Sermon: Sexagesima - 2019

24 February 2019

Text: Luke 8:4-15 (Isa 55:10-13, 2 Cor 11:19-12:9)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Until recently in human history, we didn’t know how seeds worked.  Now that we live in an information age, we know about computer programs.  A seed is essentially a tiny biologically-driven computer program, in which DNA code gives a complex series of exact instructions for cell division to germinate, to create a division of labor between root, stem, leaves, and flowering mechanism, and to carry out a precise life-cycle.  The DNA calls the shots as the plant flowers, bears fruit, produces new seeds with this embedded DNA code, and sends out new plants according to these same instructions.  Leaves and stems die, the flower fades, but the instruction of the DNA code endures forever.

But the seed isn’t just code in someone’s head.  The seed actually biologically modifies itself in space and time according to the code.  In other words, the seed is a self-modifying computer program, or as technocrats like to say, “artificial intelligence” – only it is real, not artificial.  

So, who wrote the code in the first place?  For we know that computers don’t program themselves unless they were originally programmed by a first programmer.

Our Lord Jesus is being cheeky when He compares the kingdom of God to the sowing of seeds.  For He is the original Seed, and the original program.  For God said, “Let there be… and there was.”  “In the beginning was the Word.” And like the seeds in the parable, Jesus doesn’t exist as a spiritual abstraction of theoretical ones and zeros made up of electrons, but is rather of the dirt and grass and rain and sun; of blood, sweat, and tears; of waking and sleeping and talking and listening, of dying and rising again.  

There is nothing artificial about plants.  We eat them.  We plant them.  Our planet depends on them for survival.  And Jesus likewise is flesh and blood, breaking into space and time, and His Word upholds and nourishes creation.  Jesus is the Logos, the logic embedded into the DNA of the universe, the data that exists eternally, or, as John the Evangelist calls Him in the prologue to His Gospel: the Word Made Flesh.

But of course, what we see with our eyes is not so spectacular.  Seeds are tiny things that we often throw away.  They may be sprinkled on our bread for a little flavor.  They are often spat out and thrown away by aficionados of watermelon.  Seeds are used by creative people in arts and crafts.

But the real power of the seed is the embedded data of God’s creative might latent in the DNA, which awaits the launch sequence to begin carrying out the very instructions of God Himself, instructions that date back to the beginning of the universe.  And in this work of the seed, entire forests and wheat fields emerge, nations of people and animals are fed, and there is no limit to the ability of the seeds to replicate.

We would look at it as a miracle if it weren’t so common.  We would consider this undeniable proof of the existence of God if we weren’t so blinded by our obsession with explaining away God by illogical logic.

But for seeds to begin their launch sequence, they must be triggered into action.  And this is where the soil comes into play.

Jesus explains the kingdom like a sower who sows seeds.  Now, our farmer isn’t like our modern agribusiness who plans (and in some cases holds copyright) on every seed.  Our sower instead “broadcasts” the seeds, scattering them everywhere.  And so, the seeds fall on different kinds of soil.

“Some fell,” says Jesus, “along the path and was trampled underfoot,” and given that it could not embed in the soil, our Lord explains, “the birds of the air devoured it.”  Some fell into rocky ground, grew up quickly in the shallowness, but did not get enough moisture and “withered away.”  Some “fell among thorns” and its growth was “choked” off, and it died.  

With each of these three soils, the seeds’ instructions are cut short by death.  There is no flower, no fruit, and no reproduction.  These seeds never reach the potential that God built into them, because His instructions are not carried out.

But then there is the “good soil” in which the seed prospers, easily executing the computer code line by line, growing, bearing fruit, and yielding “a hundredfold” of new seeds carrying the Word and spreading far and wide, cast by other sowers unto the blessing of the world.

Of course, Jesus isn’t giving us a lesson in agriculture.  The Word of God makes its way to us in the same way that a seed bears its powerful DNA into the soil.  We are the various soils in the parable that receive the Word of God.  Our Lord even explains the meaning of this parable to his disciples.  The seed that never embeds and is eaten by birds is like the Word of God coming to a person who doesn’t take it to heart.  The “devil comes and takes away the Word.”  The rocky soil is like those who “receive it [the Word of God] with joy,” but lacking a solid root foundation, doesn’t last when a “time of testing” comes, and they fall away.  The thorny soil is like unto those who are distracted, and the Word of God is choked off by “cares and riches and pleasures of life.”  

In each of these three examples, the Word of God is prevented (by the person to whom God has given it) from bearing fruit and propagating the Word – which is what we are called upon to do.  

But we are called to be the “good soil,” who “hearing the Word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”

Dear friends, the Christian life is not about willing ourselves to be what we think God wants us to be.  It is about getting out of the way and letting the Word of God have His way with us.  Don’t interfere with God’s will, with His instruction, with His ongoing work of creation in our world, and of us.  

Even in our technologically-advanced world, we can’t make seeds.  But we can see to it that seeds find their way to good soil.  When asked about how the Reformation brought the Gospel to Germany against all odds, Dr. Luther shrugged and said that he didn’t do anything.  He and professor Philip Melanchthon sat around drinking Wittenberg beer while the Word did everything.

The Word does it all, dear friends.  What we do is interfere.  We sin.  Our sinful flesh gets in the way of God’s Word.  We are lazy and our priorities are messed up.  We would rather sleep than go to where the sower casts the Word of God, allowing Satan to rob our hearts of God’s Word.  We are often shallow, and don’t allow the Word to sink in by study and prayer and by drinking deeply of the riches of Word and Sacrament.  We often allow the “cares and riches and pleasures of life” to choke out the Word in our lives.  We need to repent of all of these interferences that prevent our lives from bearing fruit, from being what God has created us to be.

For ultimately, dear friends, the Word is not a series of instructions.  The Word is the one who gives the instructions.  Jesus is the Word.  He is the Logos.  He is the Seed.  And in fact, in Genesis, Chapter 3, after our fall into sin, God promised the coming of a champion, the “Seed of the Woman,” who would crush our enemy’s head.  Jesus is the Seed.  And He Himself explains that seeds only carry out the will of God by dying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  Jesus points out that the seed goes into the ground.  It is dead, but the Word brings about a renewal of life.  And the plant lives again to bear fruit. 

Jesus died and was buried.  But He is the Logos, the very Word of God in the flesh.  His Word re-emerged from the soil of the earth.  His Word is spread by sowers who preach and baptize and administer the Holy Supper.  He re-emerges on the third day, rises again to life, and He is with us as the Word Made Flesh, embedded in our lives by the Word of God proclaimed, and the Word eaten and drunk in the sacrament: forgiveness, life, and salvation as a free gift!

Yes, dear friends, seeds may not look like much.  But they bear God’s almighty power.  The Word of God may not look like much, but it bears the might of the creative work of God.  As Isaiah prophesied: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall My Word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it,” and, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

Indeed, let us remember that the little seed of the Word is all we need, as St. Paul quotes the Lord: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”

May the Seed of the Word Made Flesh find good soil in your hearts according to His Word.  May it bear fruit a hundredfold, even unto eternity!  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.