18th Sunday after Pentecost – Orthodox Homily on Luke 6 – Sowing Abundantly

St. Paul reminds us in today’s Epistle, that “he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.” The Church gives us this Epistle now, during the season of harvest, that we may think on our response to those things God has provided, even as we think on our relationship with God Himself. St. Paul speaks of sowing rather than giving so that we can think of the start we have made with the Lord, the life we have only with Him, as a spiritual ‘investment’ whose growth is vital to the health of our soul, our very salvation. Just as a farmer must plant abundantly to reap the fruits of a great harvest, so we are reminded that the same holds true for us with regard to our spiritual sowing and our giving back to God with what He has graciously entrusted to us.

The truth is, that while many of us worry about our finances and our provision for the future, we often neglect to exercise as much concern about our eternal souls now. We forget the opportunities we have each day to make use of the tools of healing, salvation, and eternal life imparted to us by Christ through His holy Church.

A contrary impulse is often at work in us, which goes something like this: the more I focus on myself, the more I serve myself, the more treasure I store up for myself, the more secure I’ll be in the world. How easy it is to be inordinately focused on material well-being, storing up treasure here where rust and moth corrode, rather than focusing on our life in Jesus Christ, our treasure in heaven.

One of the greatest temptations we face is the lust of money and the presumption that our material well-being buys us security. The tighter we hold onto our worldly possessions, the more difficult it is to give to others, to be generous—not only with our money, but also with our time, gifts and talents. In such a case, our money and possessions cease to be our servant, and rather become our possessor. Christ warns us, that we cannot serve two masters. We cannot serve God and mammon (money) (Matt. 6:24).

Because this peril so easily threatens our spiritual growth and healing, our very souls and salvation, Jesus preached a lot about money and its place in our lives. Money, power, lust for it, can be among the greatest stumbling blocks to us in our walk with God. And so for us, money, its hold on us, our attitude toward it, and what we do with it, directly pertains to our relationship with God and our salvation.

Now money, possessions, wealth are not evils in themselves. Rather, it’s the hold we let them have on us that makes them so. It doesn’t matter how much or how little we have: the pursuit of mammon, Christ says, can divide us from the abundant life in Him, from seeing Christ as our God, the only Life-giver. It’s God ultimately who provides for us and those whom we love.

As a remedy to combat this temptation and trust God more, not just with our material provision, but also with our spiritual provision, God calls on us to give back to Him and the work of His Church. The extent that we return a portion from that which He has entrusted to us, determines how much we reap spiritually in our own lives and how well the church through which God feeds us is able to grow to minister to our needs and those of others.

A popular Romanian folktale relates the story of a stingy farmer who’s visited by an angel. The angel asks Him, “What would you give back to God? Give Him something and He will give you something in return.” The farmer had with him a basket full of choice fruits—huge melons, apples, squash, and a few tiny nuts. The man, forgetting that ultimately it’s God who enabled him to harvest such a bounty in the first place, looked into his basket, reluctantly reached in, and pulled out the tiniest of nuts and gave it to the angel. Instantly, the small nut was transformed into solid gold—the size of the tiny nut he gave. Then the angel disappeared. “If only I had given more of my first fruits,” the man cried.

Our sowing is not about how much one has individual to give back to God, but how much one is willing to trust God and give in a joyful spirit, realizing that God is the one who will repay. We remember what Christ said when He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, 2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. 3 So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all. For all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God,[a] but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had ” (Lk. 21:1-4).

Integral to our healing, our growth, our salvation in Christ, is our coming outside ourselves to serve God by loving and serving our fellow man, first through the Church and building it up so it can minister to the needs of the people of God, and then, being thus equipped, we are called to go forth to minister to our neighbor, to the world around us in Christ’s name, drawing others as well to the knowledge and love of Christ through His holy Church. This too is sowing abundantly.

And so, as we think about our own sowing, our own spiritual ‘investment’ in Christ and His work in us and through us, it’s helpful to think in terms of offering the first-fruits not only of our treasure, but also of our time and our gifts and talents as well. All that we have is ultimately a gift and grace from God. We give, in return, with a spirit of thanksgiving for all His bounty to us. Tithing, the biblical model, means giving 10 percent of our income back to God; it’s the most ancient precedent for giving back to God. By tithing, He reminds us whose treasure it actually is, where it came from and what it’s for—to serve us, not to master us, to serve to build up us and His Church, that we and others can enjoy the spiritual bounty of the Kingdom of God.

And so, as we see, there’s a sacramental aspect to this sowing, this offering. God is the One who provides for us all that we have. Just as he causes the seeds the farmer sows to sprout and nurtures the seeds with rain and sun, to bring forth a bountiful harvest, so God has given the means to us to be provided for, both physically and spiritually. Whatever we manage to give back to Him—even the tiniest seed (or nut) of faith, as we see in our Romanian proverb, He transforms into spiritual ‘gold’ and uses it to His glory. God takes the smallest of our prayer efforts and He works through them. He blesses and furthers us in faith each time we come to church to worship Him, every time we participate in the Sacraments of Confession and Communion. Every time we serve or sing, He’s at work, furthering us along on our spiritual journey. So it is with the time, talents, and treasure that we muster the faith to entrust to Him: We are assured, that the more we sow, the more abundantly we will reap.
What would have happened to our farmer if he had presented God with the melon instead of the tiniest nut? The more we’re willing to give back to God, to entrust to God, the more we receive back from Him. The more we’re willing to entrust our possessions, our time, our treasures and gifts to God, the more He transforms them into ‘spiritual gold’ in our own lives.

God is so good to us: He returns to us so much more than what we give and entrust to Him. I ask you to take time this month to pray about your spiritual investment in the work God is doing in you and can do through you to build you up and His Body, the Church, of which we are all part.

What are you willing to sow, knowing that God will multiply your efforts? This much we know is true: He always gives to us so much more in return: “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” And so, as St. Paul further admonishes, “…let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, 30 September 2018

Epistle: II Cor. 9:6-11
Gospel: Luke 6:31-36