Isaiah 55:10-13/2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9/St Luke 8:4-15
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Word of the Lord is not information. The parable of the sower is not the first century version of the Farmer’s Almanac. Our Lord is not a businessman, taking calculated risks, weighing the cost, and determining opportune demographic areas for the success of His Word and the growth of His Church. Instead, rather simply, A sower went out to sow his seed.
And we cannot passover that statement as insignificant. Sowers can go out to pull up weeds, to harvest, to mow down. But for our Lord, A sower goes out to sow. And he is not a particularly calculated sower; this farmer seems to waste his seed in the most random places: on the path, on the rocks, among thorns. He is not unlike the vineyard owner from last Sunday who paid a full day’s wage for an hour of work. If the Word of the Lord is information, then our Lord gives terrible advice, at least in the eyes of the world.
But the Word of the Lord is not information. Nor is He giving worldly advice: how to run a business, how to hire workers, how to farm. Rather, He is teaching His disciples, and us, about the Kingdom; how it comes, where and why. This is why He concludes His parable with that cryptic phrase, He who has ears to hear, let him continuously, keep on hearing.
Because to the world it has not been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God; for in hearing they do not understand and in seeing they do not perceive. To them the Word of the Lord is a closed book, a veiled text. But to you who have been given a open ear, the mysteries are revealed; the mystery of Christ, the Seed, the Word made flesh, in Whom and through Whom the Father was reconciling the world unto Himself (Ps 40:6; Eph 3:4; 2 Cor 5:19).
Do not be dismayed by the depth of these mysteries, nor ashamed that you do not fully comprehend them. But ask. Ask as a dear child asking her dear Father. Ask and you shall receive. For “God desires nothing more seriously from us than that we ask Him for much and great things,” Luther writes (LC III 56). He has offered you His Word that you may hear and believe it, holding it fast with an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
Learn from the disciples, who ask concerning the parable, and our Lord gladly and willingly catechizes them into the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Such is His desire for you. This is why He has sent you a preacher, a sower, that he may feed and nourish you with the wholesome Word. Now the parable is this: The Seed is the Word of God. It is scattered abroad by the Chief Sower in reckless love. He does not give care to the type of soil in which it may fall, but knows only that all men need the life-giving Seed, the wholesome Word of the Lord that is not information for life, but is Life, living life, real life, in Christ Jesus the Word.
Of course there are any number of ways that you can ignore, despise, or reject His Word and promise. For the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh are against the Word, not wanting you to hallow His name or let His kingdom come. Like birds pecking at seeds, Satan seeks to rob you of the joy of the Gospel, of the full and free forgiveness of sins in Christ. It matters not how he does this - either by apathy or anger, false belief or despair. He hates that you attend Bible study and Divine Service. He hates that you make diligent and frequent use of the Word and Sacrament; hates that you despise your own righteousness and trust in the righteousness of Christ alone.
And he will use the rocks and thorns of this life to cause you to fall away; for faith to be choked out. As with the lives of all the saints, St Paul provides for you an excellent example in both the endurance of faith under trial and the living of a pure and descent life of humility and weakness. For his foolish boasting is downright idiotic! Bragging about imprisonments and beatings, lashings and scourges, stonings and shipwrecks, hunger and thirst! If the Sower is considered in unsuccessful with only a quarter producing harvest, St Paul is an utter failure!
Yet this is how it is, dear Christians, living in, but not of the world. For where the heart is honest and good, where it holds fast to the Word that is Christ, trial and suffering, tribulation and adversity, and temptation will not be lacking. As St Paul writes to St Timothy, All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived But as for you, continue is what you have learned and have firmly believed (2 Tim 3:12-14). That is to say, He who has ears to hear, let him continuously keep hearing. Give attention to the Word.
For beloved, this parable is not about you; not about you trying to discern what type of soil you are; trying to cultivate your heart to become better soil. This parable is about the Word of the Lord sown into your hearts by the Sower, the Word Himself, by which He uses His hammer of the Law to pulverize the rocky places of your heart so that the sweet Gospel may be of benefit and comfort to you.
For the forgiveness of sins to mean anything to you, you first have to own your sin. Which is to say, the sinners are not the wretched people of the opposite political party as you. The sinners are not the Muslims or the illegal immigrants, or the person making you miserable at work. The sinners are not those on the other side of the culture wars or the worship wars. The sinner is you.
And the solution is not to try to become better soil. For you are all made of the same soil, the earth from which your first father was formed. You are all made of the same soil and you will all return to the same soil. It is the Seed that does the work, for “through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given. He works faith, when and where is pleases God in those who hear the good news that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake. This happens not through your own merits, but for Christ’s sake” (AC IV).
The Sower goes out to sow. Three-fourths of the seed fails to produce a harvest. “Oh what of that, and what of that?” But one-fourth waves ripe on hill and flat, and bears a harvest hundredfold, “Ah, what of that, Lord, what of that!” (LSB 586:4,5). Do not be dismayed, beloved, at the seeming failure of the Seed of the Word; it shall not return void, but shall accomplish the purpose for which it was sent.
Indeed the Seed of the Word came down from heaven. He sowed the Word in reckless love, suffering persecution, rejection, and finally death. The thorns and thistles were pressed into His head and He fell into the earth and died, bearing forth a bounteous harvest, the fruit of His labor, you, His Church, calls, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified by His Word.
By the preaching of His Word He has implanted His self-same Word within your hearts, producing a harvest of faith toward Him and love toward your neighbor. The Word of the Lord is not information. His Word is life. It is, indeed, a cruciform life, into which He has brought you, His Christian, His Cross-tian, lived under suffering and persecution, ridicule and mockery from the world. But take heart, dear ones, for Christ has overcome the world (Jn 16:33).
And the Father has sent rain upon the earth, producing a harvest, which is given here as bread for your body and food for your soul. For here the Word strikes the bread and it is the Body of Christ, given for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here His choicest vintage, His own Blood, poured out for you passes across your sin-parched lips and taking root in you by faith.
We are sixty days from the Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who with the Father + together with the Holy Spirit be glory in the Church now and forever. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Word of the Lord is not information. The parable of the sower is not the first century version of the Farmer’s Almanac. Our Lord is not a businessman, taking calculated risks, weighing the cost, and determining opportune demographic areas for the success of His Word and the growth of His Church. Instead, rather simply, A sower went out to sow his seed.
And we cannot passover that statement as insignificant. Sowers can go out to pull up weeds, to harvest, to mow down. But for our Lord, A sower goes out to sow. And he is not a particularly calculated sower; this farmer seems to waste his seed in the most random places: on the path, on the rocks, among thorns. He is not unlike the vineyard owner from last Sunday who paid a full day’s wage for an hour of work. If the Word of the Lord is information, then our Lord gives terrible advice, at least in the eyes of the world.
But the Word of the Lord is not information. Nor is He giving worldly advice: how to run a business, how to hire workers, how to farm. Rather, He is teaching His disciples, and us, about the Kingdom; how it comes, where and why. This is why He concludes His parable with that cryptic phrase, He who has ears to hear, let him continuously, keep on hearing.
Because to the world it has not been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God; for in hearing they do not understand and in seeing they do not perceive. To them the Word of the Lord is a closed book, a veiled text. But to you who have been given a open ear, the mysteries are revealed; the mystery of Christ, the Seed, the Word made flesh, in Whom and through Whom the Father was reconciling the world unto Himself (Ps 40:6; Eph 3:4; 2 Cor 5:19).
Do not be dismayed by the depth of these mysteries, nor ashamed that you do not fully comprehend them. But ask. Ask as a dear child asking her dear Father. Ask and you shall receive. For “God desires nothing more seriously from us than that we ask Him for much and great things,” Luther writes (LC III 56). He has offered you His Word that you may hear and believe it, holding it fast with an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
Learn from the disciples, who ask concerning the parable, and our Lord gladly and willingly catechizes them into the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Such is His desire for you. This is why He has sent you a preacher, a sower, that he may feed and nourish you with the wholesome Word. Now the parable is this: The Seed is the Word of God. It is scattered abroad by the Chief Sower in reckless love. He does not give care to the type of soil in which it may fall, but knows only that all men need the life-giving Seed, the wholesome Word of the Lord that is not information for life, but is Life, living life, real life, in Christ Jesus the Word.
Of course there are any number of ways that you can ignore, despise, or reject His Word and promise. For the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh are against the Word, not wanting you to hallow His name or let His kingdom come. Like birds pecking at seeds, Satan seeks to rob you of the joy of the Gospel, of the full and free forgiveness of sins in Christ. It matters not how he does this - either by apathy or anger, false belief or despair. He hates that you attend Bible study and Divine Service. He hates that you make diligent and frequent use of the Word and Sacrament; hates that you despise your own righteousness and trust in the righteousness of Christ alone.
And he will use the rocks and thorns of this life to cause you to fall away; for faith to be choked out. As with the lives of all the saints, St Paul provides for you an excellent example in both the endurance of faith under trial and the living of a pure and descent life of humility and weakness. For his foolish boasting is downright idiotic! Bragging about imprisonments and beatings, lashings and scourges, stonings and shipwrecks, hunger and thirst! If the Sower is considered in unsuccessful with only a quarter producing harvest, St Paul is an utter failure!
Yet this is how it is, dear Christians, living in, but not of the world. For where the heart is honest and good, where it holds fast to the Word that is Christ, trial and suffering, tribulation and adversity, and temptation will not be lacking. As St Paul writes to St Timothy, All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived But as for you, continue is what you have learned and have firmly believed (2 Tim 3:12-14). That is to say, He who has ears to hear, let him continuously keep hearing. Give attention to the Word.
For beloved, this parable is not about you; not about you trying to discern what type of soil you are; trying to cultivate your heart to become better soil. This parable is about the Word of the Lord sown into your hearts by the Sower, the Word Himself, by which He uses His hammer of the Law to pulverize the rocky places of your heart so that the sweet Gospel may be of benefit and comfort to you.
For the forgiveness of sins to mean anything to you, you first have to own your sin. Which is to say, the sinners are not the wretched people of the opposite political party as you. The sinners are not the Muslims or the illegal immigrants, or the person making you miserable at work. The sinners are not those on the other side of the culture wars or the worship wars. The sinner is you.
And the solution is not to try to become better soil. For you are all made of the same soil, the earth from which your first father was formed. You are all made of the same soil and you will all return to the same soil. It is the Seed that does the work, for “through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given. He works faith, when and where is pleases God in those who hear the good news that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake. This happens not through your own merits, but for Christ’s sake” (AC IV).
The Sower goes out to sow. Three-fourths of the seed fails to produce a harvest. “Oh what of that, and what of that?” But one-fourth waves ripe on hill and flat, and bears a harvest hundredfold, “Ah, what of that, Lord, what of that!” (LSB 586:4,5). Do not be dismayed, beloved, at the seeming failure of the Seed of the Word; it shall not return void, but shall accomplish the purpose for which it was sent.
Indeed the Seed of the Word came down from heaven. He sowed the Word in reckless love, suffering persecution, rejection, and finally death. The thorns and thistles were pressed into His head and He fell into the earth and died, bearing forth a bounteous harvest, the fruit of His labor, you, His Church, calls, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified by His Word.
By the preaching of His Word He has implanted His self-same Word within your hearts, producing a harvest of faith toward Him and love toward your neighbor. The Word of the Lord is not information. His Word is life. It is, indeed, a cruciform life, into which He has brought you, His Christian, His Cross-tian, lived under suffering and persecution, ridicule and mockery from the world. But take heart, dear ones, for Christ has overcome the world (Jn 16:33).
And the Father has sent rain upon the earth, producing a harvest, which is given here as bread for your body and food for your soul. For here the Word strikes the bread and it is the Body of Christ, given for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here His choicest vintage, His own Blood, poured out for you passes across your sin-parched lips and taking root in you by faith.
We are sixty days from the Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who with the Father + together with the Holy Spirit be glory in the Church now and forever. Amen.
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