Homily on the Fourth Sunday of Luke (St. Justin Popovich)

Homily on the Fourth Sunday of Luke
 
21st Sunday after Pentecost 

Luke 8:5–15

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered in 1964 at the Ćelije Monastery)

[Editorial Note: This sermon by Saint Justin Popovich has been translated from a Serbian transcription of an audio recording. The transcription contains passages that are unclear or missing, and the surviving recording ends before the sermon is complete. These gaps have been retained in the translation; no attempt has been made to reconstruct the missing words.]

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

A brief Gospel, a brief parable of the Savior, and yet the whole world is contained within it, all human labor is contained within it, and the entire destiny of the world is contained within it. Today’s Holy Gospel contains the whole history of Christianity and the entire history of every Christian individually. This world is God’s field for heavenly seed; the chief Sower is the God-man, the Lord Christ, who sows the heavenly, divine truths. Three-quarters of the seed perish; only one-quarter succeeds. Why? Because of the soil, because of the ground, because some seed falls on stony ground, some among thorns, some beside the road, and some on good soil (Luke 8:5–8). The Gospel is yours, the Gospel is mine, and undoubtedly the Gospel belongs to everyone. What is happening to the seed? Pay attention: you are a human being, which means that you are an earthly field for heavenly seed. Where has it fallen? Has it fallen among thorns, on stony ground, beside the road of your soul, or on good soil? The seed falls beside the road of a person’s soul when that person receives Christ’s teaching and listens to it but pays no attention to it, does not care about it, and leaves it there at the edge of the soul, where the racecourse of various temptations lies, where the racecourse of the sins of this world and of Satan, the ruler of this world, lies. What happens then? The Savior explains it to us, telling us the sad story of this seed: “Those are the people who hear the word of God, but afterward the devil comes and takes the word away from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved” (Luke 8:12). “Indeed, truth …” (Some words on the tape are unclear.—Transcriber’s note.) This means that he is here in the world around us; he prowls around us. No, he roams the earth and walks about, as he declares … (Same note as above.) when he is asked about the righteous Job: “I have been going to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down on it” (Job 1:7).

Behold, he comes to you, to your soul, and watches what you do with the truth of Christ that is within your soul, what you do with His teaching. Do you read the Gospel? Do you listen to the Gospel? Do you preach the Gospel in the Churches of Christ throughout this world? What do you do with it? What do you do with that seed, with those truths of Christ? Behold, the devil now roams around you and your soul in order to steal the seed of Christ that is within you. You read the Gospel and hear how the Savior commands us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). … (Same note as above.) What will you do with this commandment? Has the devil not stolen it? Has he not come and taken this teaching from your mind, so that you do not even remember prayer? Or, if you do remember it, do you perform it perfunctorily, out of habit, without involving yourself, your heart, and your soul? What has become of that truth of Christ within your soul? What has become of that seed? What will you do with it? Has the devil not stolen it and carried it away from you? Woe to you! You keep those great and holy truths of Christ beside the road of your soul rather than bringing them into your soul. You do not dig, plow, or search the depths of your soul so that the seed of Christ’s truth may take root there, germinate there, spring up and grow, develop, and bear abundant fruit. There is no corner of your soul into which the devil and his demons do not peer and which they do not lay waste, stealing everything that has been sown in your soul from heaven.

Pay attention, O man, pay attention! You will one day have to give an account. Your soul is God’s field, and no one but God should dwell within it. Take care that the devil does not gain dominion over your soul. Bring everything that belongs to Christ, all the heavenly treasures He gives and offers you, into the most sacred chambers of your soul, into its deepest recesses. Bring Christ there, into the very center of your soul, where the devil can never penetrate, and then … (Same note as above.)—how could the devil take the word of God from your heart? Does your heart have no door? Is your heart not closed, but instead left open to the devil, to … (Same note as above.) to sins and all his evils? Woe to you, brother and sister! Shut the gate of your heart against him, that dark and black enemy of God, that dreadful thief and robber who steals everything belonging to Christ from the human heart if a person does not remain watchful, does not pray, and does not keep guard over the soul.

Do you know what happens to the seed that falls on stony ground? “Those are the people who receive the word of God with joy, but have no root; they believe for a time, temporarily, and when tribulations come, when temptations come, they fall away” (Luke 8:13). A soul that has not been plowed and plowed again by the plow of repentance, that has not had the fallow ground of its soul broken up, dug over, and furrowed, cannot allow the seed of divine truth—which the Lord sows in that soul, sowing it through His Apostles, through His Saints, and through His Gospel—to penetrate deeply. The seed falls on stone, on the surface, and cannot send down its roots or break through the stone of insensitivity, the stone of hardened evil, the stones by which a person becomes hardened through habit, through bad habits. You, too, receive Christ’s teaching with joy, but only temporarily. When temptation comes, when a stumbling block appears, everything disappears from your soul; everything perishes. You have lived as a Christian, but you must first prepare your soul for this heavenly seed. How, you may ask? Through the holy virtues of the Gospel: practice them and live according to them.

You know the commandment concerning fasting. It is heavenly teaching, heavenly seed, the divine seed of Christ’s Gospel, when you fast in accordance with the Gospel. Fasting takes root in your soul; it establishes faith deeply throughout all the strongholds of the soul. Fasting carries every virtue throughout your entire body and your entire soul. Then the stones within your soul crumble, become smaller, break apart, and turn into fine soil, and the seed of heavenly truth germinates and grows within you. But if you allow your soul to remain stone against the truth of Christ, woe to you! Your soul falls away from the Lord—and where does it fall? Into the arms of the devil. And where does he take our souls? Where? Into the dark and accursed hell!

When the seed “falls among thorns”—the thorns of our bad habits, the thorns of our passions and evils … (Same note as above.)—the thorns represent those among whom the seed of heavenly truths falls. They hear the word of God, but because of the cares of wealth and the pleasures of this world in which they spend their lives, the thorns grow luxuriantly and choke the heavenly seed in your soul, choking you entirely (Luke 8:14).

No, faith is like a mustard seed, says the Savior. Evangelical love is like a mustard seed; evangelical fasting is like a mustard seed; evangelical prayer is like a mustard seed; evangelical meekness, evangelical humility, evangelical patience, and all the virtues of the Gospel—all these virtues are like mustard seeds. They are all small and insignificant, and they are all sown in your soul. Pay attention to what you do with these holy seeds! Every impure thought that arises in your soul—tear it out … (Same note as above.) the heavenly seed. Every sin in which you live, if you do not confess it and cast it out of yourself, turns into a thicket of thorns. Every passion that destroys you, every pleasure that carries you away, every pleasure of this world that lays waste to your soul—behold, a thicket of thorns, a thicket of thorns, a thicket of thorns that … (Same note as above.) the seed of Christ’s Gospel virtues.

What has become of that wondrous lily within your soul? Behold, hatred has crept into your soul, hatred that … (Same note as above.) brings this about, and yet you do not fight against it. It becomes like a thicket of thorns, like a weed, and gradually and little by little drives the seeds of Christ’s divine, heavenly love out of your soul. The thorns of hatred grow and grow terribly because you do not fight against them, and the divine seed of Christ’s love disappears … (Same note as above.)

You allow that little grain of prayerfulness and prayer to be broken apart, and you permit laziness to overtake you during prayer, or you find countless excuses: “Well, I will pray later; I will pray this evening; I will pray tomorrow.” You avoid prayer and put it off, while the mustard seed of faith … (Same note as above.) waits for what? For your heart, your zeal, your eagerness to bring yourself to prayer and plant the mustard seed of prayer in your soul, to water it with your tears, and to warm it with your fervor and zeal. The thorns of habit grow luxuriantly and choke everything belonging to Christ within your soul. Indeed, the most dreadful enemies of human beings in this world, and of the human soul, are the evils of the entire world—the evils of the entire world. An example is provided by earthly pleasures, which, like thorns, choke everything divine within us, so that nothing divine reaches maturity. Everything perishes, and our soul perishes with it. Such is the sad history of three-quarters of the seed of divine truths.

But what happens to “the seed that falls on good soil”? The Savior tells us: “These are those who receive the word of God and keep it in a good and pure heart, and bear fruit with patience.” Here, then, are the virtues: goodness, purity of heart, and patience. This is the soil in which the heavenly seed of Christ’s teaching thrives. A “good and pure” soul, the Savior says, bears fruit a hundredfold, or sixtyfold, or thirtyfold. This is the truth that must be realized in them, in our lives, in our souls, and in this world … (Same note as above.) by each one of us through this wondrous truth of Christ.

Let us examine ourselves. Test whether you have a good heart. When sins frequently visit your heart, does the word of God grow within it? Does God’s truth grow and develop within it? Does the goodness of God, which is contained in His truths, spread throughout your heart, take possession of it, and gain dominion over it? If so, then you have a good heart. But if you do not guard your heart, if the doors of your heart remain open and various temptations and sins come and go within it, while you tolerate them and do not fight against them, then your heart gradually loses the divine goodness within it and becomes filled with the evil of this world, with the evil of every sin—and behind every sin stands the devil. A heart that has preserved its goodness must become a nursery for the goodness of Christ. Be watchful; keep guard over your heart. Do not allow it to fall into sin! Yet, because of our own error, sin is within us. Let us strive to cast it out of ourselves, out of our hearts, as quickly as possible. How? Through repentance and confession. Do not allow sin to enter you. Be careful! You are allowing the greatest enemy of your life—the enemy of your soul, the enemy of your eternity—to enter! Rise up against it; fight against it; do not surrender, for sin leads nowhere except into the eternal kingdom of darkness and evil. Examine whether your heart is pure.

The Holy Fathers answer and say: “A person has a pure heart when he practices all the virtues of the Gospel and lives according to the commandments of the Savior.” This is the fruit of practicing the Savior’s commandments. The first fruit is our faith. Faith is a divine power that cleanses the heart of deception and of the dominion of service to false gods. Faith cleanses your heart of every impurity. Holy evangelical love cleanses your heart of every defilement, of every impurity. What is hatred? What is hatred? It is pus, impurity, stench. For “whoever hates his brother remains in death” (1 John 2:9). And what is death but stench? The same is true of anyone who hates his brother.

There you have it, brethren: all these truths concern us, and we must believe in ourselves. Let us look at what we have done with the seed of Christ’s teaching in our souls. Let us strive to make it all flourish in our pure hearts through great patience. Every virtue requires great patience—faith, prayer, hope, and fasting. Nothing happens without patience … (The sermon is unfinished, probably because the tape ended.—Transcriber’s note.)

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.