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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.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus went out of the house to tell great crowds many things in parables. In the parable we heard Him tell, a sower went out to sow. Similarly, I and you come out, respectively, to tell and to hear the Word of the Kingdom. As in Jesus’s day, so also in our day, perhaps all the more due to the coronavirus’s reducing numbers in church services, the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments may appear to be ineffective. We all too easily can become discouraged: by those who hear the Word but do not understand it, by those who hear the Word but later fall away, and by those who hear the Word but later prove unfruitful. Yet, in view of those who hear the Word and do understand it, I tell, and you bear fruit, including supporting the work of the Kingdom in this place. For, as with Jesus, and as in the parable, so with us, “A sower goes out to sow”.
In last Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 11:25-30), among other things, Jesus called and so enabled all who labored and were heavy laden to come to Him for rest. And, the verses between last Sunday’s Gospel Reading and today’s Gospel Reading, tell how some declined Jesus’s rest, even as others received His rest (Matthew 12:1-50). Already in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, Jesus seemed to be addressing the apparent failure of His ministry, and, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus may be doing so all the more, as He began what is regarded as His “third discourse” in St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, including a series of seven related parables, from which we will also hear excerpts the next two weeks (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, 44-52).
In a sense, each of those parables, including the Parable of the Sower, is about us, especially about what Jesus does for us. Ultimately, Jesus is the Sower of the seed that is the Word of His Kingdom, and we are the soil that hears that Word. To the extent that we and others hear and understand the Word and bear fruit, we are encouraged by the Word’s success among us and others. Such encouragement, especially in the face of people for whom the Word seems less‑successful, is said to be the main point of the Parable of the Sower. But, as we consider those from whom the Word is taken away, those who immediately fall away when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the Word, and those for whom the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, we also must pay attention to ourselves. For, we just as easily can cease understanding the Word, wither under tribulation and persecution on account of the Word, and let both the cares of the world—and there are a lot of them, it seems, especially these days—and the deceitfulness of riches make us unfruitful.
If we do not sin in those ways, or by being discouraged over the Gospel and Sacraments’ seeming ineffectiveness, we nevertheless sin in other ways. For, we all are sinful by nature, and, on account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sins, we all deserve present and eternal punishment, unless we turn in sorrow from our sins and trust God to forgive our sins for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. For, when we so repent, then God forgives our sins. By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, God forgives all our sins, whatever our sins might be. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 65; antiphon: v.5), when iniquities prevail against us, then He atones for our transgression.
In addition to being the Sower of the seed that is the Word of the Kingdom, Jesus is the Word’s content and the Kingdom’s King! True God in human flesh, Jesus endured tribulation and persecution that arose both on account of Who He is and on account of our sin. Out of His great love and care for the world, Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, including your sins and mine. On the cross, Jesus died in our place, the death that we otherwise would have deserved. The Word of the Kingdom offers all people both the righteousness of Jesus’s perfect life and the righteousness of His death on the cross. When we in faith receive that Word and Christ’s righteousness that it offers us, then we ourselves are righteous: we are forgiven for His sake. We are forgiven through His Word in all of its forms.
I mentioned that ultimately Jesus is the Sower Who goes out to sow, and Jesus sows the seed that is the Word of His Kingdom in multiple forms. Jesus may sow through one pastor’s reading and preaching us His Word, through another pastor’s baptizing us, through still another pastor’s absolving us, and through still even another pastor’s communing us with Christ’s true Body and Blood, but ultimately Jesus Himself is working in all pure preaching of the Gospel and in all right administration of the Sacraments. And, though God may plant the seed of His Word through one pastor and water it through another, as the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul says, neither the pastor through whom God plants nor the pastor through whom God waters is anything, but only God, Who gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). Our faith is in God and in His Word, not in any human methods that we may come up with that we might think will enhance His Word.
God’s work through His Word and Sacraments is resistible, of course. In the Parable of the Sower, the same seed that is the powerful and efficacious Word of His Kingdom was sown to all four “soils”, as it were, yet, by the harvest-time, only one “soil” had produced fruit. If any fruit is produced, the Sower and the Seed get the glory, and, if no fruit is produced, the “soil”, as it were, gets the blame. After I made that point last week to the group of pastors with whom I read this Parable in its original Greek, there was quite some discussion. Although in the Parable, the seed was sown on all four “soils”, not all of those pastors believe that God genuinely intends to save all people. Although in the Parable, plants initially came up on the rocky ground and among the thorns but later failed, not all of those pastors believe that people can fall from faith. Although in the Parable, there was at the harvest a distinction between the plants that did not bear fruit and the plants that did bear fruit, not all of those pastors believe that on the Last Day unbelievers are eternally separated from believers. As today’s Old Testament Reading also reminded us (Isaiah 55:10-13), God’s Word is always efficacious, even if God’s Word is not effective in every case. And, ultimately, why God’s Word is effective in some cases and not effective in other cases largely remains a mystery hidden in the part of God that He does not reveal to us (confer Scaer, CLD VIII:111).
Jesus went out of the house to tell great crowds many things in parables. A sower went out to sow. I and you come out, respectively, to tell and to hear the Word of the Kingdom. The preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments may appear to be ineffective, but today’s Gospel Reading makes clear to us that it is not ineffective, and so we are not discouraged. We live in God’s forgiveness of sins, and as today’s Epistle Reading reminded us (Romans 8:12-17), we suffer on our path to glory. I tell, and you bear fruit—thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold—including supporting the work of the Kingdom in this place. For, as with Jesus, and as in the parable, so with us, “A sower goes out to sow”. And, the Harvest Lord watches and tends His sown Word (Lutheran Service Book 586:6), until we together share the full and complete joy of the harvest for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +