In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Church’s choice of the gospel reading for this second Sunday of the Triodion, beloved in the Lord, prompts the preacher to concentrate on birthright and repentance. Three considerations I want to make on this with you this morning. The first is the loss of a birthright, the forfeiting of an inheritance. Now, the first example, explicit example, the Bible gives on this point I believe is the story of Esau. Although Esau’s appearance in history was arguably a tad too early to warrant the term “modern man,” it does seem to be an apt expression for this biblical character of Esau. He’s thoroughly modern Esau.

At least we can call him modern in one large and defining sense: that Esau, for the purpose of gratifying an immediate impulse, thoughtlessly betrayed an inherited treasure. The New Testament, in its only complaint against him, describes Esau as a “profane” person, somebody without a devout mind, a profane person, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. That’s all it meant to him, was the next meal.

Now, Esau’s underlying weakness perhaps was a lack of elementary self-control. As a rugged outdoorsman, maybe he thought of himself as a man of tough discipline. Clearly, however, the very opposite was true. Esau was unable to control his appetite even long enough for a meal to be prepared for him. Like a nursing infant, he insisted on being fed right now! as though he would otherwise perish. I’m not making that up; look what he says. “Look, I’m about to die! So what is this birthright to me? I’m about to die!” [Laughter] Undisciplined Esau, that is to say, gave up an inheritance for a slight but instant gratification, and this is surely a good reason to think of him as a “modern man.” He lives for now. Constant eschatology: “I’m going to die now if I don’t get something to eat now.”

He was modern in another sense, in that Esau had no real feel for the relative worth of things. Because he cheaply sold something material, he assumed he could just as cheaply purchase something spiritual. Embracing the principle that man lives by bread alone—a very modern philosophy, by the way—he nonetheless fancied that a higher benediction was still available to him, pretty much for the same price. Having lost his birthright for a bowl of soup, he planned to gain his blessing with a plate of venison.

There is yet another display of Esau’s modernity. He was very slow to learn. He was especially slow to learn that the future is very much tied to the past. In fact, without a past, there is no future. Some blessings, and among them the very best, are inseparable from birthrights, so that the reckless squandering of the one renders unlikely the acquisition of the other. Those, therefore, who contemn the past have little chance for a future. Show me someone who’s not interested in history, and I will show you a fool. Show me somebody whose mind is not constantly filled with history, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t have much of a future.

Poor Esau. The New Testament describes his plight. Again, the epistle to the Hebrews. “For you know that afterwards, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance”—he found no place for repentance; he found no place for repentance—“though he sought it diligently with tears.” You see, the whole motif: repentance. The poor man. The author of Hebrews is throwing that out to Christians, that it’s possible to find no place for repentance, that there is a point of no return—not that the mercy of God won’t extend there, but that the heart of man is hardened, and that fear is held before us in the epistle of the Hebrews.

In these various ways, describing him as “modern,” I have in mind chiefly Esau’s deliberate alienation from what could and should have been his own so that he could bequeath it to his own posterity. His consisted in separating himself from the binding address of tradition, the transmission of intergenerational inheritance and authority. The character of Esau goes forward to illustrate what Christopher Clausen called “post-cultural man.” He coined that phrase to identify the deeply isolated individual, deprived of the wealth and wisdom of a living inheritance. Emancipated from answering to the authority of the past, this post-cultural man is reduced to the now.

Coming from nowhere, Esau lives nowhere, and he has nowhere to go. Now there’s the darker presentation, point one.

Point two, let’s talk about the recovery of a birthright. Somebody who did not wait until it was too late. Notice how often that theme appears in the chants of the Triodion. Grant me repentance before it’s too late. Grant me repentance before it’s too late. Now, the example is today’s story of the extravagant son. That was the word, at least, that was used in matins. I noticed that for the first time this morning, I think, in 30 years as an Orthodox; I think I first noticed that they use the word “extravagant.” A vagus is a wanderer, isn’t it? A vagus, a wanderer, a vagrant in English. Vagare means to wander. An extra-vagant man is somebody who wanders off too far, an extravagant man. In fact, a number of preachers of the Gospel over the centuries have contrasted this son with Esau. I at first ran into this in a sermon I read in my early 20s. I spent a couple of months going through all eight volumes of John Henry Newman’s Pastoral and Plain Sermons, and that’s where I first ran into this contrast between Esau and the prodigal son.

Both Esau and the younger brother in the parable enjoyed the fortune of having good fathers, but both proved themselves to be utter fools by forfeiting their inheritance. That is to say, both men, living for the moment, forgot the past and took no thought for the future. Esau sold his inheritance for a bowl of soup, and today’s younger son spent his own inheritance in riotous living in a far country. In due course, both young fools come to regret their mistakes. It is in respect to those regrets, however, that our comparison between the two must be modified into a significant contrast.

Whereas Esau simply regretted his loss, the younger son repented of his sin. He didn’t say, “I made a mistake,” but that is the modern form: “I made a mistake.” But he doesn’t say that, does he? “I have sinned. I have sinned against heaven and against my father. Everything my father worked for decades to acquire, I have squandered in six months.” The difference between these two men illustrates the difference between regret and repentance. They are not the same thing.

We perceive this difference sharply in two of Jesus’ disciples, Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter. Judas regretted what he had done, whereas Peter actually repented. The one hanged himself in despair; the other prayed for forgiveness. In this morning’s matins gospel, the second [eothinon], the Gospel according to Mark, what does the angel say to the women? “Go back and tell his disciples—and Peter.” And Peter. Jesus was giving Peter notice, particular notice. This difference is precisely what we see in the comparison between Esau and the younger son in today’s parable. Esau regretted the loss of his inheritance, whereas the prodigal son actually repented of his sin and begged forgiveness from his father.

Finally, Esau threw the blame for his dilemma on his brother, Jacob, didn’t he? He blamed Jacob. He shouldn’t have brought that soup in; it’s his fault. The prodigal son blames no one but himself. The gospel story tells us he came to himself. And, coming to himself, he realized that he was the one who had sinned, and the responsibility was entirely his. People have remarked over the years how little patience—or no patience—that I have when someone is confessing their sins, but, on the sly, pointing out it was somebody else’s fault. Those of you who have made confession to me know that I will yank your chain at that point! “I’ve been upset with my wife… but you know what she did?” [Laughter] “All right, I lost my temper with my kids, but who can blame me?”

His had been, moreover, a two-fold sin, an offense both against God and that man whom God had given him to be his father. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and am worthy no longer to be called your son.” Beloved, it is to such repentance that we are called as we prepare our souls for the season of Lent. “Open unto me the door of repentance,” we started chanting last week. We did it at matins, and I noted you repeated it last week. I was glad to hear it again as we were receiving holy Communion.

Now that brings me to point three, the mystery of repentance. Now this is going to be a little tougher. I know you’re tired, but summon your inner energy and see if we can follow this one. In particular, I want to pose the question: What causes a person to repent? Most of you know that I studied for—goodness—five years, I suppose, at Southern Baptist Seminary. In fact, I studied at Southern Baptist Seminary longer than I studied at any other institution of learning. At a student of Southern Baptist Seminary, I learned a lot of things I did not know. For the first time I heard about contrasts between Arminianism—a Dutch theologian by the name of Arminius—and John Calvin, about the relationship between the will and grace. A lot of you are former Evangelicals; do you run into that? I guess former Reformed would know more about it.

I never could figure out what the fight was all about, because it seemed to me that the question was being posed the wrong way. The question being posed was: Who makes the first push? Does the will make the first push, you turn toward God? You see, if that is true, if you move toward God before anything else, that’s simply works righteousness, if you’re the one who saves yourself, because God has to respond to what you’ve pushed towards him. If the impulse comes simply from divine grace during the first push, as in the case of Calvin—ultimately Calvin is very logical—ultimately, it means such things as double predestination and other ideas which are horrible to contemplate and certainly out-of-line with holy Scripture.

I don’t believe that that’s the right question. That’s why neither answer strikes me as correct. And I’m often asked—less often in recent years; when I first came here, I got that question a lot, particularly from visitors—about where the Orthodox stood on the question of Arminius and Calvin. And I said, “Well, we don’t.” [Laughter] You’re with me. Just like going to a golf tournament and asking, “When are you allowed to use a forward pass or make a tackle?” It isn’t what we do.

I do want to pose the question, however: What causes a person to repent? Now, if we want to understand something, Aristotle wrote, we need to understand it in terms of cause and effect. That’s what understanding is; it’s a knowledge of things and their causes. We understand something, Aristotle taught, if we perceive it in terms of what causes it. We observe the relationship between cause and effect: that’s understanding. And this great Greek philosopher went on to enumerate his famous four causes. We won’t do that this morning.

It is precisely in connection with its cause that I speak of repentance as a mystery, because it’s freedom. Repentance involves the meeting of God’s freedom with man’s freedom. When human beings choose, they choose because they choose. In other words, it has a tautological dimension. The choice of something because of the choice of something; that’s human freedom. There are a lot of people who don’t believe that, but we’ve always believed it. When man’s freedom encounters God’s freedom, we have two things that cannot be understood because neither one of them has cause and effect.

The problem, as I see, is that modern usage has come to understand all causality in terms of mechanical causality. I give a simple illustration just to show you something that you all know. I suspect that you use this method for yourself all the time. It is common to speak of someone blowing up under pressure. It’s in use a lot: someone “blows up” under pressure. We understand what that means. We rather imagine that human beings are something like boilers. In a boiler, it is important not to subject the mechanism to excessive pressure; it blows its top. We know what happens when there’s too much steam in the boiler: it blows out at its weakest point, usually the lid.

Now, we use that metaphor so often that we presume that human beings are something like that. In fact, human beings are nothing like that. That’s why you hear people say, “He’s just blowing off steam,” as though somehow or another he’s releasing pressure inside himself by blowing off steam. Usually when we blow off steam, we make things worse—have you ever noticed that? You don’t improve by blowing off steam; you make your situation worse. But I don’t know where we got this idea that human beings are really mechanical things, they build up pressure… It’s nice as a metaphor, and it has some usefulness as an illustration, but human beings are nothing like boilers.

When we say that someone blows his top when the pressure’s too great, we presume that the statement is self-evident. We somehow imagine that the analogy is adequate. We confuse the pressures of a boiler with the emotions of a person. This is only an analogy, however. In fact, there’s not the slightest resemblance between a boiler and a human being. The pressures brought to bear on the human soul have no resemblance to those of hydrodynamics.

Now, what caused the young man in today’s parable, the fellow who wandered into a far country, to return to himself, to enter into his own soul, and therefore resolve to go home to his father? We cannot understand that. There is no way to understand the mystery of the confrontation of God’s freedom with man’s. We cannot understand that, and it’s utterly pretentious for any theology to try to understand that. See, this was a human decision, not a mechanical determination. Human minds and hearts are spiritual realities. So when we speak of human beings in terms of causality, we need to respect the complexity of the human soul.

Let me observe two ways in which human decisions differ from mechanical causality. That’s what I wrote when I was typing up the sermon the other day. In fact, I’ve added a third one, so don’t worry about… [Inaudible] First, in the words of John Lukacs—you know how fond I am of John Lukacs—“The mind is not a passive instrument.” Human thought and human resolve are not mere reactions. When pressure builds up in the boiler, the boiler does not think about it. He doesn’t reflect on it; he just reacts. When pressures are brought to bear on a human being, as in the case of the young man charged to feed the pigs, what happens depends in large measure on what he thinks is happening.

Now, beloved, thoughts are not just things we have; thoughts are things we choose. We don’t just have thoughts; we choose thoughts. The man’s internalization of the process was an essential part of the process. The ideas in his mind are ideas he chooses to have. His mind intrudes itself into the situation. In respect to the complexity of his mind, including language, imagination, and memory, rational reflection, free will, the causality of human resolve is not at all like mechanical causality. There are those who believe you can actually improve the moral status of man by improving his social and economic conditions. And certainly we want to improve our social and economic conditions. We want to do that; that’s a good thing to do that. But to imagine for a moment that that is going to make any kind of moral transformation on human beings is just silly. It’s a pretension that may apply to ants or bees, possibly even beavers, other creatures that don’t make moral choices.

Let me mention another difference in mechanical causality. In mechanical causality, the cause always precedes the effect, doesn’t it? We presume that causes precedes the effect. The existence of the bat must come before the home run. You don’t hit a home run to get a bat as a reward. You need the bat ahead of time. Wrong sport for today, isn’t it? I’m not going to say anything further about the Superbowl. Regard that as just a distraction; put that out of your minds. [Laughter]

But you see, this is not always the case with human decisions. Sometimes in human decisions the effect precedes the cause! I had mentioned several times recently, commenting on the difference between a motive and a purpose. A motive is a push from behind; a purpose is a pull from the front. In human situations, the future rather often determines the present. Not everybody’s going to be able to identify with this, but some of you will, I think. When you’re afraid of being embarrassed, it embarrasses you? [Laughter] Have you ever noticed that? If I get embarrassed, my face is going to get red—and then your face starts to get red.

The future rather often in human situations determines the present. The young man’s resolve—“I will arise and go to my father”—comes from his hope, doesn’t it? And hope approaches us from the future.

There is yet another difference between human decisions and mechanical causality, and it is this: the human being’s innate openness to the transforming influence of divine grace. The human soul was created for one sole purpose: to meet God, to receive God. According to Bérulle—I don’t have this in my notes, but it just popped into my head, but it seems apropos—Cardinal Bérulle has a description of man: un néant, un néant, a nothingness. Un néant environné de Dieu (surrounded by God), indigent de Dieu (needing God), et rempli de Dieu, s’il le veut (and filled with God, if he wants). That’s a human being. Human beings are made for that purpose: to meet God, to be filled with God.

In the Orthodox Church, we use the expression “synergism” to speak of this transforming influence. It means that in the work of salvation, the human will and divine grace form a single work, a composite energeia. By the way, in the Greek New Testament, that vocabulary is all found there; it’s all in the Greek New Testament. Just get out… Or I’ll tell you what. If you don’t believe me, go consult one of our Greek students, and he will look it up for you in a Greek lexicon. See, synergism is not an explanation; it is a description of a mystery. We have not the slightest idea of how the divine and human wills work together, but they are as inseparable as the air and the sunlight that fills it. They are as undivided as the molten steel in the fire that permeates it.

When we read, “I will arise and return to my father,” we’d do well to recall several other lines of holy writ. We should remember, for example, the Savior’s words: “No one comes to me unless the Father, who sent me, draws him.” “Open to me,” says the hymn of the season, “the gates of repentance.” “Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy, and according to the multitude of thy compassion, blot out my transgressions.” Let us, sweet people, put away the food of the swine and by the Father’s grace return in repentance to the Father. Amen.