Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matt 13:3–9)

“The sower went forth to sow,” not simply going from place to place but with deliberate design. He did not go where He had not been before, nor did He abandon the place he had left, because God is everywhere. He did not go beyond His presence because God is everywhere. Rather, He went out because God is present where His righteousness is honored. Where His righteousness is not present, neither is God fully received. Those who are within His righteousness are found inside, and those who are not within His righteousness are found outside. Therefore, as long as God was in heaven where all are righteous, He was inside. Coming forth into the fallen world, however, which was completely outside God's righteousness, He went outside in order to bring it inside. Therefore, since all nations, disdaining God's righteousness, were living under the power of the devil, He went forth outside in order to sow righteousness in the world, where it had been absent before on account of their sins. “The sower went out to sow.” It was not sufficient for Him to say, “He went out to sow,” but He added, “The sower went out to sow” to point out that He was not a new sower and was not doing this work for the first time. It was just like God to do this. He has always been sowing. Indeed, from the beginning of the human race, it was natural for God to sow the seeds of knowledge. He is the One who, through Moses, sowed among the people the seeds of the commandments of the law. He is the One who, speaking through the prophets, sowed not only the remedies of things present but also the knowledge of things future. He went out so that in a human body and through Himself, He might sow His divine commandments.

Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 31