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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Any of us who have ever cultivated crops, have ever grown a garden, have ever cared for house plants, or even have ever germinated seeds in science class probably know enough from experience to understand the context of “the Parable of the Sower” that Jesus told and explained in the Gospel Reading today, the only day in our three-year series of Readings that we hear this Parable. We may already know at least part of what Jesus says: seed devoured by birds, like plants in rocky soil with no root scorched by the sun and others choked by thorns, does not produce grain, but seed that falls on good soil does produce grain—some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. Likewise, Jesus also says, those who hear the word—the seed of the Kingdom, as it were—but do not understand that word have the devil snatch away what was sown in their heart, or they hear and understand for a time, until they fall away due to tribulation or persecution on account of the word, or until the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches choke the word. But, those who continue to hear and understand the word—the seed of the Kingdom—truly bear fruit and yield a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold. This morning as we reflect on the Gospel Reading, we especially consider God’s Word as “The Seed of the Kingdom”.
In last week’s Gospel Reading, Jesus thanked God the Father for hiding things about salvation from those who were wise and understanding by the world’s standards and instead graciously revealing them to those who might seem unable to understand it (Matthew 11:25-30). For this week’s Gospel Reading, our series of Readings has skipped forward in St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, to after Jesus’s mother and other relatives came to the house where He was, to when Jesus went out of the house and told the parable and then later, perhaps back in the house, explained it. In the process of giving us the parable and its explanation, today’s Gospel Reading skipped over both Jesus’s disciples’ asking why Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables (Matthew 13:10-17) and Jesus’s answering the disciples by saying that in the case of the crowds God’s prophecy through Isaiah was fulfilled (Isaiah 6:9-10), that hearing the crowds did not understand.
Jesus sowed His Word, the seed of the Kingdom, and so did His apostles sow His Word, and so do their successors sow the seed of the Kingdom. The parable would suggest they sowed it then and sow it today onto four different kinds of soil. What kind of soil are you? What kind of soil am I? Do we hear His Word at all? Or, are we too frequently absent from Divine Service, Adult Bible Class and Sunday School, Midweek Bible Study, and even Daily Bible Reading that we can do on our own schedule? Do we hear His Word and understand it? Or, does His Word go in one ear and, as they say, right out the other, without our letting it, for example, discipline us as we need it to? Do we hear and understand His Word all the time? Or, do we receive it with joy and endure only for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately fall away? Or, do we let the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word and ultimately prove unfruitful? There may be four different kinds of soil and three different reasons for a lack of fruitfulness, but ultimately there are only two outcomes, and only one of those is salvation. Those who hear and understand turn and are healed (Matthew 13:15).
The seed of the Kingdom is God’s Word, God’s Word that not only shows us our sin but also—and more importantly—shows us our Savior from sin, the God-man Jesus Christ, Who suffered and died on the cross for us and for our salvation. As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 55:10-13) and is depicted on the banners, God’s Word does not return to Him empty but accomplishes that which He purposes, succeeds in the things for which He sent it. Although we by nature are dead in trespasses and sins and cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to Him, the seed of the Kingdom brings forth in us the fruits of sorrow over our sin, trust that God will forgive our sin for Jesus sake, and a desire to do better than to want to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sin by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The Word and our understanding of it are both God’s loving and merciful gifts to us! If we do not resist the seed of the Kingdom working in us, we will continue to hear and understand, to receive His Word—and the forgiveness of sins that comes with it—in all of the Word’s forms.
To be sure, God’s Word in all of its forms is resistible. Through God’s Word read and preached, combined with water in Holy Baptism, applied to individuals in Holy Absolution, and connected with bread that is Jesus’s Body and wine that is His Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar—in all of these ways, God gently but resistibly draws and invites sinners into His Kingdom, gathering and sustaining us here with forgiveness, life, and salvation. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 8:12-17), the Spirit of God leads us to be children of God adopted, as it were, in Holy Baptism. So made God’s children at the Font, we cry out to our Heavenly Father for continued forgiveness in individual Absolution and in the Sacrament of the Altar, and we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. That some reject God and His means of grace is not the fault of the Sower or of the Seed; even the judgment that comes upon those who reject Him and His means of grace is a purpose and success of the Word that is the seed of the Kingdom.
Why some reject Him and His means and others do not is part of what the Gradual called God’s unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways. But, regardless of the Word’s results, that the Word that is the seed of the Kingdom itself brings forth fruit comforts and encourages us—both in our own individual lives and as a congregation of people who continue to hear and understand the Word. God has blessed us here at Pilgrim with a new Parish Hall with Sunday School Classrooms, and, after the blessing this morning, we will begin to use the new facilities already tonight and the next four nights for Vacation Bible School. Like Jesus, His apostles, and their successors before us, not only this week in V-B-S but for countless weeks going forward, we will faithfully sow the seed of the Kingdom, even if some appears to go to waste. Despite a lack of guaranteed results, there is no “agenda” or “strategy” here other than for us to purely preach the Gospel and to rightly administer the Sacraments. For, only thereby do we receive God’s forgiveness for our sins against Him and only thereby are we able, in turn, to extend our own forgiveness to one another.
This morning we have realized that, no matter our own personal experience cultivating crops, growing a garden, caring for house plants, or germinating seeds in science class, God graciously enables us to hear and understand the Word that is the seed of the Kingdom of the forgiveness of sins by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. As we let it, that seed brings forth from us as good soil various yields. So for us to remain in God’s peace and joy, we pray, in the words of a translated Scandinavian hymn (Lutheran Service Book 923:1):
Almighty Father, bless the Word / Which through Your grace we now have heard.
Oh, may the precious seed take root, / Spring up, and bear abundant fruit.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +