Saturday in Proper 19 -- Homily at Mass

I Cor 5:35-49

Luke 8:4-15

The theme common to both our Epistle and Gospel readings this morning is sowing. In selection from St. Luke’s Gospel, our Lord tells the story known as the Parable of the Sower, some of whose seed fell along the path, on the rock, and among thorns; but some of which fell into good soil and grew, yielding a hundredfold. And in the Epistle Saint Paul writes of death and resurrection as the sowing of our physical body in weakness to be raised up a spiritual body in glory.

At first glance it might seem that these two uses of this image have nothing in common. The Gospel parable is about the preaching of the Word and its results, while the Epistle is about our own death and resurrection in Christ. One might say that there is a causal connection between the two images: the sowing of the Word produces a harvest of converted souls in this world, the death of whose physical bodies produces a harvest of resurrected bodies in the world to come. But that would be a bit forced.

Instead, I want to suggest that both images call for a common attitude or disposition: namely, trust in God. One assumption it seems plausible to make about the sower in the parable is that he doesn’t really know where the good soil is. He scatters blindly, aware that some of the seed will fall along the path, or on the rock, or among the thorns, but trusting nonetheless that the critical amount will fall into the good soil.

So it is with us, as we try to be obedient to our Lord’s call to preach the Gospel and minister in the name of Christ to others. A good portion of our efforts may seem wasted. But the parable teaches us to trust that even though we don’t necessarily know where the good soil is, much of the seed we scatter is reaching it nonetheless, where it will produce an abundant harvest.

And if we’re called to cultivate such an attitude of trust with respect to the results of our efforts to share in the Church’s mission, then how much more with respect to our own death. Thus Saint Paul writes that “what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” Moreover, just as the plant or flower that grows up surpasses in size and splendor the seed from which it springs, so the resurrection body infinitely surpasses in glory the physical body from which it is raised. Just as we have borne the image of the man from dust – that is, Adam – so we shall bear the image of the man from heaven – that is, Christ. In this way, Saint Paul exhorts us to approach the inevitable reality of death as a laying-down or sowing of our physical body so that we may be raised with Christ to eternal life in glory.

This morning’s readings call us, then, to trust in God – to trust, first, that at least some of the words we speak and the deeds we perform in Christ’s name will be seed sowed in good soil; and to trust, secondly, that our own death will yield resurrection to eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. In both cases, we sow the seed trusting God to bring it to an abundant harvest in his kingdom.