Sermon: Sexagesima, 2023

12 February 2023

Text: Luke 8:4-15

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

In our fallen world, we understand how things work.  The biggest and most violent person typically gets his way.  Might makes right.  Truth is judged based on convenient narratives.  To advance in this world, you must take other people down.  Lying and ruthlessness are rewarded.  What you see is what you get.

But in God’s kingdom, you can’t always trust your eyes.  Looks are deceiving. 

And so when Jesus comes proclaiming the kingdom, He has to teach us what that means and how it works.  For even the religious leaders operated based on the Law and their ability to lord over others.  They also had no sense of morality, as we will see them lie and deceive and plot to kill Jesus, even as they knew that He was innocent.

Jesus comes to show us a more excellent way – the way, the truth, and the life, the path that leads us back to the Garden of Eden, providing us a trail that takes us to a restored paradise, though it leads first to the cross.  Our Lord turns the world upside down and replaces it with the “kingdom of God” over which He reigns as our Lord and Master.  The kingdom does not work like the world.  There is more than meets the eye.

But there are little glimpses of the kingdom in the world.  For example, in creation itself.  We know that God created trees and “plants bearing seed,” and that seed, in turn, reproduced and spread life around the world.  We know that everything that a tiny seed needs to do is programmed into its DNA by God.  Given the right conditions, a tiny seed, seemingly weak and insignificant in the eyes of the world, germinates, puts down roots, puts forth branches, bears fruit, and then produces more seed – and the process of life multiplies.

Jesus teaches us that this creative imprint of God, from the beginning, is how the kingdom works as well. 

So Jesus tells us a story about a farmer who sows seeds.  But in this story, not every seed grows to be a tree.  For this isn’t taking place in the perfect Garden of Eden, but rather in our fallen world – a world of incompleteness and death.  So most of the seed meets a premature end, and never comes to fruition.

In our Lord’s story, the first batch of seeds “fell along the path” and “was trampled underfoot,” only to be eaten by the birds. The second batch “fell on the rock,” in rocky soil, where it sprouted, grew quickly, but without moisture, it too died fruitless.  The third batch “fell among thorns” and the little plant grew up, but was choked out.  The fourth batch “fell into good soil,” and it does exactly what God created it to do, according to the embedded instructions, the logic, the words coded into the DNA.  It sprouts, puts down roots, sends up a stem, shoots off branches, grows, and eventually bears fruit, even “a hundredfold.”

After telling this story, our Lord “called out, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’”

Do you have ears to hear, dear friends?  Do you understand this parable as it relates to God’s kingdom?  Well, even if you don’t understand the story, Jesus explains what it means.  We call this story the Parable of the Sower, but most of the story isn’t about the sower, but rather about the various kinds of soil.

Jesus explains: “The seed is the Word of God.”  And so the sower is the preacher.  The seeds of the preacher’s words go into the ears and hearts of his hearers, like seeds falling on four different types of soil.

And so the first person hears the Word of God preached, but his heart is hard, the seed remains on the path, and the devil snatches it up before it can even begin to take root.  Such a person may hate God, may be so enamored by sin that he wants nothing to do with the Word of God.  Maybe he just doesn’t care.  But at any rate, he doesn’t believe.  And he resists the seed of the Word so that faith will never germinate in his heart.

Another person hears the Word of God preached, and he receives it “with joy.”  But the shallowness of his life means that the Word can’t take root in him.  He will believe “for a while,” but “in time of testing” will “fall away.” 

A third person hears the preaching of the Word of God, but is busy: busy with cares, busy with riches, busy with pleasure.  He hears the Word, and even believes it.  But his belief gives way to other priorities.  He may even bear some fruit of the Christian life, but his fruit “does not mature.” 

And I have seen and ministered to each of these three people over the years.  I’ve seen Satan rob people of their faith.  I’ve seen people come to faith with eagerness, but burn out quickly, not able to handle their faith being tested.  I’ve seen people who just have too many other things going on, and the church and worship and the Word decrease in importance, little by little, bit by bit – until their faith dies, like the very end of a flame in a fireplace.  “Cares and riches and pleasures.”

But Jesus tells us about a fourth person sitting in the pew.  He hears the Word.  It penetrates into his heart.  The Word, like the DNA in the seed, guides the believer in his life of faith.  He continues to hear the Word, takes in water and nourishment, grows up and grows stronger.  He holds his faith fast, “in an honest and good heart,” and in time, he bears fruit, even a hundredfold.

And yes, dear friends, I have seen this fourth person many times as well.  The beauty of it is that God does it all.  We will grow and bear fruit if we simply get out of the way.  Don’t give Satan a toehold.  Don’t be shallow and don’t fall away in a time of testing.  Don’t allow your faith to be just one more box to check in the course of life.  If you hear the Word of God preached, holding the Word fast, if you allow the Word to have its way with you, if you receive it honestly – both the Law that convicts you of sin, and the Gospel that forgives you and builds you up – you will bear fruit in the kingdom. 

It is all about the Word.  So come to the Divine Service, every week.  Commit to it as if your life depended on it – because it does.  Your eternal life depends on you hearing the preached Word, and believing it.  Jesus is not lying to us.  Do you have ears to hear?  And the more you read and study God’s Word at home, in Bible class, listening when you’re driving – the more the Word will take root in you.

You might be skeptical, like you perhaps were the first time someone handed you a seed as a child and told you to put it in dirt.  It just doesn’t look like this is going to work.  A little seed, some dirt, water, and sunshine?  But yes, dear friends, it works.  The tiny seeds, programmed by God thousands of years ago, are enough to feed every person and animal that has ever lived.  This is how it is designed to work.

And Jesus tells us the kingdom of heaven works like seeds.  Jesus even teaches us how to avoid the pitfalls and how to bear fruit.  And the good news is that the power does not lie within the farmer, nor within the soil.  The power is in the little seed, in instructions so tiny that they cannot be seen by the eye.  Maybe this is why our Lord doesn’t call out, “He who has eyes to see, let him see,” but rather, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  For as St. Paul teaches us in Romans, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” 

So dear friends, let us receive the seed of God’s Word with joy, knowing that He is embedding into us, in the words of St. Peter, “The words of eternal life.”

Indeed, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Amen.

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