We have been reflecting in recent weeks on the difficult subject of material riches. Can a rich man or woman inherit the Kingdom of Heaven? This is an urgent question with many lives hanging in the balance especially in the United States .... and a personal one for me having been a vicar of large Episcopal churches in Newport, Rhode Island and Ogunquit, Maine. This great question is posed insistently during the Advent of Jesus Christ, and they are always eschatological issues, even depicting a rich man engulfed in Hell's flames and hearing Abraham's words, "'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things'" (Lu 16:24). The subject of worldliness and riches is not something we can pass over, much less ignore.

How does this system of wealth and privilege propagate itself? This is done through inheritance — monetary inheritance and what we might call cultural inheritance, which is a legacy of social connection, attitude, and great expectations in the material world. Jesus surfaces the question of inheritance repeatedly during His three-year public ministry. Among the Evangelists, St. Luke, was most keen to commit these sayings and parables to memory. You understand the Gospels existed in an oral-form-only for decades. Each of the Evangelists committed to memory those things Jesus said that spoke most vividly to him, the things that resonated most deeply with in each one. For St. Luke the subject of material wealth was of particular importance.

Think of the man in Luke, Chapter 9, who wanted to say farewell to his family before committing to Jesus as a disciple. What he means by bidding his father and mother farewell is that he see them off at their deaths, burying them and settling their estate, in order to receive his inheritance. Jesus replies,

In Luke, Chapter 12, a stranger in a crowd asks the Master to arbitrate an inheritance claimed by his brother and himself. Jesus responds by telling a story — of a man who sought to be his own beneficiary. He would secure this vast legacy for himself by building larger barns to hold it all. He failed to factor in one point: that he would not live forever. No sooner had he completed his last will (in the form of blueprints for these barns), than he heard the angel of death:

In all of these examples, Jesus points to a great crossroads we must face. We may think of it as bearing the name Inheritance. Do we give ourselves — our time, our labors, our attention, our passions — to God? Or do wait upon worldly riches? Our worldly legacy?

In our Epistle lesson this morning in 1 Corinthians, St. Paul points to inheritance by reminding us that our bodies already are Temples of God. We already are in the Kingdom of Heaven. Refining this theme in 1 Corinthians, he gets down to the details in Chapter 6:

Moreover, the son who has insisted on receiving this inheritance now is said to have died (Lu 15:32). He himself says, "I perish!" (Lu 15:17). In this sense, the two brothers who inherit from Chapter 12 and its linked story of the rich fool, who names himself his sole beneficiary and then dies seem to be related — the two brothers .... the death of the beneficiary. Clearly, all three are part of Jesus' meditation on Mammon and God, on worldliness and the Last Things, sounded at the opening theme of the Didache.

The Master leaves no doubt that the younger brother's intention is solely driven by an earthly (not to say, earthy) inheritance. Jesus says that he "wasted his possessions with prodigal living" bringing to mind St. Paul's litany of those who cannot inherit Heaven's Kingdom: fornicators, idolatrous, adulterers, thieves and drunkards. And the young man has fallen in with Gentiles (they cultivate pork) living in a far country, suggesting that homosexuality and sodomy might very well have been part of the raucous scene. Completing St. Paul's list, we see that covetousness — the inordinate love of money and the things it can buy — is the younger brother's primary passion. This is what began the whole process.

Throughout the Gospels, the Pauline Correspondence, and the Didache we are instructed to reflect on the great crossroads — the "two ways" and their respective destinations. The parable before us this morning is by far the most complete, for it is the only one depicting a man traversing both ways and arriving to both destinations. The journey of the younger brother traverses the path to the left and the path to the right and takes each of them to their end.

Many have noticed that the Parable of the Prodigal Son is about theosis — the configuration of the younger brother, the older brother, and the Father, each representing a phase of spiritual development. Most of us begin as the younger brother tempted by worldly riches and ruled by our passions. We progress to the older brother's state: sober, dutiful (he is still working in the field at dusk), loyal to Father God (he has never disobeyed a commandment). Yet he lacks one thing: the compassion and love of the Father. Finally, we progress to the state of the Father: all-knowing, all-wise, and all-loving.

The parable is about the man who rejects God, much less, theosis. He chooses material wealth, and like the rich engulfed in flames, he arrives to a tragic end. We might say he dies in utter degradation. The next stage in his journey will be the eternal death of the unrighteous.

Yet, through a profound transformation of heart, the young man is able to make his way back to the Father. Like the penitent Publican, he cannot, in his unworthiness, turn his face to the Father but prostrates himself in his dissipated state at the Father's feet, pouring out his heart of regret:

In his profound remorse and regret, the son-become-prodigal is forgiven. The Father tells the older brother,

In this, the younger brother becomes the only person in the Gospels to make his bed in the flames of Hell and be received into the Bosom of Abraham, as the rich man was not.

In the whole catalogue of sayings and parables concerning worldly riches and salvation, surely none is so complete. For encompassing the extremes of eschatological fullness is the point and design of this parable. We are reminded of Psalm 139, a poem about furthest extremes:

Truly, all things are possible with God, yet in His marvelous design, all things remain in our hands:

Yet are we His, His beloved children. Even after we die, we enter a forty-day period where the state of our soul, the condition of our will, and the choices proceeding from this freedom, will all be tested. Can we truly regret? Can we truly take hold (as the younger son had)? Can we truly have shame? Can we look at ourselves with a sober eye and cry out,

Here on the eve of the Great Pascha Fast (here in the West, we say Septuagesima Sunday), let us fasten our minds and souls on this great crossroads. Let us meditate upon all that it means. Yes, we might tell ourselves that we will follow the path of the Prodigal Son and have both: worldly riches and the Kingdom of Heaven. But be ware, lest we hear Jesus' other, flinty words,