Homily 613 – 16 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
October 13, 2024
Epistle:  (181) 2 Corinthians 6:1-10 and (334) Hebrews 13:7-16
Gospel:  (35) Luke 8:5-15 and (56) John 17:1-13

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

We hear the words of our Savior about the seed and the sower.  Don’t know about you, but the parable is somewhat complicated.  Let’s see if we can, together, organize this a bit and see what actions we need to take as a result of listening to, and actually hearing, this parable.

Our Lord describes four types of soil on which the seed lands.  The seed, first of all, is understood to be the Word of God – not the bible, not the scripture, not the Holy Tradition of the Church – but rather the Person of Jesus Christ.  The Gospel, the good news, that Christ is incarnate, and is Risen!

So – the four types of soil on which this message lands.  The wayside, the rock, the thorns, and the good ground.

Now, obviously, the ideal is that the Word lands on good ground, where it can take deep root, and produce superb fruit.  That involves some effort on our part, though.  We have to tear up the existing ground.  We have to till our soil.  That isn’t pleasant.  It involves effort and a disc running through the hard crust of ourselves.

We have to work hard at the difficult and often painful task of cracking through the shell that we’ve created for ourselves.  It is the part of us that we spend so much time creating, worried about the world’s opinion of us.  And what Christ tells us here is that we have to now tear that down if we want to acquire the things of God – peace, joy, love.

Of the other areas on which the seed would fall, the hardness of the ground is a common element.  The wayside as it is called was the pathway – the place between the fields where people and animals and carts would travel.

The rocks is self-explanatory, I suppose.  Still, we have to break up that rock if we expect the seed to take root.

The thorns are also the things that grow that are, in a word, useless.  There is no value in thorns, at least not compared to crops being grown.

The common element, in addition to the fact that these things have to be removed from our lives, is that they steal from us.  They are things that distract us from the important thing at hand.

So when we find our own hearts, our own selves, to be hard, we have to be on guard.  We have to be on guard for several things, in fact.

We have to be on guard for the evil one, the accuser, the devil, to come by and try to “steal” the seed from us.  “You don’t want this,” he tells us.  You don’t need this.  You can do everything on your own.  You can decide for yourself.

Which is the evil one’s ultimate great lie.  Same lie since the beginning of humanity.  You can decide this for yourself, you don’t need God.  You’ll be fine without him.

How often do we see the evil one working through the world to boost our ego?

How often do we see the world telling us to take care of ourselves, that no one will take care of us, that no one loves us?  It’s practically part of the American contract, the American Dream.

The evil of this indoctrination isn’t necessarily obvious.  The way we take care of ourselves, the way we take care of those we love, is not by embracing ourselves.  It is by embracing Christ.

Embracing Him with the child-like faith He spoke about.  The faith that doesn’t depend on us, but on our Father.  Think about when you were a child.  Did you worry about future meals?  Even if you were maybe hungry?  Did you worry about where you would spend the night, even if you were maybe homeless?

If you are like most kids, you didn’t.  You accepted what happened each day.  You didn’t try to provide for yourself.  Your job, as it were, was to be a student, and observe the world, and love your parents.  Same as our job today.

If we are rock, the seed will have even less of a chance to take root than on the pathway.  Maybe there is a small crack that the seed can take advantage of, and over time, break the rock further.  But that is most difficult.  Better if we remove the stones and rocks from our hearts.

Better that we give up our sacred cows – those dreams of fame and fortune and power.  Things which ultimately have no value in the Kingdom of God.  Our power, our fame, our wealth, is absolutely worthless in the Kingdom of God.

Christ tells us that these things are the thorns, the weeds, which will not allow our seed to take root, and will steal all the nutrients and prevent growth.  Those thorns and weeds choke out the good, and don’t allow us to produce fruit.

We end up with something – but at the same time, nothing.  A fruit tree that doesn’t bear fruit.  Consider that fig tree that produced no figs, which Christ cursed and showed to be worthless.  A fruit tree that produces no fruit is worthless.  The vine that produces no fruit gets pruned.  So that it doesn’t waste its precious resources in growing without producing fruit.

We have to look at the cares of this world – power, fame, fortune, celebrity, status – all of these rob us of the vital fruit that our Lord desires in us.  Those fruits, which St. Paul outlines in his epistle to the Galatians in Chapter 5:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.

That is what we need to focus on.  Not on receiving these things, but on giving these things.  This is what tills the hard soil of our heart.  This is what shatters the rocks.  This is what removes the weeds.

This is what creates a fertile place for the word, the seed, the Good News, to take root.  To grow into the fruit plant God has in mind for us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ.