The parable of the prodigal son is built on a contrast. On one side is the son's despair; on the other, the father's joy. It is easy to see that these are two very important aspects of repentance. The Lord says that repentance cannot be a bargain (as if God forgives me and I promise to be good from now on). The son's break with his father looks more like a bargain: you give me my inheritance, and I will have no further claims on you. Nor is repentance like “turning oneself in” (as if repenting deserves praise and means getting off with a severe reprimand). It has nothing in common with indifference or any form of calculation. The son's thought that his father might take him on as a hired servant seems blasphemous—and he never actually voiced it.

What, then, is repentance like? One word occurs six times in this chapter: joy. God is overjoyed that we have come. What can we do but rejoice with Him?

"This son of yours," says the older son. The younger son renounced sonship by demanding his share of the estate as if his father were already dead, and by living as if there were no father, as if he were not the son of one who knows how to love. The older son did not do this; he lived with his father and did everything his father asked him to do. He may even have truly loved his father. But, as one priest said in a sermon on the prodigal son, by refusing his brother, by not wishing to call him brother, the older son also refuses the father; he deprives himself of sonship just as the younger one did before. For if the younger one is now a son, "this son of yours," and he does not consider him a brother, then by that very fact he ceases to be a son.

It follows that only lack of love for our neighbors deprives us of the possibility of being children of God. And it is precisely love that makes us His children, because love is the family trait of the saints. A saint is one who belongs to God, and God is love.

Today's parables of the Lord Jesus about the lost sheep and the lost drachma, especially the first one, have had an exceptional influence on the consciousness of many generations of Christians. The image of the shepherd carrying the found sheep on his shoulders was painted on the walls of the Roman catacombs by Christians of Rome, and it became the first icon of Christ. From the eighth century to this day in the Eastern Church, as we accompany brothers on their final journey, we sing: "I am the lost sheep; call me back, O Savior, and save me". This is one of the most vivid images of salvation and one of the shortest summaries of the essence of the Gospel. God came into this world as the Shepherd in order to save the sheep that had run away from Him. Into ravines, into the very depths of the earth, and even down to hell He descends in order to find us. Everything here matters: that the sheep gets lost through its own foolishness, not following the Shepherd; that this sheep is unable to return to Him on its own; and that the Shepherd goes after it, moved by love and compassion.

But what matters most is what the Lord wanted to say through this parable to the Pharisees who were questioning Him. They believed that Christ should occupy Himself with them, people who carefully observed petty ritual prescriptions and despised others. Today we have various honorary titles: distinguished physician, distinguished teacher, distinguished this or that. The Pharisees, in our language, wanted to be distinguished righteous people, entitled to privileges in the Kingdom of Christ. But in these two parables the Lord answered them that God needs all His sheep, not only some of them. And only repentance makes you a found sheep rather than a proud and disobedient ram.