CHRIST THE SOWER, THE GOOD SEED, AND THE BEARER OF ALL GOOD FRUIT

 

A Modern Byzantine Mural Icon of Christ the Sower

A SERMON FOR SEXAGESIMA

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

INTRODUCTION

Beloved in Christ, we stand today at the threshold of Lent, in that sober and searching season the Ancient Western Church called "Sexagesima." The holy Apostolic Tradition, as a wise physician of souls, does not rush us headlong into fasting and repentance. She slows us down and helps us to contemplate what is coming around the bend. She examines us before we throw ourselves into the fray. She asks a single, penetrating question before the ascetical labor begins:

"What kind of soil are you?"

The Introit sets the tone this morning with a cry that is at once desperate and honest: “Arise, O Lord, wherefore sleepest thou?” This is not the prayer of the complacent, nor of the triumphalistic. It is the prayer of those who know that they are weak, exposed, and dependent on God for everything. “Our belly cleaveth unto the ground.” We are dust, and the Ancient Church will soon remind us of this with ashes on our head, smudging out any perceived beauty we may have on our own. Yet even now, she teaches us to cry out, which is not in self-confidence, but in holy poverty of soul, as we realize our true condition. My true condition. 

This spirit governs the Collect of the day: “O Lord God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do…” Here is the foundation of all true repentance. Lent is not holy self-improvement. It is not moral bootstrapping. It is not religious productivity. It is the stripping away of false trusts so that the Word of God may finally find room to take root, against all that is in us, vying to crowd out the still, small presence of the Lord. 

THE SAINTS AS ILLUSTRATIONS OF LIVING SOIL

The feasts surrounding this Sunday are not accidental occurrences without deep or mystical meanings. They show us what good soil looks like in real human lives.

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple shows us hearts made ready: Sts. Simeon and Anna, formed by years of waiting, able to recognize the Seed when He is placed into their arms.

St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, reminds us that the Word must be spoken clearly, even when it costs the voice itself. We use his life as an illustration, and his prayer as a protection against colds, viruses and flu! 

St. Agatha shows us a heart so undivided that no violence could choke its fruitfulness. She shocks us in her loving simplicity and humility. She reminds us how many of the victims of Satanism, like Epstein's sacrificed children, are actually hidden saints and martyrs, who are in the embrace of our Lord and Savior. 

St. Titus reveals the patient labor of pastoral fidelity, guarding the soil of the Church against corruption. He is a great example of what pastoral episcopacy should be, as we try to stand in the stead of the Apostles, and keep the Gospel that was once and for all passed to the Saints, without addition, subtraction, or personal interpretation!

St. Richard of Wessex teaches us the renunciation of ambition, the quiet pilgrimage of a heart that seeks its rest not in power, but in God. He shows us that this world is not our home, and that we are just passing through - as strangers and pilgrims!

These saints were not extraordinary because they were untouched by weakness. They were extraordinary because they allowed the Word to remain why they, themselves, decreased. Thus, they are pictures of what Christ is talking about in the Holy Gospel... The Good Soil!

CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE

The Old Testament lesson places us before a covenantal decision. Joshua stands before Israel and speaks with startling clarity: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” There is no neutrality here. There is no safe middle ground. The people may serve the Lord, or they may serve the gods of Egypt and the Amorites, but they may not pretend to serve the Lord while keeping their idols intact.

Joshua’s warning is severe, even unsettling: “Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God.” This is not because God is cruel, but because God is real. He is not an idea, nor a comforting projection, nor a tribal mascot. He is the Living God, and therefore false worship, divided hearts, and half-truths cannot stand before Him.

This lesson prepares us directly for the Gospel. For the soil that cannot receive the seed is precisely the heart that has never truly chosen the Lord, but has merely added Him to an already crowded field.

TO DAY, IF YOU WILL HEAR HIS VOICE

The Epistle to the Hebrews deepens this warning. Israel heard the Word of God in the wilderness, yet failed to enter into His rest; not because the Word was weak, but because it was “not mixed with faith in them that heard it.” The tragedy of the wilderness generation is not ignorance but resistance. They heard, but they did not yield.

The Apostle speaks with urgency: “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Notice the language. Hearts are not hardened by sudden rebellion, but by slow refusal. Not by repeated delays, rationalizations, and compromises. Sin deceives not by thunder or profound revelation, but by simple habit and dull repetition. What is postponed today becomes impossible tomorrow.

And the Epistle does not leave us in fear. It leads us to Christ Himself: our great High Priest, “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He knows the hardness of the human heart, for He assumed it. He knows the weakness of our soil, for He entered into it. Therefore we are not told to flee in terror, but to “come boldly unto the throne of grace.”

THE SOWER WENT FORTH TO SOW

Then comes the Holy Gospel, the heart of this Sunday’s worship and meditation: the Parable of the Sower. It provides us with an archetype of God’s creativity, and something that St. Justin Martyr talks about in his “Apologies” – Christ as the “Logos Spermatikos”, which is both the Creator and also the seed within the creation. It points to the Incarnation from the beginning of time.

Christ does not ask whether the seed is good. He tells us plainly: “The seed is the word of God.” The question is not the quality of the Word, nor the generosity of the Sower. The question is the condition of the ground.

Some hearts are trampled pathways: exposed, hardened by traffic, shaped by habit and noise. The Word is heard, but immediately stolen, not because it is false, but because it is unwelcome.

Some hearts are rocky: enthusiastic, emotional, quick to rejoice, but unwilling to be broken open. There is no depth, no patience, no endurance. When trial comes, faith withers because it has never been rooted in obedience.

Some hearts are thorn-filled: choked not by persecution, but by cares and riches and pleasures of this life. These are not necessarily wicked things. They are simply crowded things. The tragedy here is not rejection, but distraction. Fruit never matures because attention is always divided.

And finally, there is the good soil: not perfect soil, but honest and good hearts, which keep the Word and bring forth fruit with patience. This patience is essential. Fruit does not appear overnight. The Kingdom grows slowly, invisibly, beneath the surface, in a soil that has learned to wait upon God rather than demand immediate results.

POETIC REFLECTION

Lenten Fields

Before the ash, before the fast,

Before the scourge of these coming honest days,

The Field lies bare beneath Thy fiery gaze,

Remembering the pain of all these seasons past.

The Sower walks my furrowed land

With holes in hands and bleeding tread;

Thy Seed is Life, though often thought dead

To the hearts that will not bend to understand.

Some soul-soil is pounded into stone, by culture’s ancient feet

Trodden flat by noise and heartless mercantile care;

Thy Word-Seed falls here, which I can no longer bear

The weight of my heart that standing will not kneel.

Sometimes this heart-soil receives with sudden flame,

A joy too quick, too lightly received and sworn;

But roots grow cold and slow where this stone is born,

And trials scorch my yet tender name.

Sometimes my fields are fair, tangled and overgrown:

Thorns and snares from carnal comforts all intertwined;

A love of gold, fear or failure, and anxious mind

Strangle the good seed Thy warming breath has sown.

Yet here, O Lord, beneath Thy heavy, rugged Cross,

A quieter furrow, broken open, awaiting Thy hand:

Not rich, not proud, not even or well-planned,

Shattered ground that counts all but Thee as total loss.

Break Thou my hardpan clod, this hidden lie,

The deep self-trust buried and hidden deep within;

Let this Lent begin where truth also begins:

Not in my feeble and failing strength, but in Thy cry.

For Thou art the Seed, and the Soil, and the Rest,

The Sabbath where all my futile, tired labor ends;

The Word that wounds, and the Word that mends,

A Secret Harvest hidden within my chest.

Teach me to wait. Teach me to hear.

Teach me to lose, that I may yet again live.

What Thou dost take, also Thou yet dost give:

And fruit grows best in the ground of holy fear.

So let this empty field lie still and bare

Until Thy mercy wakes this broken ground;

For where Thy death and life are found,

There blooms the Eternal Kingdom everywhere.

PREPARING THE SOIL

Beloved, Sexagesima does not ask us yet to commit to hard fasting. It asks us to prepare the ground. To break the hardened places. To remove the stones of superficial faith. To pull up the thorns of divided loyalty.

Lent will demand our intense labor and sacrifice. But labor without receptivity bears no fruit. Before discipline comes our holy (and “wholly”) surrender. Before effort comes listening. Before repentance comes honesty. Before honesty comes quietness and an orientation towards God; a focus that allows us to see things for what they truly are.

Therefore, the Church places on our lips today a humble prayer after Communion: “That we, whom thou dost refresh with thy holy Sacraments, may continually serve thee in all virtuous and godly living.” Notice again: not self-trust, but divine refreshment; not heroic striving, but continual service. We are called outside of ourselves to find God’s grace, which is the energy of His presence to accomplish the work that He wills.

The Sower still sows. The Seed is still living and powerful. The question remains, “to-day,” what kind of soil will we offer Him? Will be the kind of soil that God can use to plant Himself, to bear fruit to Himself, and give Himself all glory and honor, power and dominion, forever and ever?

May the Lord who is Himself the Seed, the Sower, and the great and bountiful Harvest, prepare our hearts, that we may bear fruit unto eternal life.

COLLECT

O MOST merciful God, who by thy holy Word dost continually sow the seed of life in the hearts of thy people: Grant us grace, we beseech thee, to cast away all hardness of heart, all vanity of mind, and all inordinate cares of this world; that we may receive thy Word with meekness, keep it with patience, and bring forth fruit unto holiness and everlasting life. Cleanse us from all false trusts, strengthen us against temptation, and prepare us, by true repentance and steadfast faith, for the holy discipline of Lent; through Jesus Christ our Lord, the living Word, our great High Priest and Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.