed infirmities, raised the dead and enlightened with the Divine light, now too abides in His word, in His Gospel. What a treasure there is in the Mysteries, and especially in the Mystery of the Body and Blood of the Lord! In it there is hidden eternal life with its inscrutable good things, in accordance with that which was said by the Lord: "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life" (John 6:54).

"One needs only to know how to use such treasures, and for this it is necessary to sell, that is, to scorn, to reject all that thou hast, namely pleasing thyself, thy passions, thy depraved habits, thy carnal desires, thy laziness, thine inattentiveness, thy dissipation. An even closer field of treasure is our inner man. The depth in which the treasure is hid signifies the heart of man. Herein, the Spirit of God breathed invisibly in the Mystery of Baptism, and by His breath introduced new life from God."

"And so, treasure is put into our field, but has each of us found it? If we bury this hidden treasure deeper and deeper under the dung and refuse of vain, impure and iniquitous thoughts and deeds, then our treasure lies without being used, our spiritual life is embryonic or in a faint."

The man who found the treasure hid it in order not to lose it. For a spiritual life, this parable means that whoever is proud of the gifts of grace will lose the treasure because of his pride. And a member of the Church who has gained the grace of God should humbly cherish it in his soul in humility. A humble man, rejoicing in the Lord, does not start to boast before everyone, but goes to a man close to him in spirit, to share his joy and his wealth.

Here is how Blessed Augustine writes about this joy, about his conversion to Christ: "How suddenly it became pleasant for me to do without worthless pastimes, and I with joy left off that which previously I had feared to lose! For Thou didst remove them far from me, and Thou, the true and highest Joy, Thyself didst dwell in me, O Sweetest of all joys!" And let us do the same!

The parable of the pearl is told in the chapter 13 of the Gospel according to Matthew. Its profundity is like the profound parable of the treasure hidden in the field.

During antiquity, pearls were more valuable than in our time. Christ's contemporaries paid great sums for good pearls. They understood the words of Jesus to mean that to acquire the Kingdom of Heaven, one must give up everything for what Christ offers.

The parable pearl is the Gospel. The merchants are men seeking knowledge. The world has many pearls, many forms of knowledge, but only one is precious, which is faith in Jesus Christ. Men carefully acquiring knowledge of Christ and sensing the truths that lead to the Kingdom of Heaven can see their model in the merchant who seeks pearls, and who sold his many small ones, uses the money to buy one uniquely precious.

"He that possesses the pearl knows that he is rich," says John Chrysostom, "but others often do not know that they have a pearl in their hands, because the pearl is not big: the same can also be said about the truth. Those possessing it know that they are rich, but unbelievers, not understanding the value of this treasure, do not know of our wealth."

The parable of the treasure hidden in the field is about suddenly finding God's truth, but the parable of the pearl is about finding this truth after a long search. Prince Vladimir, the Enlightener of the Russian people, brought Russia to baptism after a long search, and the Church troparion calls him "the merchant who sought the goodly pearl." He sought and found the true faith.

Saint Justin the Philosopher is another who sought the truth and found it only in the teaching of Jesus Christ. In his work "Dialogue with Tripho, a Jew," he writes that while still a pagan he studied all the philosophical systems of his time (AD 100s) and he especially liked Plato. But his broad knowledge did not answer questions that interested him about God, soul, immortality, and such things until an elder (Saint Polycarp, according to tradition) told him about Jesus Christ and the prophets. Study of the prophecies and the Gospel brought Saint Justin to the one true philosophy, the pearl. The lives of these holy God-pleasers show how the words of Sacred Scripture sink into the souls of unbelievers seeking the pearl, and set them towards faith in Christ and life in Him.

So let each of us seek this one pearl. "Search the scriptures," says the Lord, "they are they which testify of me" (John 5:38). Find the precious pearl of Christ by attentive and prayerful study of the Word of God. Follow what the Lord said of to Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who was dead for four days: "the one thing needful" (Luke 10:42).

The Way of the Ascetics by Tito Colliander, has a chapter "On the Pearl of Great Price." The author writes of the signs of finding the precious pearl: "the deeper you pressed into your own heart, the farther and higher you climbed out of yourself. The outward conditions of your life are the same: you wash dishes and care for the children, you go to work, draw your salary and pay your taxes. You do everything pertaining to your external life as a person in a society, since there is no chance of leaving it. But you have resigned yourself. You have given away one thing in order to receive another. 'And if I have Thee, what more do I ask on earth?' 'Nothing,' answers St. John Climacus, but ceaselessly praying, silently to cling to Thee. Some are enslaved by riches, others by honor, still others by acquiring possessions; my only desire is to cling to God. '"

"Prayer, with all it contains of self-renunciation, has become your real life, which you keep up as though only for the sake of prayer. "Walking with God" (Genesis 6:9) is from now on the only thing that has real value for you, and it includes all heavenly and earthly events. For him who bears Christ within himself, there is neither death nor illness or any earthly clamor; he has already stepped into eternal life, and that embraces everything.

"Night and day the heavenly seed sprouts in your heart and grows, you know not how. The earth produces of itself, your heart's soil, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear" (Mark 4:27-8).

"The saints speak of something they call the inextinguishable light. It is a light not of the eye but of the heart that never ceases to walk in purity and clearness. It swiftly leaves the darkness behind, and constantly strives towards the day's height. Its constant quality is to be continually purified. This is the light of eternity that can never go out, and that shines through the veil of time and matter. But the saints never say that this light is given to them, but that it is given only to those who have purified their hearts in love for the Lord on the narrow way which they have freely chosen." It is worth renouncing everything for the sake of obtaining that which Christ offers us - the pearl of His teaching and the life of blessedness in Him."

We find the parable of the net cast into the sea in chapter 13 of the Gospel according to Matthew:

The net is Gospel teaching, the preaching of apostles, those "fishers of men." The sea is the world. The fish of every kind are the human race. This parable shows that the net of Gospel preaching will gather all men - both righteous and sinners. When the net is full at the end of time, those fish, those humans will be divided. The good will be gathered into vessels of the Kingdom of Heaven, but the bad will be cast away. The Church of Christ on earth - the Church Militant - consists of the most varied people, of zealous Christians, who live according to God's commandments, and as well of people careless or indifferent, Christians by name but not in way of life. We cannot discern their spiritual lives, but the dread, impartial judgment of God at the end of time will tell righteous from the sinners. In Lord Jesus Christ's prophecy of the Dread Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46) is certain:

"He shall separate the righteous and the sinners one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left."

The parable of the net merely alludes to the separation of the good from the bad. But the prophecy of Dreaded Judgment adds the question that we must answer: How did we serve our neighbor; that is, how merciful were we toward one another? Christ lists six kinds of help to our neighbor. Identifying Himself, in His love, condescension and mercy, with every pauper and everyone in need of help, the Savior says: "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me" (Matthew 25:35-36). The Savior sets these works of mercy to suffering people and to those in need of our help somewhat higher than all else achievements. "For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice," says God by the mouth of the Prophet Hosea (Hosea 6:6; see also Matthew 9:13 and 12:7).

The parable of the net and the prophecy on the Dread Judgment end with threatening images of the punishment of sinners. The parable of the net mentions how "the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." The Lord's prophecy says that sinners will go "into everlasting fire."

These threatening images frighten some people and cause others to protest, because they see Lord Jesus Christ as angry and condemning. It troubles others that Christ's images of the judgment are physical: sinners given over to torment in everlasting fire.

Interpretation of the Gospel, a scholarly Russian book by the B. I. Gladkov, remarks "Should one understand the words furnace of fire literally, or consider that the punishment awaiting sinners is only likened to torments in a fiery furnace. It seems to us that one might understand these words literally if Jesus Christ always expressed Himself thus about the impending future of sinners; however, it is known that in other instances He expressed Himself somewhat differently: thus, in the Sermon on the Mount, He compared the torments of sinners with abiding in the valley of fire (Gehenna, Matthew 5:29þ "hell" on the Authorized Version). After that, when speaking of the lot that will befall those who have not accepted Him, He said that they "shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, while many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 8:11-12). Burning in a furnace was known to Jesus' audience from the books of the Old Testament: Judah, the son of Jacob, condemned his daughter-in-law Tamar to burning (Genesis 38:24); David cast into a kiln the inhabitants of his conquered city of Rabbah (II Kings [II Samuel in the Authorized Version] 12:31). "Nebuchadnezzar ordered Ananias, Misael and Azarias, who did not worship the golden idol, to be cast into a furnace made red-hot by fire" (Daniel 3:21).

So, in the time of Lord Jesus Christ, burning captives alive was a customary death penalty, but most horrible and excruciating. When He spoke of the future punishment of sinners, he spoke of fire to awaken his listeners, to make them think of repentance and rebirth. Replying to the Sadducees later, on resurrection, Jesus likened resurrected bodies at the Dread Judgment to spirits and angels. He explained that the bodies of the resurrected will not be our bodies from life here on earth, as if the sufferings of the condemned will also be more spiritual than physical.

We need not understand the words of Christ literally, because all the parables use figurative language to make their meaning easier to remember. The Lord uses especially vivid speech in the Gospel. He says "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched where there worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-44). These words ought not to be understood literally. Evil and sin are not in the human hand, but in the human heart. The hand is only the tool of sin. And cutting off the hand or foot cannot remove temptation. Instead, we remove temptation and sin by force of will and by prayer. Thus, these words of Christ about eternal tortures have only a symbolic meaning to match a vivid image. Equally symbolic are the Lord's words "fire that shall never be quenched" and "worm" that "dieth not."

The hierarch John Chrysostom sees these torments of sinners as deprivation of the glory of God's Kingdom, abandonment by God, and remoteness from God, Who is Love. This spiritual pain is worse than physical punishment. Saint John Chrysostom calls this parable "terrifying," and Gregory the Theologian tells us to fear it more than to interpret it.

In the parable of the net and in the prophecy on the Dread Judgment, Christ shows that He does not cut off His love from us, but we alienate ourselves from His love by our sin and lack of mercy. The Savior calls us, before it is too late, to do good works in His name, to seek sobriety and freedom from everyday cares, and to think about our soul, meeting the Lord.

This ascetic mind set must guide us. It is not dark or melancholy, as people far from the Church may imagine. On the contrary, it is a joy that we see in Christian ascetics and all those on its path. May God grant that at the end of time, when we, according to the parable of the net, are drawn to the shore of the Kingdom of Christ, we will be gathered ... into vessels.

Many Gospel parables linger in our hearts, especially those about God's loving kindness. The parables of the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, and the Pharisee and the publican evoke images of the loving Father, waiting for his erring son; of the kindly traveler who helped the man half-dead from wounds; and the visitor who heard the prayer "God, be merciful to me a sinner." Recollection moves the heart to repentance and readiness to recite this sinner's prayer again and again. These parables have inspired many painters, such as Rembrandt, who can call on their physical allegory to provoke contemplation and to make explications.

By patristic convention, the parables of Jesus Christ about God's loving kindness make a second distinct group, told by the Lord a few months before his sufferings. They tell of God's limitless loving kindness toward repentant sinners, and how Christ's followers must love one another. The parables of God's loving-kindness show us what to withdraw from and what to cling to: To [withdraw] from sin [and cling] to repentance in "the embrace of the Heavenly Father."

Here we must consider the tragedy of original sin and its fruit. The Church teaches that God is all-good and all-powerful. His omnipotence belongs to love because God is Love. God did not create any evil. One may even say that He could not even create it.

According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, evil appeared because God created His higher creations - man and angels-as free beings, according to His image and likeness. God is, first of all, Love. Man is like God and becomes more like Him when he loves. One cannot love by coercion. One can love only in freedom. Therefore love is the action, sign, and fact of freedom. That is why God also created angels and men free. He created them for Love, so that they might participate in that mutual love in which He Himself abides, as God, as Trinity of Persons.

Freedom brings the risk of a wrong choice, the risk of deviation from the Orthodox way. Unhappily, certain angels and the parents of the human race, made wrong choices, from whence evil arose.

Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky writes that at the creation, the Creator endowed man with three supreme gifts: freedom, reason and love. The three gifts are necessary to allow religious conversion. But freedom invites the possibility of wavering in one's choice, and temptation is possible. "The temptation for reason is to grow proud in mind; instead of acknowledging the wisdom and goodness of God; to desire oneself to be a 'god.' The temptation for the feeling of love is - in place of love for God and one's neighbor, to love oneself and everything that satisfies the lower desires and gives temporary enjoyment. This possibility of temptation and fall stood before mankind, and the first man did not stand firm against it" [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [English edition, 154].

We cannot explain why our first parents made an incorrect choice. All created things have a meaning, as creations of the all-wise God. Whatever has meaning allows its explanation. But God did not create evil, and so it can have no meaning. It is inexplicable.

The power of evil lies only in the consent of a free man's will. God, of course, foresaw that angels and man would make an incorrect choice. So, before eternity, God "took measures" for man to correct his mistake. According to His immeasurable love, God responds to all man's mistakes, to all human evil and to all the sufferings of men with Self-sacrifice. He takes all mistakes, all evil and all sufferings upon Himself, as if He, Who is innocent of any evil, were the author of evil.

When man turns away from love, God always remains Love and only Love. The Lord's sacrifice in His Incarnation returns to man the chance again to choose the correct path freely. God does not wish to and cannot save men by force. He can call and summon, but in Christ, God summons man to Himself in a completely new way.

Oliver Clement, a French theologian, wrote an article on evil published in the issue No. 31 of the journal, Contakt. "God can do everything, except compel man to love . . . This paradoxical impotence of God (at the creation of man), Who, of course, still remains omnipotent, already announces to us beforehand the mystery of the Cross . . . God is so omnipotent that he can suspend His omnipotence . . . There is no need for Christians to create a special theory for justifying God (theodicy). To all the questions regarding the allowance of evil by God (the problem of evil) there is one answer - Christ; the Crucified Christ, Who burns up in Himself all the world's sufferings for ever; Christ, Who regenerates our nature and has opened the entry to the Kingdom of everlasting and full life to each one who desires it."

The Orthodox Church teaches that from the time of Christ's coming into the world, the fullness of Divinity Love is revealed to those who believe in Him, the veil is fallen, and the Lord's sacrifice has demonstrated His Divine in His Resurrection. It only remains for the faithful to partake of this Love: "O taste and see that the Lord is good," exclaims David the Psalmist.

And what is sin? According to one theologian, sin is "missing the mark." God created man for him to be an icon of God, to live in unity with God, and to exercise authority over the universe. Man's failure is that sin called "The Fall."

Orthodox tradition usually understands the tasting from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" as man's real experience of choosing evil. Some other Orthodox writers (for example, Saint Gregory the Theologian) understand the Fall as man's attempt to overstep the limits of his capabilities. All Orthodox agree that human pride, human envy, and human lack of humble gratitude to God, caused man to yield to Satan's temptation and to violate God's commandment. Thus, man "missed the mark" of his calling. By violating God's law, man ruined himself, and the universe that God had entrusted to his care.

According to the Bible and Orthodox theology, sin, evil, devil, suffering, and death always co-exist. None comes by itself, and all come by man's revolt against God and loss of communion with Him. Sin gives birth to sin. The story of the Fall in the Book of Genesis is divinely inspired. As the devil's principality, the universe will groan in torment until God saves it. All children of Adam share this tragic fate. Even infants, who are born as images of God in a world originally good, grow up in a world bound by death, ruled by the devil, and filled with misdeeds of all generations.

Thus the ancient Church established the baptism of infants everywhere. A local council in Carthage in 252, under the presidency of Saint Cyprian, enacted the rule: "not to forbid (baptism) to an infant who, having only just been born, has not sinned in anything, except that by being descended from the flesh of Adam he has received the infection of the ancient death through birth itself, and who all the more readily approaches to receive the remission of sins, since not his own, but another's sins, are remitted him."

Jesus Christ's second group of parables demonstrate how God's loving kindness enables man to return to his first state of blessedness in God.

A Roman procurator, who officially represented the Roman emperor, ruled Judaea in the Savior's time. Beside him but under [Roman] authority, sat a co-ruler, who was also a local tyrant. The king served Roman political interests, but the procurator and the king - Pontius Pilate and Herod the Younger, in particular - had clashes. A lower level of government officials was the Scribes (lawyers) and Pharisees (rabbinical officials), who had more direct contact with the people and who sat "in Moses' seat," as Jesus expressed it (Matthew 23:2). The Scribes and the Pharisees were the religious intelligentsia. The Pharisees especially valued external ritualism and a decrepit national cult of religious consciousness, without a real spiritual life. A contemporary term for representatives of this class is "apparatchiks."

Lord Jesus Christ entered conflict with this ethnic authority, knowing ahead of time how much it would cost Him. Conflict was inevitable because the Pharisees were arrogant but lacked any real authority from Rome or the Jewish temple. Their status was less than "Caesar's," as Jesus recalled when He said to "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, while at the same time rendering unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). The Pharisees were poor prophets for the Kingdom of God. Saint Paul the Apostle may have been a Pharisee before his conversion.

The main allegory of the good shepherd parable contrasts the true Judaic teachers, who lead people to salvation, with the Scribes and Pharisees, the egotists of spiritual blindness. On the Sabbath, the day of rest, when the Law forbids labor, Jesus healed a man born blind. This miracle amazed everyone, and the anxious but learned Pharisees tried to convince the blind man that "this man [Jesus] is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day" (John 9:1) . . . "we know that this man is a sinner" (verse 24). To this complaint, the blind man replied: "If this man were not of God, he could do nothing." The Pharisees answered and said unto him, "Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out" (verses 33-34).

Jesus heard about the healed man's encounter with the Pharisees and called on him to strengthen the man's faith. Jesus asks him: "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" Because the healed man had not yet seen His Healer, he did not recognize Him. Expressing readiness to believe in the Son of God, that is, in the Messiah, he asked: "Who is he?" And when Jesus revealed His divine dignity to him in the words, "Thou has both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee," the healed man said in reply: "Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth" (John 9:37-41).

Again, Simeon the God-receiver, holding the Infant Jesus in his arms said: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against . . . that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Luke 2:34-35). Concerning this division of people into His followers and adversaries, Jesus said: "For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind."

The spiritual blindness of the learned Scribes and Pharisees implies that men exalted by erudition may possibly never see the main of God's truth. The learned may be hopelessly blind, and the ignorant or handicapped people who appear hopeless may see truth in their hearts and accept it. In this parable, the blind and unlettered can see.

The Apostle and Evangelist John testifies that God's will is for everyone who sees the Son of God to have life eternal, and that the Son of God came and gave us light and understanding to know the true God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8). When Christ denounces blind Pharisees, He condemns their spiritual blindness to the "Light of the world," that is, Christ, the Messiah.

Further, Christ's good shepherd parable points to Christ as the true Good Shepherd, Who brings those sheep to life eternal -

The shepherd and his sheep are mentioned frequently in Sacred Scripture, for sheep are meek, helpless animals who need care and special protection from wolves and other dangers. Their well-being depends on the shepherd. The true shepherd of men preserves us from the snares of the "ruler of the darkness of this age" (cf. Ephesians 6:12), from the devil's false teachings, his temptations, and worldly influences. The one, true divine shepherd is Christ.

"I am the good shepherd," said the Savior, who would show a self-sacrificing love for his the sheep, even to a death on the Cross for the salvation of the human race. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13) says the Lord.

"I know Mine and Mine know Me." Jesus knows the heart, the moral disposition, the needs and dangers of His "sheep," those who truly believe in Him. His sheep perceive Christ, and know Him as their Redeemer and Savior. Just as between God the Father and Jesus Christ, so between Christ and those who are "His" there exist communion, mutual love, and understanding.

"The sheep hear the shepherd's voice," says the Lord. "And he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice." This part of the parable is based on pastoral customs. If, on account of weather, shepherds could not leave the flock of sheep in the pasture, with wolves and thieves about, they would drive them into caves or fenced enclosures, shut the doors for the night, and the shepherds would remain with their flocks. Sometimes several shepherds would drive their flocks into one enclosure; then one of them would stay inside with the sheep. In the morning the door-keeper would open the doors and the other shepherds would enter and gather their flock, calling their own sheep by name. The sheep know their own shepherds by sight and voice. After gathering all his own sheep, each shepherd would lead his flock to pasture, walking ahead with a staff for defense, and with a walking stick.

The Savior knows His "sheep" and their names are written in the Book of Life (Revelation 3:5, Philippians 4:3). He calls them, enlightens, and gathers them. The "sheep" know Christ's voice in His holy Gospel. They distinguish His teaching from false teachings, and they follow Him.

The Savior has other sheep, "which are not of this fold," whom he must also bring into the sheepfold, that is, into His Church. The Lord is speaking here of the Gentiles (since Jews living in the diaspora belonged to "their own fold," to Jewish theocratic society). According to God's well-known determination, the Gentiles also "will hear" Christ's voice, as the prophets foretold (Micah 4:2, Isaiah 2:3 and others), "and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." No longer will barriers separate the Gentiles from the Jews, the chosen people. The Good Shepherd and His followers will gather everyone, and His work will be done at the end of time in the conversion to Christ of the "faithful remnant" (Isaiah 10:22, Romans 11:25-26).

But the best thing in this parable is Christ's blessed confirmation that He gives eternal life to His "sheep" if the Christian be a true "sheep" of Christ and walk in His steps.

We find the parables of the "lost sheep" and the "lost drachma" in the Gospel according to Luke:

Lord Jesus Christ used the image of the shepherd in His preaching because His audience knew this image from the pastoral economy and from the books of the Old Testament. The image of the shepherd, of the herdsman leading his flock, was deeply rooted in the experience of the "nomadic Arameans" (Deuteronomy 26:5 [Russian Bible]). The Israelite shepherd is both leader and comrade. This powerful man defends his flock from wild beasts while knowing his sheep well (Proverbs 27:23), adapting to their situation (Genesis 33:13), carrying them in his arms (Isaiah 40:11), even loving one or another of them as a daughter (II Kings/II Samuel, 12:3). His authority is indisputable, based on devotion and love. The ancient Babylon and Assyria's kings called themselves shepherds with a divine ministry to gather and care for sheep of the flock. The Bible uses this image to show the relationships that bind Israel with God also work through Christ and His envoys with the Church.

Many Jews preserved a prophecy of the coming shepherd. Jesus fulfills this prophecy; as the shepherd of those sheep and of publicans and harlots who accept the Good News joyfully. The shepherd image appears as well at Bethlehem where they receive Jesus, Who had been born in their cave (Luke 2:8-20). Ancient Christian symbolism, in the catacombs of Europe and the Near East, often shows Christ as a shepherd, bearing a sheep on his shoulders, as Christ rescued sinful humanity when Christ took upon Himself our sins.

The parables of the lost sheep and the lost drachma depict the Lord's true concern for the conversion of a sinner, and the joy in the heavens for those who repent. These parables emphasize that God Himself seeks out the sinner to save him. This Christ speaks in other places in the Gospel: "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10; Matthew 18:11) and to "call . . . sinners to repentance" (Matthew 9:13).

These parables of Jesus show the proud and self-assured Scribes and Pharisees God's boundless love and compassion toward all men. The Scribes and Pharisees were certain that only they fulfilled all the minor prescriptions ad sacrifices of the Mosaic law, and did not need to repent and to deal justly with sinners.

From the Gospel, we know that Christ met all men who were conscious of their sinfulness and wanted to change their lives. He visited homes of sinners and ate with them-with Zacchaeus the tax collector, and Levy the publican, who became the Apostle Matthew. This tolerant and welcoming gesture bothered the Scribes and Pharisees, who considered a helping hand to a fallen brother or simply touching him as ritual pollution. These elite scholars thought that Jesus sinned by consorting with sinners. So they warned people to shun Him.

Christ says, as it were, to His accusers in reply: "You bring an accusation against me that I accept sinners who have fallen away from God, that I even go after them, bring them to repentance and, saving them from perdition, return them to God. But, after all, you (Scribes and Pharisees) also act likewise in regards to that which is near and dear to you.

Further, Jesus offers to them the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? Either what woman having ten pieces of silver [drachmas], if she lose one piece [drachma], doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?" If you act that way on losing your property, Christ further says, as it were, then why do you reproach Me, when I am saving men who have fallen away from God, their Father. A responsible, good shepherd, on finding a lost sheep, does not punish it because it fell away from the flock, does not even drive it back to the flock; but, rejoicing that he found it, takes it on his dependable shoulders and bears it home; he calls his friends and says to them: "Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, who need no repentance." This is how God rejoices to return the lost sheep to the flock of salvation.

The lost sheep stands for the sinner dead to virtue and blessedness (the lost drachma), for which God had created him. By the Holy Spirit, the Lord acts inscrutably on the heart of man, who has not lost all capability for repentance and conversion to God.

Jesus' expression "over one sinner that repenteth," in both parables, emphasizes that the sole pledge of salvation is repentance. And "joy . . . in heaven," according to the word of Venerable Ephraim the Syrian, is "a feast for God." "Repentance, making a feast for God, summons heaven also to the banquet. The angels rejoice when repentance invites them to the supper. All the heavenly ranks celebrate, being aroused to gladness by repentance."

The sheep who ran away from the flock is a pitiful animal. It may stray where there is neither forage, nor water, the prey of wild beasts. Thus, too, the soul is unfortunate, exposed to every delusion and passion as an easy prey of the devil who seeks, according to the word of Scripture, "whom he may devour" (I Peter 5:8).

The Lord shows great care for lost souls, whom He boundlessly loves. God loves the world so much "that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). And after His Ascension to heaven, His Providence cares for the Church that calls sinners to repentance.

The shepherd who discovers the lost sheep, does not drive it back to the flock, but takes it on his shoulders and joyfully bears it home. Here the compassionate Shepherd Jesus Christ strengthens him who has freely decided to seek salvation. The sinner goes not alone on the new path, but with Christ. If he falls on the way, Christ will take him onto His shoulders, encourage and comfort him, for He said: "Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).

These parables of the Savior address the Pharisees of His time and all times everywhere. The Lord desires that we would imitate his love for man. In each man, we must see a brother in Christ and an image of God. And no matter how a man might fall and darken God's image in himself, we must seek God's spark in his soul, as Dostoevsky did so in his Notes from the House of the Dead. "Sins are sins, but the image of God is the basis of man," writes Feodor Michailovich. "Hate the sin, but love the sinner," the holy, righteous John of Kronstadt loves to say. And the Apostle James in his epistle says directly: "He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death [both the sinner's and his own, V.P.], and shall hide a multitude of sins" (James 5:20).

Blessed Theophilact, the Archbishop of Bulgaria, and other interpreters of the Gospel understand by the "ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance" as the angels and the righteous, for whom the salvation of a sinner is also dear, but who have already walked their path of salvation and departed to eternity,

Nicholai (Velimirovich), the Bishop of Ohrid, sees the parable of the lost drachma as the tragedy of both the world and of each person. He sees the nine drachmas that were not lost as the nine angelic orders, which Christ, Who is depicted in the parable under the form of a woman, leaves, in order to find the one drachma - the human race seduced by the devil and fallen away from God. Coming to the earth, Christ found the sinful human race and declared to the holy spirits: "Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece [drachma] which I had lost," I have found the men who will fill up the place in the Kingdom of Heaven left after the fall of the angels away from God, which had happened of old.

The parable of the prodigal son is known so well that some of its phrases have passed into ordinary spoken language. We all remember book illustrations relating to it from our childhood.

Christ's parable of the prodigal son replies to the reproaches of the Pharisees that "He receiveth sinners, and eateth with them" (Luke 15:2). Christ forgives them and calls sinners to repentance, saying "there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth" (Luke 15:10). All three of these parables-the good shepherd, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son, stress forgiveness in the final time, are found in chapter 15 of the Gospel according to Luke:

This parable is inexhaustible; its themes, too many to count. Every man who studies it with reverence, finds consolation for his anxiety about his own soul.

The first theme of the parable is history - God's chosen people and the pagan nations. The elder son in the parable could be Israel, and the younger son, the pagans. According to Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, this parable may summarize the Old Testament period, when men committed the original sin and withdrew from God. "The Father grieves over the departure of the beloved son. But, not infringing upon his filial dignity and filial freedom, He waits until the son himself, on having come to know all the bitterness of evil, and having remembered his past life in the Father's home, begins to yearn for this home and opens his heart to the Father's love. Thus it was with the human race."

The second theme is guilt. The parable of the prodigal son is read at the Liturgy on the third preparatory Sunday before Great Lent, when the faithful prepare to cleanse themselves from sin through the endeavor [podvig] of repentance.

Its third theme is repentance: the gradual, inner process of the sinner's turning towards full repentance, which calls for awareness of his fall, his sincere remorse, and his humble conversion of spirit toward the Heavenly Father.

Its fourth theme is the Church and her Liturgy. According to the Synaxarion for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, the best robe, in which the father arrays his son who has returned, is the Mystery of Baptism; the ring and seal of the Holy Spirit is the Mystery of Chrismation; the feast with the eating of the fatted calf is the Eucharist, the Mystery of Communion. The music and dancing are symbols of the Church celebration of her restored fullness and oneness.

The fifth theme is the Savior Himself, Who appears as the Eucharistic slaughtered calf, referred to in Scripture as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

The elder son represents envy, legalism and need for mutual, brotherly forgiveness. The younger, prodigal son is all fallen mankind as well as each individual sinner. His portion of goods, that is, the younger son's share of the property, are God's gifts to each man. According to Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, these are "the mind and heart, and especially the grace of the Holy Spirit, given to each Christian. The demand made to the father for the portion of goods falling to the son in order to use it arbitrarily is the striving of man to throw submissiveness to God off from himself and to follow his own thoughts and desires. The father's consent to hand over the property depicts the absolute authority with which God has honored man in the use of God's gifts."

One of Protopresbyter Alexander Men sermons for the "Sunday of the Prodigal Son," mentions some details of ancient economics: "In those times which the Lord is speaking about people would try to live as one family. Nowadays, it is more natural for children to separate from and leave their parents when they grow up. Then, men jointly owned the land, which they worked together, and the larger the family was, the more working hands there were, the greater the ability to labor was. Therefore, to divide the home, to divide the property and the household was considered a detriment, a loss. If the children acted thus, it was considered an offense to the parents."

Having taken his portion, the younger son departs to a far country, a foreign place of estrangement from God. There he stops thinking of his father and "lives riotously," in a life of sin that alienates him further from the Creator. He quickly squanders his property, his share of God's gifts of mind, heart, and body. His poverty is spiritual desolation. Such a man does not really control what brings him pleasure. It controls him. This is why Apostle Paul warns Christians: "I will not be brought under the power of any [thing]" (I Corinthians 6:12).

One Church thinker has written: "This far country, this foreign land reveals to us the profound essence of our life, of our condition. Only after having understood this, can we begin the return to real life. He, who has not felt this at least once in his life, who has never realized that he is spiritually in a foreign land, isolated, exiled, will not understand the essence of Christianity. And he, who is completely "at home" in this world, who has not experienced a yearning for another reality, will not comprehend what repentance and remorse are . . . Remorse and repentance are born out of the experience of alienation from God, from the joy of communion with Him . . . It necessarily includes in itself the profound desire to come back, to return, to find anew the lost home."

Before Great Lent, beginning with the Sunday of the prodigal son, the Church chants the psalm "By the waters of Babylon," to remind us of the captivity of the Jews in that far country. This same captivity in sin alienates the Christian from God. But this psalm likewise speaks of repentance, love, and return to the father's home.

Having lost his inheritance, the younger son begins to hunger. To survive, he herds pigs as a swineherd. And he would gladly eat the swine's food-"with the husks," but no one would give him any. A saving thought awakens in him: "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!"

The prodigal son could recall this fact because he had not dissipated his one remaining gift--memory of his father and his home, which amounts to his conscience (God's voice within us). And here, conscience life returns and he understands his terrible situation. Resolve comes to him, to forsake his sins and to repent his offences to the Lord. Finally, his humility, repentance, and awareness of his unworthiness bring the sinner back to the father.

When God allows calamities to sinners, He brings them to their senses. They are God's call to repentance.

Bishop Theophan the Recluse compares the typical sinner to a man in a deep sleep. In man's turning to God, the recluse finds three psychological moments that match the parable: (1) awakening from the sleep of sin (Luke 15:17); (2) the ripening of resolve to forsake sin and to dedicate himself to pleasing God (Luke 15:17-21); and (3) investing the sinner with power in the mysteries of repentance and communion.

The vivid parable image of this father of two sons stands for the Heavenly Father. The Father is the primary allegory of the parable, Whose goodness exceeds all human concepts, in His love for the sinner and His joy when the prodigal son's returns to Him. The Gospel says to us, "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him." The waiting father has looked every day to see whether his son were returning. When He sees him, He has compassion, and runs and falls on his neck, and kisses him. The son starts his confession, but the father does not let him finish. The Father has already forgiven and forgotten everything, and he receives the dissolute and starving swineherd as a beloved son. The father does not require proofs of his son's repentance, because he sees that his son has overcome shame and fear to return home. He commands his servants to give him the best robe, shoes, and a ring on his hand. The ring is God's gift to the forgiven sinner, the gift of God's Grace. According to Blessed Theophilact, the ring restores the sinner's marriage to the earthly Church and the Church in Heaven.

Words cannot convey the fullness of God's love for fallen sinners. Perhaps Apostle Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians has it best: "Charity suffereth long and is kind . . . charity vaunteth not itself, . . . is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (I Corinthians 13:4-7). Because every sin is against love, repentance can be real only before God, the face of Perfect Love, for "God is love" (I John 4:8).

The Father's joy is there because "my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." The prodigal son was spiritually dead when he was living without God, and he come back to spiritual life by returning to life in God. Sacred Scripture often represents return to God as a resurrection from the dead (cf. Romans 6:13, Matthew 8:22, Revelation 3:1, Ephesians 2:1).

The elder son of the parable is also problematic. The return of his younger brother and his reconciliation to the father displeased the elder son. Here is how the parable sets it forth:

"Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf."

The elder son, Jesus Christ implies, is the Pharisee or Scribe whose legalism blocks him from coming to the Father. The elder son is all of us. The elder son was not much at fault until his brother returned and provoked the terrible sin of envy, which had led to the first murder and to the later murder of the Savior Himself. In the house of the Father (an image of the Church) angels feel joy and exultation over one sinner that repents, but this joy is sealed off from the elder son. The father invites the elder son to enter this joy, but he prefers to calculate legal considerations and contracts. Such cold, juridical attitudes prevail wherever love has dried up. The elder son does not really value his father's gifts. His soul holds a void more fearful than his brother's before repentance. The elder son has choked his conscience.

At some time, we all behave like the sons of the compassionate father. By our sins, we all alienate ourselves from His love. The service for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son describes our alienation from God: "I have wasted the riches which the Father gave me; I have spent them all and now am destitute, dwelling in the land of evil citizens." The prodigal son was in that state until the Gospel parable says, "he came to himself."

What does "he came to himself" mean? One Holy Father says that our salvation begins in self-knowledge. We may argue that self-knowledge is a cumulative lifetime pursuit, toward which a man always strives. But the Holy Fathers would say that until you have come to know who you are; until you have sensed the image of God in yourself; until you, living amidst earthly citizens, have felt that you are a citizen of heaven and have been enslaved to "foreign citizens"; until you, amid the filth of your soul, have come to know the image of God in yourself - until then you have not entered on the path of salvation at all.

Salvation begins when you come to know your own divine nature, as the prodigal son did. In one instant he saw that he was a slave to sin in a foreign land without genuine life. After a such self-recognition, a man may contrast himself with God's image in him, however bruised and calloused by habitual sin. Then a man begins to thirst for regeneration from sin and conversion back to being God's image.

Conversion may take a great change in perspective. A monk came to Venerable Antony and began to ask that he forgive and have mercy on him. Antony replied to him: "Neither I, nor God will have mercy on thee, if thou wilt not have mercy on thyself."

This rebuff from Saint Antony may seem strange to us. How is this so? Saint Antony asks us to understand that each of us must first discover the image of God in himself. Each of us must say "Have mercy on my inner man who, though brutalized by sin, possesses the image of God; until I myself have mercy on God's creation in myself; until in my conscience I have mercy on myself, who am sinful, defiled, and prodigal, until I take pity on my immortal soul - until then, God also will not have mercy on me. Until then, my entreaty will be in vain."

Patristic experience teaches that our requests for mercy will be in vain until we must sense in ourselves the image of God, the remnants of Divine beauty in us although distorted. The prodigal son saw how badly he was living and how well his father's servants lived. At that point, he had mercy on himself, and so went to God to beg for mercy from Him.

When we have mercy on ourselves and feel the contrast between ourselves in creation and ourselves in life, then we too can follow the path of the prodigal son toward God and can beg for mercy. Renewal of the image of God in ourselves is conversion, our sole business on earth. For us to keep God's creation - the image "of God's ineffable Glory" - constantly before our eyes, means we have more mercy on ourselves. We shall perceive the joy of life in God while we endure. Then we shall come to God and shall beg Him, as the prodigal son: "make me as one of Thy hired servants." And we shall be received by God.

Continuing to discredit the pharisaic religion, Christ tells another parable, the publican and the Pharisee, in chapter 18 of the Gospel according the Luke 18:10)

The phrases "Two men went up into the temple to pray" begin the Lord's parable. Lord Jesus describes both men in the prayer, inasmuch as "Prayer is a mirror of one's spiritual disposition," according to the holy Fathers of the Church. "Look into this mirror, look at how thou prayest, and thou wilt be able to say unerringly what thy spiritual disposition is." Our prayers show our good and dark sides, our spiritual abasement and spiritual resistence. It is not by chance that The Lenten Triodion service book opens with the sticheron: "Brethren, let us not pray as the Pharisee."

The parable presents the Pharisee as total self-satisfaction. The Pharisee fulfills the law and comes and prays in thanksgiving: "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess and here I am coming and thanking Thee."

In fact, the Pharisee have some genuine grounds for satisfaction as an member of the intellectual elite, in his own way religious, educated, and well-read. He preserves the beliefs and traditions, fulfills the religious prescriptions, and gives one-tenth of his wealth to Jewish projects. Evidently he is not a bad man, but is regarded with great respect. But his self-satisfaction so dominates his mind that cannot look into his heart, which has forgotten all values that matter at the time of God's Last Judgment.

The other man, the publican, is a tax collector, a profession held in contempt at that time. The publican appears to fulfill no part of the law at all. Sensing his worthlessness, he beats his breast and prays: "God be merciful to me a sinner!" The publican concentrates his prayer on his sinfulness before God. He understands all the futility of justification by outward works. So the men of self-satisfaction and repentance are truly opposites.

On one hand, we see the egoist: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are." According to Venerable John Climacus, this "shameless parade of our labors" is redundant, because the Lord knows the heart of the Pharisee already. But the Pharisee goes on: "I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and degrading his neighbor as well - I am not . . . as this publican." Although the Pharisee believes in the Lord and loves Him, and seeks His help, when he degrades his neighbor and exalts himself, he thereby rejects God.

The Pharisee does not even need God. John Climacus writes that the passion of pride "finds food in gratitude." For now, the Pharisee is praying, but in a little he will stop praying, because prayer is striving toward God to receive His help. "I have seen people," says Venerable John Climacus, "who thank God with their mouth, but mentally magnify themselves. And this is confirmed by that Pharisee who said ironically: "O God, I thank Thee."

The self-satisfied Pharisee's worst error is to condemn others. Love has dried up in him, and condemnation of others and contempt for them has taken love's place. And so the Pharisee forgets what the measurelessness of mercy and calculates his virtuous quantity: "I fast twice in the week, I give tithes."

God does not need calculations. He wants men's hearts. To quantify good works can lead only to formalistic Pharisaism. The Lord says, "That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20). Note the Savior's words "except your righteousness shall exceed." With these words, the Lord evaluates the Pharisees' spiritual life.

Repentance differs utterly from satisfaction. Abba Antony once said to Abba Poemen: "A man's work consists of laying his sins on his own head before God." Therefore, the publican also prays: "God, be merciful to me a sinner." He needs God and he begs, understanding that he is nothing, that all he can do is to lay "his sins on his own head before God."

"Pride is the annihilation of virtue," says John Climacus. Ancient books and old popular prints show the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee races along in a chariot while the publican walks on foot, both striving toward the Kingdom of Heaven. At the last moment the Pharisee's chariot breaks down, so that the publican on foot can overtake him. In the struggle of real life, one must learn to balance inward and outward religiosity. One must keep God's commandments and Church regulations. But doing so is no more, according to Climacus, than thinking to swim out of the deep using one hand. One must share the humility of the publican too. The publican, however, went out from the temple better justified before God than before, but he is not-as a tax farmer - yet in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the prayer of Ephraim the Syrian, the teacher of repentance, the prayer "O Lord and Master of my life," we ask to see our own sins and not to judge our brother.

Prayer and good works are vain if done not for God but for vainglory. According to all Fathers, vainglory is "trust in one's own efforts," "a rejection of God," "a driving away of His help." Doing something for show is not to render to God what is due, not to return the talent of gold to Him multiplied-"This is Thine." The devil met a certain Holy Father and said to him: "I am like thee in all things, except one: thou dost not sleep, and I keep vigil; thou fastest, and I eat nothing; but thou vanquishest me with humility." The faithful followers of Christ are known, not by works, but by humility. I can feed someone in God's name, not ascribing anything to myself - and in this instance I shall have done a truly Christian work. However, if I should do the same thing, but for any other reason, for any other aim - whatever it might be - this work will not be Christ's."

The parable of the publican and the Pharisee is Christ's call to uproot the Pharisaism in each of us. The Church hastens to our aid on the first Sunday before Great Lent, when Her Divine services reads: "Come, learn from both the Pharisee and from the publican. From the one learn his works, but by no means his pride; for the work by itself means nothing and does not save. But remember that the publican also is not yet saved, but is only more justified before God than the Pharisee, who was adorned with virtues."

Let us remember Christ's words: "Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Luke 18:14).

Lord Jesus Christ's third group of parables deal with how to overcome evil, which may try to undo the work of the Incarnation and deification of man by conversion.

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly? I lay down my life for the sheep.. I am the good shepherd? I am not a hireling who careth not for the sheep? And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." These words are from Christ's parable of the good shepherd. Christ's flock, His Church, is supposed to be One. In eternity, God will be "all in all" (I Corinthians 15:28). In that Kingdom of God, Christ gathers all men who have come to believe in Him and who have fulfilled His Gospel (Revelation 14:6), out of love for whom He offers Himself in sacrifice. " The Lord came into the world for the sake of the salvation of all men"(I Timothy 4:10), in order that there might be one flock and one Shepherd.

Christ's salvation has evil as primordial "enemy," that "thief" or "wolf" that comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy, not to let the sheep have Life everlasting, but to carry them off. This mysterious "wolf" wants to hinder the saving work of the Shepherd-Christ, not only for sheep within the fold (the Church of Christ), but the wolf wants the other sheep - whole of mankind - as well. We do not ask why some billions of people are outside the sheepfold - the Old Testament and New Testament Church of Christ. We have no answer in this world. All we do have is the good sense to see the reality of evil and its incompatibility with good. We can see it in daily experience.

The strange thing is to see evil within ourselves as well as outside. We can see evil living beside the good in us. The wolf in sheep's clothing enters the sheepfold of our Christian hearts and lives there with the lambs. The Good Shepherd knows this, but allows it and is silent for the time being. He made us free, so that we may choose Light and Good and Beauty and Truth and Love voluntarily, without His coercion, without prompting, so we can come to Him freely as His children. Each of us, together with the apostles in sorrow must say:

"For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. . . Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. . . For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. . . For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:15-24).

Each of us knows how this conflict hinders our single-minded devotion to the Good Shepherd. We struggle every minute, to find the joy of abiding in the Fold of Christ.

Although we have personal experience of this conflict, do we easily tolerate it in other people. Why is it so hard for us to understand conflict and contradiction in other people? We often imagine other people as stereotypes without conflicts. "Likeable" people have positive qualities, while "unlikeable" have only shortcomings. These prejudgments hinder our valuing and loving people. For example, because of a man's insufficient faith, we are ready to close our eyes to his ability to love sacrificially; his innate bad character so irritates us, that, aside from this bad character, we do not wish to see anything good. We take human fatigue for carelessness and laziness. Human irritability we take for obdurate, incorrigible sin. We take a man's disagreement with our ideas for his stupidity. We may think to expel that man from the Sheepfold although the Shepherd-Christ lays down His life for all the sheep. We may forget the thief on the Cross, and Matthew the Publican, and Mary the sinner. When we cast a stone at the harlot, we forget how Christ in our place once treated her (John 8:7-11).

By overlooking a man's virtues, but counting his shortcomings, we demonstrate our blindness to the image of God in our brother and sister. And by not seeing the image of God in each man, we calumniate the Creator, as though He were capable of hurting one of His creatures unjustly. How can one imagine that the Savior is concerned only about the good and obedient sheep? The Savior has said that He has other sheep not of this fold, but sheep that He must gather.

These other sheep must hear Christ's voice and go to Him. They can hear His voice through our Christian witness of His Resurrection. These other sheep can arise only after they sense God's image goodness in themselves and forget his past slavery in sin, according to the Apostle Paul: "Forgetting those things which are behind [that is, the past], and reaching forth unto those things which are before " (Philippians 3:13). By forgiving men their blunders and sins, we take part in their arising, coming back to life and taking wing. By finding good in a man, we perform the missionary work of drawing him into Christ's Fold, where, according to the Church hymn, "the sound is unceasing of those who keep festival, and the delight is endless of those who behold the ineffable beauty of the Lord's countenance."

Of course, we must pray for ourselves and for others as well. Prayer is the first and greatest work of mercy. So let the following parables - the unmerciful debtor, the good Samaritan, the rich man and Lazarus, and the unjust steward - speak to us about forgiveness of offences, good works and virtues; and let them encourage us to pray.

The Savior said more than once, "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven" (Luke 6:37; cf. Mark 11:25-26), setting our forgiveness of our neighbors as the condition for our forgiveness by the Lord. In one of Christ's talks with His disciples about forgiveness, His instruction on the loving and cautious reproval of a brother who has sinned provoked a question from the Apostle Peter, concerning how many times one must forgive someone who has offended.

The Scribes taught that one could forgive only three times. The Apostle Peter wished to exceed the righteousness of the Old Testament, so raised the number to seven. But Christ, Who urged us to make one's heart pure and bright by all-forgiving love, answers, that one must forgive until 70 times seven, that is, without any limit at all. To make this clear to Peter, Christ told the parable of the unmerciful debtor.