Luke 8 Parable of the Sower

Glory to thee, O Lord, glory to thee. Glory to

Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father, and

of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Just

in time for the harvest season, we have in the

wisdom of the church a parable about a farmer

who takes his seed and he just casts it everywhere.

The hard ground, the rocky ground, places where

there's thorns, where one wonders can it grow,

and also on the good ground. in which the farmer

has done a significant amount of work cleaning

it out. And the apostles ask, what could this

mean? They hear this parable, and of course at

this time in their catechism, the Lord's teaching

them for three years, after all. At this point

in their life, they don't understand a lot of

what he says. It's the same is true for us, I

think. That we, as disciples of the Lord, are

often vexed, not sure what to do, not sure what

things mean, not sure what the path ahead is

for us. The Lord will guide us. And in this case,

he exclaimed to the disciples what the parable

meant. He gave them the explanation. And he said,

as I said last night at the end of Vespers, He

says it in parables because there are certain

people that simply will not hear or accept the

message. I want to speak about how we hear. And

in the church, in that case, we have to talk

about the heart. The prophet Jeremiah, the prophet

Isaiah, Luke himself. Over 43 times mentions

that Jesus has said something about the heart.

St. Paul speaks about the heart and that the

gift of the Holy Spirit has been given in the

heart all over the scriptures. And we know ourselves,

right? We see a Valentine's card. There's a heart

on it. We know what it means. For us Orthodox,

it doesn't mean the place of the emotions. It

means the deep inner person. The place where

the soul dwells. That's the heart. Not figuratively

either, but specifically the place of the soul.

And we speak of learning something by heart,

a song or a poem. We speak of a broken heart.

We speak of a courageous heart. We speak of a

great -hearted person. So we have a sense. Of

this. Because that's where the soul is. In the

heart. Jesus says at the end of his teaching

today. To a great crowd of people. Tells us at

the beginning of this chapter. A great crowd

of people. He says the seeds that fell on the

good ground. Are those who having heard the word.

With a noble and good heart. Keep it. And bear

fruit. with patience. The parable today of the

sower tells us of a noble and good heart. Our

heart is to be good, is to be receptive, it's

to be cleaned, cleared out from all the residue,

the trash, the stuff that builds up around us.

The heart is that inner chamber. One of the saints

speaks about how to prepare for confession. and

how to prepare for communion. And he says something

like this. If you're inviting a guest to your

house to stay with you, and you have your guest

room, but it's filled with old computer boxes

and boxes from Amazon and wires and other junk.

And extra furniture that you don't need. And

Christmas presents that you don't want. And so

on and so forth. And piles and piles of things.

Where is your guest going to stay? He says, this

is the state of our heart. And it's dirty and

it's dusty and it's a mess. If we expect someone

to come, we'll do our best. If we love that person.

We want to embrace that person. We want to show

that person absolute hospitality when they come.

We will prepare that room. We will clean it out.

And we will make it comfortable. This, the saint

says, is how we prepare for communion. We empty

all that out so that the Lord himself will be

the guest. Because we have been given the glory,

the honor to be Christ. But if the Lord is crouching

someplace in the closet, because that's the only

extra room in that room, in the heart, then how

can we mature spiritually? How can we honor him

within ourself? So the good heart, the receptive

heart. St. John Chrysostom says that in receiving

communion, You take into yourself the Lord God

himself. And you are mingled with his holy body.

You are intermixed with his body and blood. That

is in heaven. And we become Christ bearers and

heaven bearers. Heaven bearers. Heaven is within

the heart when it is in that condition. It has

to be made a place worthy of God. Can he make

it worthy for us? We say at the end of the liturgy,

we sing, thou hast made us worthy to partake.

It's God that will do it, but we have to participate.

Do we commend ourselves? You hear the deacons

say this at the end of the litany. Let us commend

ourselves and all our lives unto Christ our God.

But is there a little corner that we can't commend?

That we can't give the Lord. That we are holding

back. The parable tells us the Lord, who is the

sower of the seed, puts into the heart the life

-giving word. Because he says in the parable,

the seed is the word of God. But he is the word

of God. So it's his love, it's his presence,

it's his knowledge of his existence and care.

And every single person on the planet is given

the opportunity to bear that, to carry that,

to receive that. There's no coercion. As I've

said to you many, many times in the Lord, there

is no, I must do this or else. Because that's

not love. With God, we are free. We are free.

We can say no. He still loves us. We can say,

yes, he still loves us. We can participate and

learn how to love him. There's no coercion. Everyone

receives that seed, no matter where. But according

to the parable, not all respond. Yes. Yes, for

certain. A person might be like that ground,

hard pavement. concrete, a hard -hearted heart.

And the Lord says, the devil is constantly stealing

the word from the peace, from the heart, the

peace of heart. He's distracting us. He's leading

us down a path that seems good in our own eyes.

But it leads to destruction. It's when we are

interrogating the Lord. When we are not listening

for what he might tell us, but we're telling

him how he ought to be. One in him, the church,

which is his body after all, so it's the same.

One in it to be different. But we can choose

if our heart is hard. We can choose to break

up that ground. to take out the trash that's

accumulated, to clean it, to prepare it for the

word. You know how to do this. For the last few

weeks, the sermons that you've been given, I

gave you seven points the next week, Father.

Nicholas gave you seven points last week. Father,

Damien spoke about, you know what to do. You

don't need me to tell you. Pray. Read the scriptures.

Come to church. All of those things. No one is

predestined to be lost. No one to have the heart,

the seed, the word of God stolen from the heart.

Not at all. But then we have, and I only deal

with these two, this hard one and the next one.

Then we have the heart which is choked and strangled

by weeds. Now the ones that fell among the thorns

are those who, when they have heard, one evangelist

says, when they have heard with joy, they're

zealous, they can't wait to be part of all of

this. They go out and are choked with cares,

or maybe it's riches, or maybe it's pleasures,

or whatever, anxieties, and bring no fruit. To

maturity. Their heart cannot bear. The presence

of God. And they might be happy. They may enjoy

life. In fact God is sending in this case. So

many blessings. But we forget. Where the blessings

are coming from. And we think it's by our own

hand. And we forget the giver of all good gifts.

And the soul, in that case, which was created

to be a mirror of God. Why do I say that? What

does it say in Genesis? We are created in the

image. That's a mirror. And likeness of God.

The soul, which is created to be that mirror,

reflecting God, reflecting goodness, reflecting

love, reflecting his creative powers, now reflects

cares. to everybody else, and troubles, and is

a hoarder, a hoarder of those things. Like that

room that I described, a room of hoarders. Like

the addict, like the drug addict or the alcoholic,

there's momentary happiness, but there's no satisfaction.

That's the heart that is choked and fragmented,

and it only takes a little bit less effort. every

day to find ourselves in that condition. As a

side note, let me say to you parents, please

listen clearly to this. Protect your children

from social media. It's spiritual strangulation,

emotional strangulation. A 150 % increase in

depression for boys and girls since 2010. A rise

in emergency room visits for self -harm. A 188

% increase for teen girls and 48 % for boys between

2010 and 2020. These are real statistics. They

need to be updated, and they're not getting better.

You want anxiety and depression? You want false

understanding of relationships? Please protect

your children. This is a certain way to strangle

the heart. St. John of Kronstadt, who we remember

today, the choir sang his Traparin, Kentuckian.

He says this, the grace of God can change any

heart for the better, any heart. any heart for

the better, accomplishing the miracle of salvation

in any person, if only that person would believe,

desire to be saved, and seek salvation. All those

things involve action. They are verbs. Believe

is not mental. It means faithfulness. It means

coming here. It means preparing yourself. It

means loving God and your neighbor and forgiving

and loving your enemy. It means all of those

things. Believe, desire, and seek. It's a great

tragedy to not actualize those verbs because

why? When life brings its inevitable suffering,

or nowadays when it brings challenges to the

faith that is not mature, In you. Or me. We can

turn away. The church does not fit us. And we

are mad at God. And upset. And then it's easy

to not come to church. It's easy to not fast

or to pray. To confess. Read the scriptures.

Because we are challenged. But then. In that

situation. Is all lost? Absolutely not. Because

God often, as St. Paul said in this epistle today,

he boasts in his infirmities, in that condition.

Then either the word of God is choked out of

us and we just leave, or glory to God, glory

to God, that faith blossoms in the heart through

all that difficulty and then In every instance,

we begin to rely upon God and not on ourselves,

and then we can agree with what St. Paul said,

or what St. Paul, forgive me, was told by Christ.

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength

is made perfect in your weakness. Therefore,

most gladly, I will boast, rather boast in my

infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest

upon me. Wow. Wow. What a statement. It doesn't

sound like the way most people would boast. In

the time of trial, challenges, then being faithful,

which is action, matures us and the heart is

not only cleansed, but it is enlarged. Jane C.

Mayer. Some of you might know this Orthodox writer

has written in her wonderful children's book.

I've been told I haven't read the book, actually,

The Hidden Garden. She wrote this, within every

heart is a hidden garden. We can neglect it until

the weeds take over and the flowers wither and

die. Or with the help of Christ, we can care

for it and make it a place of beauty, grace,

and joy. Amen. Amen.