The following homily was shared at our Sunday Evening Eucharist service 7/19/26.

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.

Such large crowds gathered around him

that he got into a boat and sat down,

and the whole crowd stood along the shore.

And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:

"A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,

and birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.

It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,

and when the sun rose it was scorched,

and it withered for lack of roots.

Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.

But some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit,

a hundred or sixty or thirty-fold.

Whoever has ears ought to hear."

(Matthew 13:1-9)

Since I was a freshman, I used to struggle with tonight's gospel reading. I wanted “rich soil” well prepared for the planting of God’s word, yet I had no concrete idea on what posture I should take to enrich my soil, nor did I truly know how to tell if my soil was good at all. I understood that there were weeds and thorns in my soil and that God was actively pulling them out of me, yet the true depth these weeds had taken in my soil and the ways they would try to choke me was a mystery to me. And I can not say that the total level of vulnerability and hunger I would need to relinquish these weeds over to the Lord was something I fully understood.

Lately, I have found myself in some uncharted waters. I first began to enter these waters towards the middle of last spring quarter when the Lord called me into a deeper understanding of his majesty. With this I began to develop a deeper hunger for the Lord. Due to this, I now find myself in a position where I see that the Lord is challenging some of the most gnarly weeds in my soil, and he is winning.

It was over this year’s mission trip to Paraguay that things really started to change for me. Going into this trip, I told myself that the most important thing for me to do was to be ravenous for the Lord. This hunger allowed God to make crazy changes in me. Three weeks into the mission, it became very clear to me that the woman I was when I entered Paraguay would not be the same woman who would be leaving Paraguay.

In the past, I have known myself to be someone resistant to fully living life with others. I have been someone who resists seeing Christ in others, because I was scared of the deep level of trust it called me to have in others. In Paraguay, I met a woman named Susi. I love Susi very much. Me and Susi could not speak the same language, but despite this potential barrier, we formed a very deep friendship. I saw Christ shine so deep in her. During spiritually intense or hard moments for me over the trip, she would grab hold of me and start praying for me. I would not be able to comprehend what she was saying, but I knew the Holy Spirit resided deep within her. I know the Spirit advocates for my good, so I found myself at a great peace submitting myself over to Susi’s prayers. It was in those moments of her prayer that I found myself seeing the good that comes from fully trusting my Christian brothers’ and sisters’ intentions. I also found myself forming a very deep connection with the entirety of the mission team. I love and trust them all deeply, and I now find myself in a place where I am ready to trust and seek deeper counsel from the entity of Christ’s body.

Also, over the past year, I have been quite scared of being a leader in the community. I saw myself as someone too afraid of the disapproval of others to lead in any sort of way. Though over the mission trip, the Lord told me two things. The first was that no matter how ready I felt, It was time for me to step up, and the second being to take peace in the fact that I am solely justified by grace. I must admit, with this realization, at first I found myself up at night too overwhelmed by the future to fall asleep. Though, now I find myself in a great state of peace and excitement. As it is time for me to be ready for things, I know the Lord will prepare me.

The moment when it truly became clear to me that the Lord had deeply changed my heart was during the first Eucharist service I attended after getting back from Paraguay. As I gathered back around the altar here to take communion again for the first time in a month, I knew that my heart was in the best place it had ever been, and as I looked upon the faces of my brothers and sisters, I knew that God was taking care of me. This was some incredible news for me!! I cried a good bit, and I was honestly pretty embarrassed over my tears, yet I could not keep them from rolling down as I found myself face to face with the loving and healing power of the Lord. Going into things with hunger for God, whether it be Tuesday night worship, a hangout, or anything for that matter, will keep your soil rich. I pray that we will stay hungry for him, so that he can plant all the beautiful things in our soil that he is so excited to gift us with.

Amen!

Hunger For God: Peri Sonnier

POWERED BY SQUARESPACE