“THE FAITHFUL HEART OF JESUS”
Saint Luke 8. 4-15
Sexagesima: 27 February Anno Domini 2011
The Revd Fr JW Watson SSP
Absent illness, incarceration, or a Robinson Crusoe scenario, there are no solitary Christians. Someone who says or thinks they are a follower of Christ and yet who is not present at the weekly gathering of the Mass is not being truthful. "…When much people were gathered together" is the way the Holy Ghost works.
Last week's Gospel was about Grace alone - - the Householder hires (selects) you to be in His vineyard because He loves you and just plain wants you there! This week's Sexagesima text (Luke 8) continues the Lord's parable wisdom: Faith Alone!
Your Lord Christ is the Sower. He sows, that is, He is the One throwing out the seed into the world. "For God so loved the WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son…" the Evangelist writes. Christ lived the obedient and law-fulfilling life for ALL; Christ died on the Cross for the sins of ALL! Jesus in His actions; Jesus in His Person (the God/Man) is sown into the world by God Himself. Christ goes out to sow His seed and HE sows! Period.
How so? By the Word of God. The seed is the Word of God. That means that the seed is both the Word inscripturated (the Bible) and preached; but that the Word is also the Blessed Sacraments (Jesus the Word made Flesh, attaching Himself to water, wine, bread and a human voice of absolution).
This Seed/Word is to be shared, distributed, applied, Scattered, SOWN everywhere and upon everyone. It is to be broadcast (thrown out without discrimination) as well as to be special-cast. But this morning's text is not about a single individual being catechized; it is not about you witnessing to a single friend, neighbor or family member. This text is about the general work-a-day world of Christ and His Church. "Go into all the World and make disciples of all Nations… and teach them observe everything I have taught thee."
Yours is not wonder why, to quibble, disagree, find fault with, and try to capture the Christ in your webs of logic and rational acumen! Yours is to believe the Word that has been sown on, in, and with you!
The devil's black buzzard-birds will snatch the Word away when and where they can. Christians too need the Holy Spirit to tighten the attention and focus the mind on the Word that is daily re-applied to them, lest they too succumb to day-dreaming and non-receptivity. The ground of your sinfully hard hearts must be daily broken, roto-tilled by the Law so that your soil is always receptive to further plantings and watering. Let not the arid winds of "self" and "world" blow away the top-soil that has been applied by your Gracious Gardener, but believe and conserve that which has been planted in you!
You all will have thorns in your life - - get used to it and stop whining and shirking the duties to prune, weed, and care. Every rose has its thorn and yes, if the Gospel Word were not so precious and beautiful than the enemy would not try and kill it with the thorns of mammon, worry, and sinful selfish pride.
The Lord explains what this parable means: "Hear Him!"
God so loved the World. Jesus wants all people to believe in/on Him and be brought into His Church and later into His eternal Nuptial Hall. But, the entire world will not be saved. The world, as world, rejects Jesus and daily crucifies Him all over again, even as the Jews, Romans, and your pre-conversion enemies of God did! That is sad and tragic. Grace alone does not save, if by Grace alone one means, GOD MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANYONE TO REJECT HIS LOVE AND MANDATES THAT ALL WILL BE BROUGHT INTO HIS VINEYARD BY LOBOTOMY AND KIDNAPPING. No, this is not shanghai-ing but salvation. The Holy Ghost uses the Seed/Word, the Christ, to create faith not to stun, tag & bag, and freeze dry specimens like butterflies pinned in some celestial collection.
God's love (Grace) allows the Spirit to use the Seed/Jesus, this WORD you're now hearing, the Word you are already + wearing in wet cleansing, and the Word you will shortly eat with your mouths, to turn you, vivify you, convert you, re-create you, stablish you, nourish you, and KEEP YOU! Grace produces FAITH IN YOU, and your Faith then grabs on to, and tightly holds on to "THE FAITH" the God/Man Jesus.
You are the good ground because you are not grounded in self but are built on the God/ground - - the rock of ages. You are the good and fertile soil because you are not fermenting in your own daily stench and decay but rather are re-planted and re-grafted into the side of Jesus Himself. His pure flesh in writ and in Holy Meal is your soil and your New Man self. You have good and honest heart because Christ's heart is now yours BY FAITH… you believe and so "It," the Heart and Source of God, and Forgiveness, and Eternity is now yours by imputation (even better than 100% medical compatibility; it's Godly Adoption).
Faith, the production of fruit, is of maximum importance. No one can be saved apart from faith and the naturally occurring works which result from it, which follow on as the wake produced by a sailing ship!
The Lord has made you His kin by Grace and that means that you have been given Faith whether your emotions always recognize it or not. "Unto you it given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God."
That means that the Holy Spirit HAS created faith in your hearts! You have heard them, and you "know" them by Faith: "you have ears and you hear!" Now approach to eat and drink those same mysteries. Gathered together again - - in patience - - in Christ.
In the Name of The Father and + of The Son and of The Holy Ghost