2 Corinthians 6.1-10

Luke 8.5-15

St Luke introduces the parable of the Sower this morning with this: ‘When a great multitude had gathered, having come to Him from every city, He spoke to them by a parable’ (Lk 8.4). The great multitude is all the Orthodox faithful who have come in spirit from out of the cities of this world not just this morning but from every age, to gather around the LORD Jesus Christ in all the Holy Temples of His one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

We this morning, then, are gathered with all the faithful throughout the world, from every age, who love the LORD Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother. This morning, He speaks to us by this parable of the Sower. But, in the Church, through our baptism, we are also in the company of His holy apostles. With them, we receive from the LORD Himself the meaning of the Sower who went out to sow His Seed.

Note that none of the Seed that falls ‘alongside the path,’ whether it was on rocky ground or amongst weeds, takes root. Either it is eaten by the birds of the air, or it withers and dies in the heat of the sun, or it is choked by the weeds.

The LORD says in another place: ‘I am the Way. No one comes to the Father but by Me.’ (Jn 14.6) Again, in another place, He speaks more cryptically of Himself as the Way or Path that is ‘difficult. Yet, as the Path, He leads to the Gate that opens onto eternal life; but the Gate itself is very narrow, and few there are who find it.’ (Mt 7.14) It is easier, He says in another place, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter that Gate. But He is also the Gate, just as He is also the Path; for, as He says, ‘I am the Door, the Gate. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.’ (Jn 10.9)

The Seed that the Sower sows, the LORD says, is the WORD of God. It, too, is Christ Himself, the WORD of God. Note, then, that it falls alongside the Path, i.e., even on those who have turned away from God, who are not found on the difficult Path that leads to the narrow Gate that opens onto the Father in the green pasture. But now let’s ponder this parable as an icon of Christ’s Holy Pascha.

Now we see that the Seed falls on the whole earth. It looks like the darkness that covered the whole earth – the sun that is the conceit of human wisdom being conquered by the impenetrable compassion of Christ shining brilliantly from the Cross even into the nethermost regions of hell. The Seed falls on the whole earth like rays of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, from whose warmth – this is the love of God – no one is hidden (Ps 18/19.5). The Seed falls as the dawning Light that shone forth from the LORD’s Tomb (Lk 23.54) on those sitting in the region and shadow of death both on earth and below the earth in Hades. (Mt 4.15-16)

That means that the Seed falls on all of us who are dead in our sins and trespasses. It falls on every kind of heart – the heart hardened by sin, the heart that is shallow, the heart ensnared in the cares and pleasures of this life.

The Seed falls, it says, also on good earth. This takes us back to Gen 2.5-7, for the earth from which Adam was fashioned was very good earth. The earth, as we know both from the LORD’s parable and from the holy fathers, is an ‘icon’ of our heart. It is the Garden of Eden. But in the ‘transgression’ (paraptoma), Adam fell away from the difficult and narrow Path onto the broad path of death, and he became a spiritual corpse. His body became a ‘body of death.’ (Rm 7.24) The good earth was cursed and became the ‘dust of death.’ (Ps 22.15. This, by the way, shows the connection between the earth and our soul. Environmental policies will never bear fruit, we will never purify the earth until we purify our souls.)

Therefore, when the Son of God took flesh from the Holy Virgin and clothed Himself in our ‘body of death,’ and when He died an ‘accursed death’ hanging on the tree, He ‘fell’ as the Seed of God sowing Himself on the whole earth, on all mankind sitting in the region and shadow of death. And when He was sown in our human nature in the virginal soil of the Holy Theotokos, and when He united Himself to us even in our death and was ‘sown,’ buried in the Tomb, He cleansed the earth of our nature. Even though He knew no sin, He became sin for us that we might become the Righteousness of God (2 Cor 5.21).

Therefore, the LORD in the sacred mystery of His Incarnation and in His dread Holy Pascha, is present to every human soul. For He became flesh and dwelt among us. He became a partaker of our flesh and blood (Heb 2.14) even to the point of death on the Cross (Phil 2.6-7). That means that He partook of our accursedness and our forsakenness by the Father. And so, sown in the earth of our human nature, He can cleanse every soul, every type of ground, every heart, that turns her face to the Path in repentance. The Path is not ‘over there.’ The Path is right here, within us, so that even as spiritual corpses because of our sins and trespasses, we can find ourselves on the Path. For the Seed that is Christ, who is Himself the Path that leads to the Father, having been sown in our human nature through His Incarnation, death and burial, is now within us; He is found in every human condition. As the Seed of God that has fallen to the earth like the warmth of the sun’s rays, He is found in every type of ground, in every heart, to transform that heart into ‘good earth’ if that heart desires to turn from wickedness and live, and be united to the Body of Christ, the Seed that has been sown in our human nature, the Seed that was crucified, dead and buried, and that is now risen and ascended in Glory at the Father’s Right Hand.

We passed over into the Church’s New Year on Sept 1 in the summer Lenten season of the Savior’s Holy Transfiguration (Aug 6) that is consummated 40 days later on the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross (Sept 14). In that Lenten-like season of the LORD’s Transfiguration, we passed over from the old to the New Year in the ‘summer pascha’ of the Holy Mother of God’s Falling Asleep (Aug 15) and Her birth (Sept 8) as the ‘Daughter of God,’ as liturgical texts call Her. On the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross, seven days after the Theotokos’ nativity, we took up the cross in order to lose our life in this world as the LORD commands those who would follow Him, that we might find our life in His Tomb on the Eighth Day of this old creation, the First Day of the New Creation in the Savior’s Holy Resurrection. This passage from the old to the New Year in the liturgical rhythm of the Church transfigures the passage of time into an icon of the Path that leads to the Good Earth on the other side of Christ’s death, in the Garden of His Holy Resurrection.

If the Church is the Body of Christ, and if Christ is Himself the difficult Path that leads to the Narrow Gate of His Tomb and into the green pastures of His Holy Resurrection, then the Church is the Path that leads to the LORD’s Holy Pascha, into His death and resurrection; and that is precisely where the New Year of the Church is always going. In His Holy Pascha, the LORD winds through every heart, every type of ground like the fishing nets of His apostles, the fishers of men, to draw us into the net of His Holy Church so that, through Holy Baptism, we may unite our life in this world to the Life of the Church, and make the Church to be our life, and no more the life of the world. And when, in Holy Eucharist, we receive the Body and Blood of Christ as our food and drink, know that we have received the Seed of Christ as the True Light, the True Faith, the Heavenly Spirit, into the ground of our soul where it takes root in our heart. And, as we do the Church – as we take up the cross of prayer and fasting in repentance and in the confession of our sins, in obedience to the commandments of Christ, then the love of God, Christ Himself, warms our hearts and begins to transfigure our heart into Good Earth.

In the embrace of the Church, we walk the Path of Christ, not in the ways of the ungodly that walk on paths going in circles outside the LORD’s Tomb (Ps 11/12.8). On the liturgical Path of the Church’s mystical and sacramental Life, the passing of the years of our life are joined to the Path that is Christ, leading us to the Good Earth of His Tomb and into the Garden of His Resurrection. If we are sowing the Seed of Christ into the ground of our life, then we will reap the harvest of joy in the love of God the Father, the Grace of Our LORD Jesus Christ, in the communion of the Holy Spirit. Amen!