Titus 3:8-15; Luke
8:5-15
Our culture tempts
us to be constantly in a hurry and distracted.
We expect answers for the deep struggles of our lives with the speed of
looking something up on the internet. So
many today have lost respect for the many years of preparation that it takes to
develop skill and expertise. The same is
true of our disregard for the pursuit of wisdom, which typically comes through
the long experience of a life well lived.
We must be on guard against becoming so accustomed to accepting quick,
easy, and superficial answers that we lack the patience and focus necessary to mature
to the point that we are able to bear good fruit for the Kingdom of God.
That is why we commemorate
today the 367 Holy Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council, which met in Nicaea
in 787. The council rejected the false
teaching that to honor icons is to commit idolatry, for it distinguished
between the worship that is due to God alone and the veneration or honor that
is appropriate for images of Christ, the Theotokos, and the Saints. The council’s teaching highlighted the
importance of the Lord’s incarnation, for only a truly human Savior with a
physical body could restore us to the dignity and beauty of the living icons of
God in every dimension of our existence.
The 7th
Ecumenical Council addressed matters that strike at the very heart of how we embrace
the vocation to become like God in holiness in a world that so desperately
needs the peace of Christ. Too often,
however, we think that iconography simply has to do with art history and is
unrelated to the question of whether we are becoming more like Christ and gaining
the strength to seek first His Kingdom in the midst of our world of corruption. The icons are not merely beautiful visual objects
for they proclaim the Gospel, reminding us that to become a truly human person is
to become like Jesus Christ. He has restored
the beauty of the living icons of God who had become disfigured by slavery to despair,
death, and decay.
Today’s gospel
reading expresses what it means for us to become His beautiful living icons with
different imagery. In an agricultural
society, He used the parable of the sower to call His disciples to become like
plants that grew from the seed that “fell into good soil and grew, and yielded
a hundredfold.” He wanted them to become
“those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and
bring forth fruit with patience.” Not
all who hear the Word of God will do so, even as not all seeds will grow to
fruition. Some never even believe,
while others make a good start and then fall away due to temptation or “are
choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not
mature.”
We do not have
to be experienced farmers or gardeners to see that this parable calls us to
fulfill our potential as those who bear the image of God. Our vocation is to become more beautiful living
icons of the Savior, and we diminish and distort ourselves when we refuse to become
who God created us to be. Plants must
grow and flourish as the kinds of plants that they are in order to become
healthy and bear fruit. Farmers must
care for them accordingly. The sun,
soil, moisture, and nutrients must be appropriate for that particular type of
plant in order for them to flourish. For us to mature to the point that we bear
good fruit for the Kingdom, we must attend to the health of our souls with the patience
and focus of a careful farmer or gardener.
If, to the contrary, we become distracted and careless for whatever
reason, we put ourselves at grave risk of being “choked by the cares and riches
and pleasures of life.”
In today’s
epistle lesson, St. Paul urged St. Titus to tell the people to focus on doing
good deeds and helping others in great need.
He wanted them to avoid being distracted by foolish arguments and
divisions, “for they are unprofitable and vain.” St. Paul did not want the people to waste
their time and energy on matters that would simply inflame their passions and hinder
them from attaining spiritual health and maturity. He called them to care for their spiritual
wellbeing with the conscientiousness of farmers who are single-mindedly
dedicated to bringing in a bumper crop. If
they let down their guard to the point of being so consumed by pointless
controversies that they ignored basic disciplines like loving and serving their
neighbors, they would risk dying spiritually like a neglected plant overtaken
by weeds. Remember St. James’ teaching
that “pure and undefiled” religion is “to care for orphans and widows in their
distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (Jas. 1:27)
If we are to
become “those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart,
and bring forth fruit with patience,” we must remain constantly on guard
against allowing distorted desires of whatever kind to grow like weeds in our
hearts and minds. We must do the hard, daily work of mindfully refusing to fuel
our passions and rejecting the temptations that threaten to weaken our souls. Contrary
to the immediate gratification that we have come to expect in so many areas of
life, maturing to the point that we bear fruit a hundredfold for the Kingdom is
going to take time and effort. It requires
patience not only of time but more importantly of repentance when we fall short
of fulfilling our calling as living icons of God. Instead of giving up when we do not get the
results that we want on our own timetable, we must humbly acknowledge our
weakness and focus on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word
of God. (Lk 10:42) Doing so requires
grounding our daily lives in prayer, fasting, and tangible acts of generosity
toward our neighbors. It requires
shutting our eyes and ears to the ever-present nonsense and noise that so
easily inflame our passions and lead us to seek first the fleeting pleasures
and projects of this world of corruption.
It requires confessing our sins and struggling to reorient the desires
of our hearts toward their true fulfillment in God.
Following St. Paul’s advice, we should all
take a close look at our lives to see if we are wasting our time, energy, and
attention on “foolish disputes” that distract us from patiently pursuing the
healing of our souls. We will find salvation
not by arguing about whose opinion is correct on some controversial topic but by
taking up the struggle to become like Christ in holiness, radiant with the divine
energies as His beautiful living icons. Tragically, it is so easy not to
recognize that we are being “choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of
life” to the point that we never mature and bear good fruit. With the patient attentiveness of a careful
farmer, we must care for the garden of our souls each day, refusing to become discouraged
by our failures. Whether we realize it or not, we are all iconographers
and gardeners with the responsibility to bring beauty and life into the world as
we cooperate with the Lord’s grace through patient, persistent dedication. In doing so, we do not work with paint or
soil but with ourselves. We do not work
merely with our own talents but in cooperation with the mercy of the One has
brought salvation to the world through His Cross and glorious resurrection on
the third day. In Him, we may all mature
to the point that we bear good fruit for the Kingdom and shine brightly with
heavenly glory.
