When God’s blessings come, we don’t always understand them for what they are. In the Parable of the Sower found in Luke 8.5-15 we learn that God’s sends out His Son for all people, but not everyone is able to understand God’s grace fully. In every situation, good and bad, God’s grace is for everyone.
My brothers and sisters, this is a perfect gospel reading to hear just days after what I have decided to call a doubleheader hurricane. Ten days, two hurricanes. And it’s important for us to understand the message of this morning’s gospel as it relates to the hurricanes and to the protection of St. Nicholas.
I have been hearing it was a miracle. The hurricane was coming and turned. If you go back and watch the news, the hurricane hit within the area the scientists said it would hit. That’s not a miracle, but it is a blessing from God. We have received a great blessing once again to be spared, as we say, a direct hit. However, the first hurricane, which was over 100 miles away, did more damage to our city. Does that mean God loved us during Hurricane Milton but did not love us during Hurricane Helene? This would be crazy talk. God loves us no matter what. He loves us in good weather, and he loves us in bad weather.
And so I ask your indulgence today. The gospel lesson talks about a man who goes to sow his seed, a farmer, and we know the story. Some seed fell on the path, some seed fell in the rocks, some seeds fell in the weeds and some in the rich, fertile soil. And our Lord tells us the meaning of this parable. One of the only times he actually explains the parable to us. And I want us to understand the comparison as it relates to the hurricanes. God sent his grace upon us. For those who the grace falls on the path, as the parable says, Christ says, “The devil comes, and he takes away the seeds so their hearts cannot hear and believe.” There are people, my brothers and sisters, who witness the storms, who witness the grace of God, and they refuse to believe it.
I’m going to say I was disappointed in the disturbing number of Greeks who were speaking horrible things about faith on social media. I’m sure you saw the video of Father Theofanis and I going to the Gulf of Mexico. If you didn’t see it, I’d be surprised because it has been seen by over 230,000 people. In Rome, it was shown. All over Greece, it was shown. And if you go and you look at the comments by our fellow Greeks, they were mocking the faith, and they were mocking the church. This is the seeds that fell on the path. God sent the grace for them, and the demons came and took it away so they could not believe, but God still loves them.
There were others who saw the video and who saw the prayers and who were excited at first, but then would begin to complain, “Well, God saved us, but what about those poor people?” And again, their faith was choked out by the weeds, but God still loves them. You see, my brothers and sisters, the grace of God is for all people, but it’s up to us on how we understand it and how we express it, and how we hear the words of God and how we receive his blessings.
If we receive his blessings as a gift from God, then we will see them for what they are. But if we do not, if the demons have come and taken away, or worse, if we have allowed the weeds and the temptations and the pleasures of life, see, that was the third example, where the pleasures of life choke out the faith. How many of us were more concerned about our things than our faith? Because we live in the greatest country on the face of the earth. Even if we live a poor life in America, we have more wealth than the other countries. And this way of life, this American comfort, has choked our faith. And so when we see the grace of God, and we experience his grace and his love and his blessings, we can’t see it because we’re so preoccupied with all of the material world around us.
And then we have the good soil. All of us, if we choose, can be the good soil. All of us, if we choose, can work our hearts to hear the words of God, to experience his blessings and nurture it and let it feed us. And it says, in the gospel comes a hundredfold producing fruit. But that takes work, not just faith, not just belief, but work. Work meaning that we have to put our faith into action. So my brothers and sisters, yes, we are blessed. St. Nicholas continues to watch over us and protect us, and we commemorate him in every divine liturgy and every service of our church as the protector of our city.
But this storm should teach us a lesson. Storm or no storm, we can never stop believing in the grace of God. The grace of God is what will help us rebuild our neighbor’s homes. Helene did much more damage than Milton. But as one person said, the proof of God’s protection was that all of that stuff sitting in the streets, it didn’t blow away and cause more damage. It didn’t float away and bring other homes down with it. It seemed to stay right in place. Not a miracle. It rained so much it was heavy and soaked down. Not a miracle, but a blessing. And when we can see the blessings for what they are, God’s love and his care, then we have accomplished fruit of a hundredfold in our hearts.
This is who God has called us to be, people of faith, people of rich, fertile soil in our hearts so that when the difficult days come, and they will come. When the difficult days come, the roots of our faith are going to be so deep and so established that nothing will knock us over even if a direct hit comes to our town. So this is our challenge to see where we were in this list. Were we the path? Are we the rocks? Are we the weeds? Or are we the rich soil? And the job now is for us to work our hearts in our spiritual life, in the ways of the church, to prepare our hearts to be and to always be that rich soil, so our roots penetrate deep down, and they hold us up in any storm. Weather, politics, war, family feuds, we all experience those, but it’s faith that holds us up instead of tearing us down. Glory to God for all things.
