The Word of God is Everywhere
4th Sun of Luke Oct. 17, 2021 Luke 8: 5-15,
Christ often spoke in parables. Using the common images of life but investing them with profound spiritual reality. There are more than 40 examples in the synoptic gospels, and we find today’s parable and 5 others in all three of them. (John seldom quotes parables). Parables work well because we can relate to them as they draw on common experiences, although we need to listen carefully to see how we can apply them to our life situation. They can sneak past the suspicious guard of our intellect and find a home in our hearts.
We love to hear parables. We think we understand what they are teaching but we often apply the lessons to someone else, in our minds eye. Anytime we are encountering the “word of God” we should be asking “How does this apply to MY life… Who am I in this story?” We should always assume we are the sinner, the one who needs to turn to God.
We think we know this parable of the sower and the soil well, but we often tend to see it as applying to those others, especially to those whom we feel still need to come to know Christ. The sower is kind of like Brother Love’s travelling salvation show and is just passing through – don’t miss the opportunity to get “saved.” Grab your friends! But how can we look at it as applying to ourselves, good faithful Orthodox Christians that we are.
Christ talks of three different deficient “soils”;
- The devil comes and snatches the seed. How? He whispers in our ears, “Very interesting but “Later” would be better to consider this. After all look how busy you are. And really you’re a pathetic disgrace of a Christian as you should be doing even more.” Unfortunately we often listen to this drivel.
- We hear a “Word of God” and immediately respond with excitement. “This is powerful, I’m really going to commit (or re-commit again) this time.” But we walk out of the Church and there are so many temptations. We run into an old friend and away we go. We check into our Facebook feed because of course we need to keep in touch with our hundreds of good on-line friends. What would they do without me? Pretty soon we need another dose of “God’s Word” inspiration.
- We simply get caught up in the “cares, riches, and pleasures of life and have no time to bring our fruit to maturity.” The pursuit of the good life gets in the way.
All of these soils are deficient of the same ingredients. Vitamin’s “time and attention.” There is almost no time left for the things of God to nourish the starving plant trying to get established in our heart. The “good soil” consists of constantly and patiently improving the soil with the fertilizer of tuning in to the “Word of God.”
Christ tells his disciples today that the seed in the parable is the “Word of God.” Once the “Word of God” is established in our hearts, Christ can nourish the “Word of God” with the “Word of God” and have it grow and multiply exponentially, as we stretch forth towards our source of nourishment, the “Word of God.” As we are fed by His light, our lives burst forth into ever increasing life and bear much fruit.
Jesus explains that the seed is the “Word of God.” What is this “Word of God?” The Gospel of John talking of Christ (1:1-4) starts out with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” So, this seed, the “Word of God” is Christ Himself – the uncreated, ever-existing, pre and post incarnate Christ.
We also know the “Word of God” is the living God breathed words of scripture. (Heb. 4:12) “For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soup and spirit…” We hear Christ tell the devil, (Luke.4:4) “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every ‘Word’ of God.” We start every Orthodox service by praying to God the Holy Spirit who is “everywhere present and filling all things.” God speaks to us through His Creation, we see a beautiful, majestic sun rise or sunset, we climb a mountain and look down with awe on His majestic work, we study any living thing and see the wonder of life sustaining all that lives. Our spouses or dear friends deliver a profound word of wisdom or touch our hearts and it goes right to the core of our being. Ballam’s donkey speaks up and tells him that he’s being an idiot. The “Word of God” is alive and active and constantly with us in great abundance, raining down in a virtual blizzard. But we are usually to pre-occupied to hear, to focused on our own thoughts and plans to see. We need to stop, listen and wake up to hear. “God is with us, understand all you people that God is with us! Christ says in todays Gospel reading that “he who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
If we are to train ourselves to hear and see, we need to learn to focus on the present moment. God is always and everywhere speaking through everything, but we need to be present to the moment to hear and see Him. If we are constantly stuck in some re-run of past events – good or bad, or scheming of our future plans, we really aren’t present to the present moment. To right NOW. Now is the only intersection when we can really encounter God. It is the closest we come to being present in eternity. The past is gone, the future is unknowable and not yet real to us, so NOW is the only moment of true reality we have to encounter the “Word of God.”
We are so conditioned to being anywhere else but right here in our minds that when we try to “Be still and know that I am God,” most of us, with me as the prime example, last about 10 seconds on a good day in truly focused prayer in the here and now before catapulting off to??? This is a huge struggle to learn to be completely present in the moment in whatever we are doing, but we really can’t start until we recognize the importance of training ourselves to stop the noise and seek God in the moment. We can be confident that God is always here with us. If He were to absent Himself for even a second, everything would simply collapse into nothingness. He is life and all life is sustained by and filled with His presence. Nothing truly exists outside of God.
The sower in today’s parable is not just passing through like Brother Love’s travelling Salvation show. He is here, permanently present, and abundantly and continually sowing the seed of the “Word of God” all around us. When we have our eyes open to see and our ears open to hear we will see and hear that all of Creation is filled with God. God is with us NOW. The past is gone, the future doesn’t yet exist to us and all we really have is this present moment. May we strive to be awake to it, for now is always the time of our salvation! Christ is right here and right now in our Midst!
Glory to Jesus Christ!