The Mysterious Seed
St. Luke 8:4-15
February 4, 2024 anno Domini
True or False? Parables are earthly stories with heavenly meanings. Jesus would say “false.” At least that is what He says in today’s Gospel reading. If anyone should have understood the parables it was the disciples. They were months if not a year through seminary with Jesus on their way to being ordained as Apostles, but they don’t get the parable. They had to ask what Jesus what it meant.
At first Jesus doesn’t tell them. He tells them the parables contain secrets, mysteries. 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. No offense to Jesus but you wonder if he could graduate from seminary with sermons few could understand and whose point few could see.
On the surface it is a simple story. A sower sowed his seed. That’s how farmers farmed back in Jesus’ day. It’s how we patch our lawns. There’s some dirt. We grab some lawn seed. Throw it down. Some lands in the dirt. Some lands in the landscaping. Some lands on the driveway. Some the birds eat. It happens to this day.
But now comes the meaning. The seed is the Word of God. That again sounds simple enough, but here is the secret, the mystery. If you think you’ve got life all figured out. If you’ve sat down with your friends or listened to your favorite news source and you’re convinced if people would just listen to you their problems would be over, you’re not going to get what Jesus says. In fact, the parables will tick you off, anger you, and you’ll likely say, “that’s ridiculous.”
Because what Jesus is saying is there is no life apart from the Word of God and that Word is Jesus. The only way for you to live, to have a good life, to produce anything worthy of the final harvest, is to have this seed planted in your ears and heart. Jesus is the Son of God in human flesh, and He has come to give you life, and the only way you will really live is in Him.
Now that’s simple, straightforward. I don’t think I’ve said anything mysterious, but here’s the rub. You don’t think that way. You’ve all got aspirations and plans for how you’re going to live. I’m going to work this hard and save this much, and then I’ll do this, and I’ll buy that and then I’ll be happy. Then I’ll really be living.
This year I will be preaching a lot on politics, because its on your mind, it’s on my mind, and the Church should be concerned about all who governs us. Scripture says the Government has been given authority by God. When God gives you authority, He gives it so you can serve Him and others. You are answerable to Him for how you use it. The major political parties in the United States have life all figured out. Listen to them. They know your problem and they are the solution. We love to hear them point out the enemy to life as we desire it, and that enemy is just across the aisle. The enemy is red or blue, depending on what you think the problems are. And our politicians are scheming, planning, plotting, using the power of the courts and the loopholes in the law to succeed. And we put a lot of hope in them for life in America.
This is precisely where Jesus’ parable upsets your lives, plans, and hopes. No man including you or your favorite presidential candidate, no man, even if he (or you) had the force to get everything you ever wanted, can give you life. Only Jesus can do that, and He’ll never do it by scheming, plotting or breaking the law. The Kingdom of heaven, life itself doesn’t come by force. The Sower scatters His seed, and that seed is God’s Word that the Son of God became a man. He didn’t bring about life by force or coercion. He brought about life by dying, by being planted in a tomb. He hangs on the cross and lays dead in the ground for you.
All your plans, all your hopes, all Republican and Democrat strategies will end at the moment of death. All die because all have sinned. You will die because you have sinned. But there is one man, a fellow named Jesus from Nazareth, who said He was God, who said He had come to take away the sin of the World, who claimed to be the Life of the world. He said the only way any sinner, and that means you, could have life was by believing in Him. The Jews and the Romans killed Him because they had it all figured out. They didn’t want life His way and they were threatened by His rule. He died on a Friday outside of Jerusalem and if that was the end of the story, He’d be about as famous as Joe Biden or Donald Trump in 2000 years. But after He died and was buried, planted if you will, in a garden tomb, He came back to life. He rose from the dead. He burst out of the ground alive. If you think that’s fake news why does the world still celebrate Christmas and Easter, or Saint Valentine’s day, or Saint Patrick’s day (they were both preachers of Christ who risked their lives for proclaiming His life). If you’re looking for life, and you should be, you might want to question the guy who rose from the dead about His secret, and He will tell you, in the parables.
Where did the seed of the parable take hold? In the soil, and soil is mostly dead stuff, rotten stuff. Just go sniff your compost pile. That’s what Saint Paul thinks about himself in today’s Epistle. He’s a stinking, rotten sinner. Who is weak, and I am not weak? … If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. Here’s where the seed takes root, when all your plans for life suddenly get broken, when by your own sin or the sins of others you’ve been crushed, when you’ve put your hope in the gods of this age, and they have served themselves and left you for dead. If anything has ever gone wrong in your life, you need Jesus. He’s the only life there is.
It’s simple, but it is mysterious. The death of one man on one cross who rose again wins life for dying sinners. That life comes to you when you die to yourself and believe in Him. Jesus will never force you to believe in Him. If He did that all the stores would be closed today and every church in town would be full upstairs and down. Jesus just scatters His Word, in the waters of baptism, in the sermons of your pastor, in the bread and wine of His Supper. His Word is this, I have taken away your sins. You will not die, but live. I will raise your body on the last day. Hold My Word fast in an honest and good heart, bear the fruit of faith with patience, and I will show you a harvest of life and goodness beyond measure.
Seeds are mysterious things. They appear tiny, powerless, even dead. But put them in the soil and God works the mystery of life. That’s the Word of God. Peter preached on Pentecost day and 3000 souls were baptized and came to life. Do you believe that? A sermon saved people. Do I believe that? That God’s Word preached in the ears of rebellious sinners, dead men walking, can bring them to life. I better show up with my A game. And your ears better be open and ready for planting. Pastor, are you saying I have to go to church? Nope, if you believe in magic you don’t need to go to church. If you believe that God is going to wave His magic wand and everyone goes to a better place, there is no need for you come to church. However, if you believe the mystery, that One man’s death on a cross took away the sin of the world, because that one man was God, and He didn’t stay dead, well then, you’d better be where the mysterious seed of His Word is planted in your ears. Any farmer will tell you magic doesn’t work. No harvest ever happens without the sowing of seed.
Farmers know the mystery of seed. It looks dead, but it isn’t. Put in the soil, warmed by the sun, watered by the rain, it brings life out of that dead soil and produces manyfold. A good harvest in Israel was sixfold. In Jesus’ parable He says the seed of the Sower produced 30-fold, 60- fold, and a hundred-fold. Those who heard the parable must have asked, “Give us that seed?” And to that Jesus would have answered, “I have because I am.” In the name of Jesus. Amen.