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.