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. (Amen.)
You and I may or may not have much personal experience with agriculture. On both sides of my family, I am a grandson of Wisconsin dairy farmers, but the only serious agricultural work that I ever did was the summer between high‑school and college, when, in fields of central Illinois, I detasseled corn plants as a part of the process of cross-breeding seed‑corn varieties for Schissler, a subsidiary of the Pioneer Seed Company. Of course, we really do not have to have had any agricultural experience at all in order to understand the so‑called “Parable of the Sower” that Jesus told in today’s Gospel Reading. In that Parable, Jesus is likened to a “sower”, that is, to someone planting seeds, and that Parable of today’s Gospel Reading arguably builds on the figure of speech that was used in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 55:10-13), which likens God’s heavenly moisture in the form of rain and snow’s making the earth bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, to His Word that goes out from His mouth and does not return to Him empty but accomplishes that which He purposes (confer Fickenscher, Looking Forward, p.184). So, with the Holy Spirit’s help this morning, we realize that “Jesus’s sowing bears fruit”.
For today’s Gospel Rading, we have moved forward a full chapter in our more‑or‑less‑continuous reading of St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, skipping over such things as, at the end of Matthew chapter 12, Jesus’s telling His followers that His true mother and siblings are those who do the will of His Father in Heaven (Matthew 12:46-50). Today and the next two Sundays we hear five of the seven parables that Jesus tells as recorded in chapter Matthew chapter 13 (confer Fickenscher, Looking Forward, 182), although today’s Gospel Reading ellipses out eight verses about the purpose of parables. The “Parable of the Sower” is also recorded in the Gospel accounts of St. Mark and St. Luke (Mark 4:1-9, 13-20; Luke 8:4-8, 11-15), but our Three‑Year Lectionary Series appoints only St. Matthew’s account to be read, as it was today. As we heard, St. Matthew’s account of the “Parable of the Sower” is well‑developed, although parables generally have one main point‑of‑comparison, which leads to a “central truth”. In this case, we can say that the comparison of Jesus to a sower leads to the “central truth” that “Jesus’s sowing bears fruit”.
Of course, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus’s sowing does not bear fruit in every different case, but the problem is not with the Sower or with the Seed, which is the same in every case. Yet, some people hear the Word of God and do not understand it, and, like the birds, the Evil One comes and snatches away what has been sown in their hearts. Other people hear the Word and immediately receive it with joy but, when the sun of tribulation or persecution arises on account of the Word, immediately they fall away. Still other people hear the Word, but the thorns of the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word. All three of those cases end in unrepentance and unbelief and so in temporal death and eternal damnation, which is what we all deserve on account of our sin. We might say that by nature we all are bad soil, subject to the birds, sun, and thorns (Pietsch, CPR 33:3, 34.); we do not make ourselves good soil or good hearers of God’s Word (confer Fickenscher, Looking Forward, p.185). Rather, the Word of the Kingdom itself leads us to participate in the Kingdom by repentance and faith. The Holy Spirit working through the Word calls and thereby enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 65:1-13; antiphon: v.5), when iniquities prevail against us, God atones for our transgressions; by awesome deeds He answers us with righteousness. The Sower’s apparently sowing the seed everywhere, regardless of its outcome, likely reflects God the Father’s great love. Out of that great love, the Son of God took on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary in order both to live the perfect life that we fail to live and to die for our failures to live that life. On the cross, Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, including your sin and my sin. Jesus died for us, as our substitute, in our place. Then He rose from the dead. When, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we repent and believe, then we receive His righteousness. We are forgiven, not because we repent and believe, but because Jesus died for us. By God’s work in our hearts, we understand the Word of the Kingdom, and we receive its benefits already now, especially in His Holy Sacraments.
Today’s Old Testament Reading and today’s Psalm’s mentions of water might make us think especially of the Word with water in Holy Baptism, but God’s Gospel is also applied to us as individuals with touch in Holy Absolution and with bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us in the Holy Supper. The green banners that Pilgrim ladies made years ago make use of words from today’s Old Testament Reading and illustrate the ways that the Holy Spirit uses God’s Word about Jesus to work in us to forgive us: through the reading and preaching of the Holy Scriptures, through Holy Baptism, through the Office of the Keys exercised in Holy Absolution, and through the Holy Supper. We do not make ourselves good hearers of God’s Word, but, once God through His Word has made us good hearers of His Word, then we make use of God’s Word to let Him continue to work in us. Forgiven and so transformed by Jesus, as the other banner depicts, we love our neighbors, are united in our church family, and extend God’s love to the world. We do not withhold our offerings, but we give of what God gives to us in order to support the work of His Kingdom in this and in every place. We invite family, friends, classmates and coworkers to come here in order for them to hear the Gospel purely preached and receive the Sacraments rightly administered, as through the Office of the Holy Ministry “Jesus’s sowing bears fruit”.
Back in 18‑15, when son of a farmer and English hymnwriter John Cawood originally based on today’s Gospel Reading, the hymn that we sang as today’s Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 577), the hymn had not only the four stanzas that we sang but also a fifth stanza that we did not sing, which stanza seems to reflect the teaching also of today’s Old Testament Reading. Like its two immediate predecessors (The Lutheran Hymnal #49; Lutheran Worship #342), Lutheran Service Book omits this stanza:
Nor let Thy Word, so kindly sent / To raise us to Thy throne,
Return to Thee and sadly tell / That we reject Thy Son.
(Pollack, #49, p.41; confer Senkbeil, #577, LSB:CttH, I:630-631.)
You see, when people who hear God’s Word end up not repenting and believing, and we might be tempted to think that God’s Word is not accomplishing that which God purposes and succeeding in the thing for which He sent it, we must remember that God’s Law judges unrepentant unbelievers (John 12:47-48), just as God’s Gospel saves repentant believers (confer Fickenscher, Looking Forward, p.184). Precisely why some people do not repent and believe and other people do repent and believe is part of the mystery of lawlessness and grace of our eternal election in Christ (Kilcrease, CLD II:62). The “Parable of the Sower” is not about why there is this difference, but the “Parable of the Sower” is about that there is this difference, whether Jesus is teaching directly, as in today’s Gospel Reading, or through His Ministry. So, we endure tribulation or persecution on account of the Word, suffering with Christ, as St. Paul described in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 8:12‑17), that we also may be glorified with Christ. The Kingdom started small, and at any time the Kingdom still can seem small and even hopeless, but God works miraculously, and those who hear the word and understand it bear fruit and ultimately yield thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and even one‑hundredfold.
With or without agricultural experience, as described in today’s Old Testament Reading and as we sang in today’s Psalm, even now we rejoice as we will for eternity, because “Jesus’s sowing bears fruit”.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
