The Church Season of Epiphany,
Sexagesima,
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (February 11, 2012)
Sexagesima,
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (February 11, 2012)
Readings:
Psalm 85
Is. 55:10-13
2 Cor. 11:19 – 12:9
Luke 8:4-15
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 8th chapter of St. Luke, especially the following verses.
Luke 8:4-15 (ESV)
4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, [Jesus] said in a parable: 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ 11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the Word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. 14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the Word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
This parable seems like a game of numbers or statistics. The cup is half full of us here today want to be the good soil. But if that is our desire, we have a 25% chance or one in four chance, the odds are against us. But, maybe it’s like a competition and if we can move ourselves ahead of 75 others by effort we can be amongst the good seed. And if you’re a cup is half empty type of person then you could say that the God of Christians is a pretty poor God, because for every 100 seeds He sows, only 25 bear fruit. Where does that leave us? So what kind of soil are you? Are you lucky, are you a hard worker, or are you a cynic?
Unfortunately, this parable is often framed only in the choices I just gave. And the mistake of those choices is, that in each and every one of them, lucky, hard worker, or cynic, gives you the power to not only to be the soil, but to determine which type of soil you want to be.
So let us start with the Word who is Jesus Christ, and His Word for you, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”(v. 8)
In order to save us through faith in Christ, God has given us His Holy Word. We should read and hear it and inwardly digest it. But especially Jesus blesses the hearing in the hearts of His people. That is why the Lord gave to His Church the mandate to preach the gospel to every creature, when He said; “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”(Mk 16:15-16) And St. Paul tells us, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.”(Rom 10:17) Notice that neither of these two scriptures talk about your feelings or your efforts, but what God does for you. But not everyone who hears the Word will be saved. They do not properly hear the Word of the Lord. Today's Gospel shows us how the Word finds a variety of receptions from the hearers, and at the same time is a serious invitation to all who hear it not frivolously, but properly.
So what does it mean to hear the Word properly? It means to hear it with devotion, with the desire for salvation, from an altruistic perspective, without prejudice or out of mere habit. We hear the Word properly when we know that it is Christ who wins our salvation, not our actions. We hear the Word properly when we do not read into to the Holy Scriptures, our preconceived agendas. We hear the Word of God properly when we do not allow our worldly perspective to cause us to believe some parts of the Bible and not others. We hear the Word properly when we say, Lord, Thy will be done.
But you know that the Word of God is not always heard in the proper way. It was that way for the vast majority of listeners at the time of Christ and is still the case for many even today. The good seed is the Word sown on the path, but it is trampled by our bad wishes, unpredictable whims and bad will. Our society proudly tramples upon the path of God, and the bird brains who pretend to be the spokesmen of the world eat our faith alive and spit us out.
The good seed is Word of God sown on the rock, but there are those who will not listen, who will not receive the moisture, the water, the flood of salvation in baptism, and they wither until there is no life of faith left in them.
The good seed is the Word of God sown amongst the thorns. But the the cares and riches and pleasures of this life choke the Word out. The Word is choked out of our lives when we fail to hear the Word of God preached. The Word of God is choked out when we choke out the pieces of scriptures we don’t like and call them fairy tales, impossibilities, or just a person speaking to a generation which doesn’t relate to our world. The Word is choked when we fail to remember that Christ said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, it is these who bear witness of me.”(John 5:39) All the scriptures speak of Christ, yet the thorns of this world say, “I don’t know or care what the Bible says, I believe.”
And so what of the the Good seed of the Word of God which is sown amongst these people hearing but never understanding, and seeing and never perceiving? Usually they are angry, because they believed but didn’t immediately fall into eternal bliss, or the cares, riches, or lack of riches, pain, illness or pleasures of this life conquered their hearts.
And because we don’t accept that God’s Word is right and we are could be wrong we must seek someone else to blame. And the blame on all our lost dreams of a perfect world form out of our futile hearing of the Word, but it still must be someone else's fault it must be God's fault. But it isn’t God, who wills that all be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth, and isn’t it God who offers His grace to all hearers of the Word? And the blame doesn’t fall on the Word either, remember the Word is the good seed and Word never returns to Him void.
Hear again the the invitation of our Lord: "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!" We are not above the Word of God He is above us, yet it is He who through His Word brings us to Himself. So how should we hear the Word of God?
Hearing the Word of God properly means it is heard in simplicity and humility, with desire of salvation, to stir and preserve it in the heart, to apply Law and Gospel to ourselves, to neither allow ourselves to turn away from it when we are in tribulation nor to let the pleasures of this life distract us from it and to abide by the Word at all times.
Whoever properly hears the Word of God, the Seed of the Word, will rise up in their hearts, put down deeper and deeper roots, so that they are put in a better state to overcome all sorts of trouble in the world, to overcome worry, to not be distracted by the riches or pleasures of this life; they will continue to grow in faith, in knowledge, and bear fruit in patience. Doesn’t sound much like the world we live in does it? That perfect world without worry, where boats, houses, and cabins, planes, cars, and things are made secondary to our desire to study and hear God’s Word preached, or in Bible study and then our desire to help others.
Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,”(v. 8) and He also said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28) And what of them? They gain eternal life and the Word is to them is, “the fragrance of life to life.”(2 Cor. 2:16)
Numbers and statistics do not matter in this parable nor do our efforts matter with regard to our salvation. God is a poor farmer in the eyes of us, but in fact He is a generous sower of the seed which is the Word of God. For the Word offers salvation and the forgiveness of sins to everyone in the world. And that salvation and forgiveness is conveyed to you in your baptism, it is conveyed to you in the Holy Supper of our Lord in the bread and wine, the body and blood of our Lord, for you.
Our Lord blesses us and this is not because of our merit, our work, or our preparation, but it is God's free gift and present to you. God in Christ Jesus makes your heart into good soil, the Word works and keeps faith, and it even provides so that we desire to bear good fruit. God does all these things through His Word.
Salvation is not a dumb luck, a statistical game of chance, or a work harder to do better competition. The Word of God, Jesus Christ was placed on a cross and planted into the earth. Jesus Christ is the Word, and the seed is the Word of God, and the fruit of that risen seed wins for you the promise of the fruit of eternal life. Amen.
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