A HOMILY FOR THE SUNDAY OF THE PRODIGAL SON
About Psalm 136 – “By the Waters of Babylon”
Brothers and sisters!
Today being the second Sunday of the pre-Lenten season, the period of the Triodion, we heard for the first time the chanting of Psalm 136, “By the Waters of Babylon” at the Polyeleos of Matins. For the sake of those not present then, the psalm was chanted again during the priest’s Communion, according to widespread custom. This psalm will be repeated on both of the two Sundays that remain before the beginning of Great Lent.
One of the best-known of psalms, “By the Waters of Babylon” is ascribed to the Prophet Jeremiah both by the early Christian and the Jewish rabbinical traditions. In the superscription of the psalm in the Septuagint, it says, “For David. By Jeremias, in the Captivity.” In other words, after the conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC, when Jeremiah was taken to Babylon with the others, the prophet wrote Psalm 136, dedicating it to the holy King David, who had made Sion or Jerusalem the capital of the Hebrew kingdom and its spiritual heart.
Like much of Scripture, especially the Old Testament, this psalm has more than one level of meaning. According to the literal or historical sense, the psalm expresses the bitter feelings of the exiled Jewish people, who had experienced the horrors of conquest, slaughter, rape, despoilation, dispossession, and banishment, as well as humiliation and oppression in their new home. The “waters of Babylon” are the two rivers that run through Mesopotamia, modern Iraq – the Euphrates and the Tigris. In their grief, the weeping Jewish exiles figuratively hang up, or put away, their instruments on the willows growing alongside these rivers rather than end their mourning while still in captivity. Never, says Jeremiah, will the Jews forget Jerusalem or reconcile themselves to life in Babylon; rather, until the Babylonians experience foreign conquest and its horrors as have they, the Jews will pray both for divine punishment of the Babylonians and for their own restoration to their homeland.
The Jews’ prayer was answered in the year 563 BC, when the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon and sent God’s chosen people back to Palestine.
Even without understanding the wider, spiritual sense of Psalm 136, most people cannot fail to be moved by its sad, solemn tone; by the power of its stark imagery; and by the profound sense of loss it conveys. At the same time, the psalm, with its fierce yearning for revenge, leaves many people disquieted. Since it occupies such a prominent place in the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church and especially in our preparation for Great Lent, it is important to ask: what is the universal and spiritual sense of Psalm 136? What is its primary, its real meaning for the New Israelites, the race of Orthodox Christians?
Almost from beginning to end, the Old Testament is full of conflict between the Hebrew people and their various enemies, against whom the Lord’s chosen are enjoined to bitterest struggle. But we must understand that these visible adversaries of ancient Israel were meant by the Holy Spirit to represent our invisible adversaries, the demons; otherwise, we will not penetrate very far into the spiritual meaning of the Old Testament. Especially, we will not be able to penetrate the spiritual meaning of this psalm. And so, when Psalm 136 speaks about the Babylonians and about their allies in the conquest of Jerusalem -- that is, the sons of Edom, or the Edomites -- we should realize that this refers, in the spiritual sense, to the incorporeal foes who, from the time of the creation of our first parents, have never ceased to fight against us.
Having fallen from heaven on account of his boundless pride, the chief of our demonic foes, Satan, deceived Adam and Eve with a grievous deception. Thus our whole race was exiled from paradise, like the Prodigal Son from his father’s house or the Jews from holy Sion. We became strangers to the glory of God, to the blessedness of the Garden, for which we were created. Two Sundays from now, just before Lent begins, on the Sunday of Forgiveness, the Holy Church specially commemorates this exiling of our first parents and hence the exile of all of us.
To the degree that we remain unrepentant and hardened in our offenses, we sinners languish in a Babylonian captivity to the enemies of God and of our race, the race of the new Israelites, the Orthodox Christians. We remain far from our desired homeland: we dwell “by the waters of Babylon.” And so we, like the Jews of old, are pilgrims and strangers upon earth, this vale of sorrows. Consciously or unconsciously, we long deeply for the celestial fatherland. No one or nothing on sinful earth can ultimately satisfy our hearts, for there is no temporal pleasure or satisfaction unalloyed with grief. Thus we must never reconcile ourselves to a life of exile from the paradise of delightful communion with God; we must never sing a song of Sion, a song of happiness and contentment, for our noetic foes and incorporeal captors, the wicked demons; we must never make friends of these evil Babylonians. We must always set the Jerusalem on high at the head of our joy; for as Saint Paul says, Our life is in heaven, from whence we also look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.[1]
In Psalm 136, the verses that cause perhaps the most confusion to many are the last two: O daughter of Babylon, thou wretched one, blessed shall he be who shall reward thee wherewith thou hast rewarded us. Blessed shall he be who shall seize and dash thine infants against the rock. But actually, this is one of the most instructive parts of the entire psalm, one of the parts most essential to apply to ourselves and to our own circumstances.
So: who or what, spiritually speaking, are the infants of the daughter of Babylon; meaning, of the demon? And who or what is the rock against which they are to be dashed?
Blessed is the person who smashes newly born sinful thoughts, the offspring of the daughter of Babylon, before these thoughts have the opportunity to grow, mature, and become strong within the soul; blessed is he who destroys them before they can overpower the soul. Blessed is he who dashes such infants against the mighty rock which is the Lord Jesus Christ and life in Him.
Beloved Christians, let us ever keep holy Sion, the celestial Jerusalem, before our inner eyes, and never reconcile ourselves to slavery to the invisible Babylonians. Rather, let us dash to death the infants of Babylon upon the great stone which is Christ. Let us dash them upon mighty rock of authentic life in Christ, the life of spiritual struggle to which the Holy Church is calling us to return as Great Lent draws near.
Behold, the gates of the arena lie open before us. Let us enter and contend.
The Great Fast is at hand, brothers and sisters. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation[2] for the New Israelites, exiles from the heavenly Sion! Amen.
[1] Phil. 3:20
[2] II Cor. 6:2
