Homily

You all remember the parable of the Sower and the Seed. The farmer went out to cast his seeds onto the ground during planting time and those seeds fell on different types of soil. Several of the different kinds of ground produced nothing at harvest time. Only the seed that fell on good ground grew up, flourished and produced a magnificent harvest. We are the potentially fertile soil for Christmas, we are the ground that can be ready to receive the seeds of grace from the One who takes upon Himself the flesh of this world, the One whose seed produces an abundant harvest for the divine life of the soil it falls upon. We are that soil which can receive those seeds of grace this feast day, not because we deserve them, not because we have earned them, not because we fully appreciate how valuable they are, but because of the incomprehensible love of the Son of God for us, and His desire that we may support a life of growing the grace we receive into a hundredfold harvest of life and holiness.

Just as the womb of the Mother of God was the perfect place for the life of the Savior to grow, so are we the right kind of soil where He would like to plant the seeds of His grace and favor. It's not by our own doing that we are this good soil, but rather we have been purchased by the Savior at great cost, the very cost of His own blood. And we have been prepared to become fertile soil through the water of Baptism, which changed our nature from simply natural to that, which is supernatural, a place which can nourish and grow the gifts of God. A soil where whatever good He sends our way we can accept, and hold on to, and embrace, and allow it to take root within us as we nourish it the best way we can and allow it to blossom out from the center of our lives.

So if we are the ground that has been purchased by the Lord, and if we have been made fit for grace by the waters of Baptism, then what else do we need to do in order to receive the seeds of Christ's loving favor? I suggest that if we would like to receive the maximum benefit from grace offered to us in the celebration of the Lord's Nativity, that between now and Wednesday night and Thursday morning, we need to plow the soil in preparation for the seeds of favor the Lord would like to plant within us. We need to plow the soil so that we become a receptive place that is capable of taking in those seeds, allowing them to germinate and find a place to root within us. We ought to plow the field because the Lord will not give us the good we are not willing to bear, nor will He force us to grow His gifts if we are not open to receiving them, if we are unprepared to accept them. But we have a couple of days left to get ready.

We can plow the field. And we can prepare it. And we can do that in many ways. We can plow by prayer, and find that time between now and Christmas to be with the Lord and ask His help. We do a bunch of stuff to get ready for Christmas, surely we can find some time extra as well to sit and talk with the Lord. Then there are all those tiny opportunities to pray as well—in the car, standing in a check-out line, doing the dishes, a few minutes at lunch time at work, walking the dog, after waking up, before going to bed, while taking out the trash or getting the mail we can find even small opportunities to plow with prayer. We can plow with fasting, with self-denial of food because we recognize and we desire a nourishment which is not material, but eternal and incorruptible. Fasting is a declaration for ourselves that we do not live by bread alone. We can plow by living as rational people, as people who trust in the God-given call to live with others by the choice of reason and goodness rather than by the force of our emotions. We can plow the field by persistently choosing what we know is good rather than giving in to emotional chaos. There is no horse that the devil loves to ride more brutally than the horse of our emotions, and he's always ready to jump on that horse, whip us, and whip us, and ride us into one horrible finish line after another. No matter how tired we may be, he's never too tired to jump on our feelings and jockey them into a bad place. We become good soil by not allowing our emotions to tell us what to think, how to act, how to punish and how to condemn and how to find misery instead of hope and trust in God. Why not give our emotions a couple of days off this week and let reason and choosing good be the directors of our lives? We may not always be able to control them in our minds, but we surely can control them in our words and our actions. It's strange that we are so often resistant to putting our lives into the Lord's hands, yet have no problem trusting ourselves in the powers of our feelings—because, as we well know, our emotions always carry us to satisfaction-land.

So please consider becoming a field that is receptive and open to Christmas grace by finding ways to break up the normal and regular focus that gathers our lives together during much of the year, and grasp on to the opportunity to be open to more than just the regular. I've offered a few suggestions, but there is a more than one way to plow a field, and you may have your own ideas. But let's put our hands to the plow and not look back, because our present Christmas and our future life are only worthwhile if it moves us to Christ our Lord.