When we hear the Word of God, the condition of our hearts is critical into accepting the Word and producing fruit for our faith. It is based on our effort through prayer, fasting, almsgiving and the sacramental life of the Church to work the garden of our souls. Our fruit will be a hundred-fold.

Transcript:

Some of you may have heard by now that I like to garden. I’m not the greatest at it, but there is a joy in working the soil, and planting the seeds, and nourishing the seedlings, and eventually harvesting some fruit of your labor. There is some joy in that. And I think that might be why, among other reasons, that the Lord chooses to compare our salvation process to gardening. But I want to remind everyone of a few things that we have to understand in the imagery of this morning’s gospel. When I plant my garden, I put specific holes, and I very carefully put one seed in each hole, and I carefully cover it with dirt, and I carefully water it, and I carefully attend to those seeds until they sprout.

But that is not the image of this morning’s gospel. This image of this morning’s gospel, my brothers and sisters, is that God takes his seed and he casts his seed. He throws his seed out from him. And it says, “Some fall on the path, some fall on the rocks, some in the weeds, and some in the rich fertile soil.” It isn’t that God is particularly pointing this one spot for this one seed, he’s throwing out his seed for everyone. And his seed, my brothers and sisters, is the word of God. And that’s the first beautiful image we must understand from this morning’s gospel, that the word of God, the seed that is cast out is for everyone. But not everyone receives it in the same way.

If our hearts are like the hard path, that sidewalk, if our hearts are like that, it doesn’t give it a chance for the seed to penetrate. And so, what happens? The birds come, or as Christ says, “The devil comes, and he takes the seed away.” So, if our heart is cold and hard like concrete, it doesn’t matter if we hear the word of God, it’s not going to take root in our hearts. And so, the devil takes it away. But here’s the other good thing, is that God doesn’t just one time throw his seed out. If you understand the Greek text, it says that he is constantly sowing his seed, he is constantly throwing the word of God out to everyone. And so, if in the first moment our hearts might be as cold as concrete, maybe in the second moment our hearts may have softened a little bit.

And we’ve all seen this as we drive maybe past a vacant lot in town. What used to be concrete, eventually the weeds begin to take over, and the weeds and the roots go down into the cracks of the concrete and break up the concrete, but nothing there really grows of any significance except to break down the concrete. You see, my brothers and sisters, that is like when we hear the word of God and it makes us think for a moment. Now, that’s something to think about, maybe this God thing might not be such a bad idea after all. And it begins to break up and soften up our hearts, so that maybe one or two seeds can take root. Years ago, growing up in Colorado, I have a very vivid memory of driving past this big giant boulder, and there was a bush growing out of the boulder. And I remember my papou being so amazed.

Because my papou was a gardener. And he knew there was no soil, he knew there was no water in the middle of that rock, and yet something sprouted. You see, my brothers and sisters, if we are willing to allow the word of God in just a little bit, even then it can begin to grow inside of us and break up the coldness of our heart. But without roots, when the harshness of life hits us, when we’re faced with all of the trials and tribulations of life, because our faith has no deep roots, it withers away and we go back to the regular life.

But every time the seed germinates, our heart breaks up just a little bit more, softens up just a little bit more, and eventually, my brothers and sisters, with proper effort on our behalf, our heart welcomes the word of God, and it begins to grow, and it begins to grow, and it begins to grow. And this is where the last two examples of the parable are so important. He says, “Some fell among the weeds,” and even though they were growing, the weeds came and choked them out. These are the temptations of life. Even if we have been Orthodox all our life, even if we have been to confession in the past couple of weeks, we are all at risk, my brothers and sisters, of temptation and sin. All of us have to tend to the soil and pluck out the weeds the moment we find them.

The moment the temptation arises, pluck it out so it doesn’t choke out the word of God in our hearts. If you let the weed grow too deep, it begins to take over, and then it becomes much harder to pull out as its roots go down deep and strangle out the roots of the good crops. But if we’re not careful with the weeds, then we’ll never reach that great harvest. And that is, my brothers and sisters, the goal of each and every one of us. Don’t be settled, don’t settle with just a couple of seeds, a couple of sprouts of faith. Don’t settle for your heart saying, oh yeah, that God might be a good thing. Don’t settle until you have rooted out all the weeds and the word of God goes deep in our hearts, and grows and, “Produces a hundredfold,” as Christ says. Only possible with our effort.

And the church gives us the tools, a life of prayer, a life of fasting, a life of alms giving, taking care of the poor through our stewardship and through the works of the Philoptochos, and participating regularly in all of the sacraments of the church that we are able to participate in. Confession is not just for a few, confession is for all of us to be able to come and receive God’s grace and God’s forgiveness. And in that moment of confession, it’s like going into the garden with the most precision tools and pulling out every single weed and leaving only the good soil. Confession, my brothers and sisters, is how we can recover from having let things slide in our life. If I let my garden go, even after I have weeded it, the weeds come back, the weeds take over, and eventually even the soil becomes hard like a rock, and I have to start all over again.

So, I get out there with all of the big tools. My brothers and sisters, this is the sacramental life of the church, and most especially holy confession. If you have allowed your faith to slip, if you have allowed your attention not to be on even the small details of our life, then I invite you to ask God to come in, to break up the soil, and then make an appointment for confession so we can start with rich, fertile soil, and so the word of God can flourish and grow and we can reap a great harvest. This is what God wants for us, this is our path to salvation. It is not a one-day thing, it is an entire life journey. So, whether we started, in my case, 57 years ago, or if we started five days ago, today’s the day we make another step.

And again tomorrow come always tending the garden of our souls, softening our hearts and pulling out the temptations and the weeds so the word of God can take root. It’s a great blessing from God, but this is why he says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Don’t allow the demon to come and take the word away. Work the soil of your heart so the seed can enter and germinate. Glory to God for all things.