A Sower Went Out to Sow
In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
May the blessing of the Father who calls us, and His Only Begotten Son who saves us, and the Holy Spirit who sanctifies and transforms us be with us all, that we may hear His word and bear fruit—thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Amen.
"A sower went out to sow his seed."
Luke 8:5
Which Soil Were You This Week?
Let me ask you one question, and please answer it honestly in your heart. Which soil were you this week?
(Pause.)
Maybe you were the path. You stood here last Sunday, but your phone was in your hand. The Gospel was read, and by the time we reached the parking lot, it was gone. The birds took it.
Maybe you were the rock. You heard a sermon and went home on fire. You promised to pray every morning. By Wednesday the fire was out, because the roots were shallow.
Maybe you were the thorns. You love God. But the job, the commute, the bills, the kids' schedules — they grew up around the Word and choked it.
We are all some of each. But here is the good news of today's Gospel, and I want you to remember one sentence: God never gives up on any soil — not yours, and not theirs.
1. Christ Sows on Every Soil — Including Yours
Who is the Sower? St. Cyril of Alexandria, our own Coptic father, answers: "He is truly the Sower of all that is good, and we are his farm." Before we are ever sowers, we are His field.
Now look closely at the words. Theophylact of Ohrid noticed something beautiful: the Lord "said not that the sower threw some on the way side, but that it fell by the way side." Christ does not aim at the bad soil and waste His seed. He sows on every heart as if it were good ground.
A real farmer would never do this. He would save his seed for the best field. But our Lord threw it on the path, on the rock, among the thorns. Why? Because He loves the path. He loves the rock. He loves the thorns.
That means He sowed on you this morning, whatever soil you were this week. You did not come here by accident. God never gives up on any soil.
2. The Rock Can Become Rich Soil
St. John Chrysostom asked an honest question: isn't it foolish to sow on rock? A farmer who did that would be laughed at. Then he answers that with soil, yes, it is impossible "for the rock to become earth, or the wayside not to be a wayside, or the thorns, thorns; but in the things that have reason it is not so."
A stone stays a stone. But a human heart can change. God promised it through Ezekiel: "I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).
Think of Saul of Tarsus. He held the coats while St. Stephen was stoned. He dragged Christians to prison. If you had looked at him, you would have said, "That is rock. Don't waste the seed." Yet he became St. Paul, and wrote: "I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy" (1 Timothy 1:13).
Our Coptic Church knows this story well. Arianus, the governor of Ansena, tortured Christians under Diocletian. He watched them suffer and die with joy. And the persecutor himself believed in Christ and was martyred for the Name he once fought.
And it is still happening in Egypt today. There are people who were raised to look down on the Church — some even mocked, hurt, and killed Christians, and bombed churches. They are hard rock. But God did not give up on them. He sowed through a dream, through a kind neighbor, through a Bible someone left behind. Their hearts broke open. Today many of them pay a heavy price for Christ: their families, their work, sometimes their safety.
Beloved, many of them have become stronger Christians than us. We were baptized as babies; they chose Christ knowing what it would cost. We complain that the Liturgy is long; they would give anything to stand in it freely.
St. Jerome says the difference between bad soil and good soil is "not the substance but the will." So the question is not only, "Which soil were you?" It is, "Which soil will you choose to be?" Because God never gives up on any soil — not yours, and not theirs.
3. So Never Give Up on Anyone — Sow Like Him
If God did not give up on Saul, on Arianus, on you and on me, then who are we to give up on anyone?
You know that coworker who rolls his eyes when you mention Christ or the Church. The relative who stopped coming years ago. The neighbor who believes something very different. You've already decided: rock. Chrysostom reminds us that the Lord kept sowing, even "He who fully foreknew that these things should be, did not desist from sowing." If He kept sowing, so do we.
And sowing is simpler than we think. When I visit the sick in the hospital or at an elderly day care, people in the reception area, in the elevator, and sometimes in the bed next to the person I'm visiting ask me, "Why do you dress like that?" One honest answer, and a seed is sown.
In ten days we begin the Nativity Fast. Someone at work will ask, "Why aren't you eating meat?" That is not an interruption. That is a door. Tell them why you fast, and who you are fasting toward.
You throw the seed. You don't make it grow. St. Paul said, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase" (1 Corinthians 3:6). So before you speak to someone about God, speak to God about them.
And love them for their own sake, not as a project. Christ loved the rock before it ever bore fruit. God never gives up on any soil — so neither will we.
Closing: What Will You Do With This Seed by Wednesday?
St. John Chrysostom warns preachers and listeners alike: "unless by constant remembrance we cover over what has been sown," we "have but cast it all into the air." A sermon you forget by Wednesday was sown for the birds.
"A sower went out to sow his seed." He is still going out. He came out this morning to you. And He is sending you out tomorrow, to the path, the rock, and the thorns. Because God never gives up on any soil — not yours, and not theirs.
May the Lord bless us and transform us — that our homes may stand on the Rock, our hands may serve in the harvest, and our hearts may long for Heaven. Through the intercession of our Lady, the Theotokos Saint Mary, and the prayers of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew. Glory be to God forever. Amen.
Prepared and presented by Hegumen Fr. Andrew Awad, D.Min.