Sexagesima

And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
(St. Luke viii. 9)

Last week we learned that the Gesima Season is all about embracing the Cardinal Virtues. For starters, we began to look at the virtue of temperance or moderation. Moderation, we learned, situates the soul in a place of thankful content and reasonable expectations. Jesus’ Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard brought home the point. Moderation in all things is a healthy partner to hard work and its rewards. If we hope to reach God’s kingdom, we must use last week’s moderation and discipline to compel this week’s virtue of prudence.

So today we move from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard to the parable of the sower. St John Chrysostom says that ‘Jesus uses parables to draw men unto him, and to provoke them and to signify that if they would covert, he would heal them” (Idem, cf. Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, 45, 1-2). Parables encourage us to think about virtue, what it is, and how we perfect it. Parables stir intellectual curiosity. Because the truth they teach is at first hidden, we must take some time to think about them. In the parables, each of us is given the opportunity to discover God’s goodness and to put it into practice.

Last week, it took a bit of time for us to discover how moderation moves us to pursue God’s goodness or justice. If everyone one of us accepted the gracious invitation to work in God’s vineyard, did his job, minded his own business, and worked for one reward, which no sinful human being ever deserves, he would reach the end. Today, we are reminded that the same moderation and self-discipline is no easy business. This morning, St. Paul takes up the point as he addresses a community of new Christians in Corinth who are being swayed by false prophets to believe that no moral effort or self-discipline is needed at all. They were telling St. Paul’s Corinthian converts that he was exaggerating what is required to earn our reward. True Christianity, they insisted, involves a mere assent to the truth without application to human life. True Christianity, they insisted, involves nothing more than what Christ did for us. The human component is missing entirely.  

But St. Paul respectfully disagreed. St. Paul had digested the Parables of Jesus. For Paul, the life of Jesus Christ itself was a Parable intended to be imitated by men. Far from wishing to justify himself, St. Paul even desired to use his life as a kind of model for following Christ. St. Paul’s life is used as a parable to teach his flock what Christian conversion and sanctification entail. He shows us that true discipleship is hard work that must be cherished and cultivated with prudence. St. Paul insists that the work of the Chrisitan will even include much suffering. Criticizing the false teachers who taught otherwise, he asks, 

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck…in perils of robbers, in perils of waters, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen…in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness…(2 Cor. 23-27) 
 

St. Paul’s conversion and discipleship involved running the race with temperance in all things to obtain an incorruptible crown. In other words, true conversion and discipleship will demand the prudent submission to hard and difficult labor. Paul knew that the world and its pleasures threaten the presence of Christ within. Who is weak, and I am not weak (Cor. xi. 29), he asks? This business of becoming a Christian requires practical wisdom or prudence, which knows what the work entails. He concludes that the end justifies the means. If we all are to work for one reward, we must labor prudently and with humility. If I must needs glory, I will glory in the things which concern mine infirmities. (2 Cor. xi. 30) Paul’s experience teaches us that our hard work will always be accompanied with suffering and weakness. With prudence and in humility our work will be successful only through Christ’s Grace, an inner power at first hidden but progressively revealed to us.   

St. Paul’s life and witness are an imitation of Christ. But why were his Corinthian converts so easily swayed by new teachers with a message of comfort and ease? I think that we can find all or part of the answer in this morning’s Gospel Parable of the Sower. Jesus tells us that A sower went out to sow his seed. (St. Luke viii. 5) At first, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. (Idem) Some of the Corinthians had heard God’s Word superficially; the soil of their souls was like the wayside, trodden down by the ongoing traffic and business of this life so that they could not hear the Word. Though they were called to be workers in God’s vineyard, they were so influenced by evil desires that their hearts became hardened like the wayside, or the hard beaten path of this sinful world. Such men are members of the Church, like Paul’s Corinthians, who are Christians in name only but never in deed and in truth.

Next, …some [of the seed] fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. (Ibid, 6) Others had hearts like gravely rock. For them, the Word of God in Jesus Christ was first received with joyful expectations because it seemed so full of immediate gratification. They prematurely anticipated its benefits without prudently counting the cost of growing the seed in the soul. They fell away because they would not work out [their] salvation….with fear and trembling. (Phil. ii. 12) Salvation, they soon discovered, will be full of pain and suffering, doubt and confusion, hard labor and effort. Prudence reveals a painful and costly work.

Now, we read that some [of the seed] fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. (Ibid, 7) Perhaps not a few of the Corinthians honestly received God’s Word but choked and killed it with cares and concerns of this life. Here the Word grew for a season but only alongside inner anxiety and fear over the cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life (St. Luke viii. 14) that killed the growth of the Word within the soul. They were crushed, as the Gospel says, because the old sinful man was not dead in them. It might have seemed dead for a season, but until it was put down with prudence and earnest effort, it would reemerge with a vengeance. Thorns and briars are earthly temptations that promise short-term gain but long-term pain. If they are not banished from the soil of the soul, the Word will not grow. If we do not prudently assess their natures and detect their false promises, we might lose the one reward of our salvation.

Finally, today’s Parable concludes with, And other [seed] fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. (Ibid, 8) In earthly life, seed can grow up effectually only in deep, dark, rich soil that has been prudently cultivated by a farmer.  Thus, in the soul, the seed of God’s Word can grow in our hearts only with much care, cultivation, and determined effort. Like St. Paul, we must expect both punishment from without and suffering from within if the Word of God in Jesus Christ is to spring up and bear fruit in our souls. With prudence and humility, each one of us can see the temptations that threaten us and work to resist them effectually. With St. Paul, we must proclaim, If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities. (2 Cor. xi. 30) To will the good against all temptations is to find the glory of God in Jesus Christ beginning here and now.

Prudence and humility teach us that we are weak if left to our own power and ability. God has made the soul; God plants His Word in it to save us. If we begin to hear God’s Word, to clear our souls of briars and thorns, to cultivate its soil with sorrow and repentance, to tend the seed with carefulness and devotion, and not superficially and carelessly, by God’s grace we shall bring forth fruit with patience. (St. Luke viii. 15)

In this morning’s Collect, we pray that the soul might be defended against all adversity. (Collect) We are protected against all adversity when our souls, in all humility, embrace the Cardinal Virtue of prudence. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that prudence is right reason in relation to action. (ST, II, ii, 47. 8) Prudence first searches out and finds the truth. , it makes a judgment about our human situation: we are fallen and in need of Christ’s aid if we hope to be saved. Prudence learns from counsel what must be done, and commands it, by finally submitting to Christ, knowing that suffering and hardship perfect us for the Kingdom.
Amen. 
©wjsmartin