A Word for the 21st Sunday After Pentecost

On the Different Effect of the Word of God upon Human Hearts, according to the Difference of Hearts

Today, beloved, there was read the Gospel parable of the Sower and the seed; of the differing quality of the ground onto which the seed fell, and of the differing fate of the seed. At the end of the Gospel reading the parable is explained by the Lord Himself, at His disciples’ request. Here is this parable:

«A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold. When He had said these things He cried: he who has ears to hear, let him hear! Then His disciples asked Him, saying, what does this parable mean? And He said: to you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones 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. When He had said these things He cried: he who has ears to hear, let him hear!» (Lk 8:5-15) Here ends the Gospel of today’s Sunday.

Pitiable man! Poor man! How many obstacles he faces in the most important matter of all, the matter of his own soul’s salvation! Now he himself tramples underfoot the saving seed of the word of God, which could make him wise unto salvation—tramples it either intentionally, knowingly, in mockery, or through frivolity, negligence, and ignorance; now the universal villain and destroyer of the human race, the devil, steals away the saving word; now a hardened, stony heart will not let him be saved; now thorns—that is, various cares, passions, and pleasures of life, or wealth—set insurmountable obstacles before his salvation. Only a few, with a good and noble heart, with a thoughtful mind, value their own salvation as they ought, and with patience make use of the means of salvation given to them—and are saved. Many are called, but few are chosen. A wondrous thing! But what, in the end, does this mean? Who is to blame for this absurdity, for this willful ruin of human beings? The man himself is to blame—a man who tramples underfoot, and not infrequently learns to trample underfoot day by day, the wondrous, great, countless gifts of God. The Lord God, who made him in His own image and likeness, in righteousness and holiness, gave him every possibility, every means and power, for life and godliness. Man, through laziness and ignorance, through negligence and stubbornness, through an unreasonable attachment to this present, shadow-like, passing life, himself rushes headlong to ruin, pushing away the saving right hand of God. Who, then, is to blame for his ruin, if not the man himself? You will say: it is impossible, or, at the very least, difficult, to be saved! But a countless multitude of people just like us has indeed been saved; and people are being saved even now, though few. Difficult to be saved! Do you really wish to obtain eternal life, in blessed union with God, with the Mother of God, with the Angels, with all the saints, without effort? Without the effort of self-purification, with the help of grace; without the effort of prayer, of vigilance; without almsgiving, without meekness, without humility, without self-restraint? For the acquisition of earthly goods we do not consider it excessive to labor—and we labor, often with all our strength—but for the attainment of eternal blessedness we let our hands fall idle. And it is not even that the work of salvation is extremely hard: «My yoke is easy, and My burden is light» (Mt 11:30), says the Savior. Yes, with God’s help it becomes, little by little, easy, though at the beginning the stubborn struggle against sin makes it difficult. But is sin not itself an extremely difficult undertaking, being contrary to nature, foreign to our own divine nature? Is sin not tormenting? If we labor in sinning, then how can we not labor in doing what is right, in saving our soul from sin? There, the end is death; but here, it is eternal life. «The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life» (Rom 6:23).

This present parable of the Sower and the seed is spoken not only to encourage listeners with a good and noble heart to a more zealous fulfillment of the word of God and to a greater perfecting in virtue, but also to make scattered, negligent, hardhearted people, ruled by their passions, rouse themselves and listen attentively to the word of God, and work out their own salvation with fear. The grace of God can change every heart for the better, can work the miracle of salvation with every person, if only the person himself believes, wishes to be saved, seeks salvation, comes to know the abyss of his own sins and the abyss they dig between those who sin willfully and God; if only he submits to the saving grace of God and does not push away the saving right hand of God from himself. There have been, and there are, thousands of examples of the salvation of such people, who were formerly scattered, frivolous, hardhearted, subject to every passion. They heeded the word of God, did not resist it, followed it, and were saved, and now dwell in blessedness in the kingdom of heaven. Nothing is impossible for God: He can save even a hardened sinner; He can raise him up from the very bottom of hell to the height of His own kingdom and eternal blessedness, as He did the wise thief, as He did Mary of Egypt, who was drowning in the abyss of sin. Only let the person himself ask and zealously strive toward salvation. The Lord does not wish to drag us to salvation by force, lest salvation itself, being compelled, become hateful to him: for only that is dear and pleasant to us which we ourselves have come to love as worthy of love, which we ourselves have sought after, with which we have become one, which has become our own treasure, as it were our own nature. And such, precisely, is Christian virtue, such is the kingdom of God: it must be known, loved with all one’s heart, made one’s own here on earth, rooted in one’s own heart, so that it may penetrate the whole soul entirely, and leave no room in the heart for all-destroying, all-deceiving sin. O Christian! Cast off, then, your own ruinous distraction, your unbelief, your inattention, your negligence, your own laziness toward salvation; do not trample underfoot the wondrous gifts of grace; read or listen diligently to the word of God, which opens to you the path to salvation; fulfill it according to the best of your understanding and strength; overcome your own hardheartedness and stony heart; soften your heart, like wax, with the fire of the grace of the Holy Spirit and the tears of repentance; tear out from your heart the thorns of sin, though this be grievous, painful, since they have become your own second nature. You cannot, you say—but the grace of God is all-powerful. It will help you to accomplish easily the whole work of your salvation.

Speaking of the seed of the word of God, which feeds the human soul, I am also reminded of the earthly, perishable seed—of the seed of grain—of the present crop failure of the grain crops, of the high cost of bread, an unprecedented high cost: and the crop failure has come from the destruction of the grain seed by insects and worms, or from drought. Where do these calamities come from? — From our own sins. We do not bring to the Lord our God the fruits of repentance and the amendment of our own wretched life; the Lord takes away from us, too, the fruits of the earth, for which we did not know how, and did not wish, to be thankful to Him. We did not wish to do His will, and have become evil, cunning, proud, unrighteous, intemperate, given to idle and foul talk, given to love of gain, cruel, stingy, unmerciful, unclean. Clearly, the rod of our Father’s justice hangs over us. God punishes us with crop failures, fires, floods, exhausting wars, and destructive plagues and sicknesses. But shall we come to our senses, shall we repent, shall we amend ourselves? Have our own hearts not grown hard, not turned entirely to stone? God forbid! Where, then, will the kingdom of God be found on earth, if it is not found among Christians who call themselves Orthodox, in a land of Orthodoxy, where there are so many precious pledges of Orthodox holiness, so many holy relics of the servants of God, so many wonderworking icons, so many magnificent temples, where such a heavenly service is offered on earth? Or will «the kingdom of God be taken from us, and given to a nation that bears its fruits» (Mt 21:43). O, may we never be put to shame; may the Lord correct us with the rod of chastisement, and may He not deprive us of His mercy and of His kingdom. Amen.