(No audio this week)
Sermon for Sexagesima
Isaiah 55:10-13 + 2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9 + Luke 8:4-15
The Word of God is preached to you today. It has been sown into your hearts through your ears from the beginning of this Divine Service until now, just as seed is sown into the ground. And the Lord God says about that Word, For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
God sends you His Word here and now, like a sower sowing his seed. And the Word of God is always good, potent seed as it falls through the ears into the heart. The soil where it falls, however, is another story. Take heed how you hear the Word.
Jesus tells this memorable parable of the Sower and the Seed, where, with each handful of seed that the sower scatters, it falls on four different kinds of soil. Some falls along the wayside—along the path, and is trampled by men and eaten by birds. Some falls down into the rocky soil where it sprouts up right away, but then withers quickly because it has no root. Some falls among the thorns where it springs up but is choked by the thorns and fails to mature. And finally, some falls on good soil where it grows well, where it survives the heat of the day and the cold of night, where it sends down roots, and sends up a stalk that yields a crop a hundredfold.
When Jesus finished telling this parable, it says that He cried out to the crowds, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” But then—I always find this strange—He didn’t go on to explain the parable to the crowds, what it meant, what the seed was, what the four different soils represented. And we—wickedly—find ourselves disagreeing with Jesus’ decision, don’t we? We wish He had done a better job at teaching!
That’s because, at the core of our sinful flesh, we don’t trust His Word. We think it needs to be helped along, embellished, or explained better. Actually, we would like to take His Word and turn it into our word. Then it would really take off! Then (we’re just sure) people would receive it better than they do.
No. We are the clay; Christ is the potter. We are the soil; He is the master Sower and His Word is good seed. We have no life in us; His Word is life itself. Don’t second-guess the Word of God or make yourself its judge and jury. Instead, take heed how you hear it! In the Gospel, Jesus explained to His disciples the mysteries of the kingdom, and, if you’re listening, if you’re interested, then it is given to you to know them as well.
The seed is the word of God. So right away, understand that Jesus is talking about His Word and people to whom it is preached. He isn’t talking about Muslims or atheists or non-church-goers. He’s talking about disciples of His Word. And that has to make you perk up your ears a bit. It’s too easy to imagine that Jesus is here talking about “other people,” or “those people out there.” He’s talking about the people in here and in every place where His Word is proclaimed. He’s talking about “church people.” The people “out there” who don’t hear the Word—they are already lost as long as they don’t hear the Word of Christ. They are already separated from Christ, who gives His Spirit only in His Word and nourishes faith with His Sacraments. Those who don’t hear the Word do not have it sown in their hearts in the first place and can never hope to produce fruit. No, Jesus is referring to those who hear—like you.
Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
These are the ones who hear the Word of Christ, and it’s as they say, it goes in one ear and out the other. They don’t understand it. They don’t get it. And they don’t care. They certainly don’t care enough to study God’s Word or to search it or to ask questions about it. They hear what they hear, and that’s good enough. They put in their time on Sunday morning because it’s the thing to do, and then they move on to something else.
Luther includes in this group all the false teachers and their followers in the world, whom Satan has deceived. This is a dangerous group, because they look like the best of Christians on the outside, and they say the right things a lot of the time, but on the inside there is no faith in Christ. It’s not the Word of God that they really care about. It’s other things, external things, the trappings of Christianity or the perks of it. These are the ones who hear the Word of God throughout the Divine Service, but instead of taking it to heart, they criticize everything and everyone around them. And so the devil snatches the Word itself out of their ears, and out of their hearts.
But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.
Here are the people, the disciples of the Word, who know the truth of God’s Word. Here are those who listen and care and come to church eager to learn, eager to grow and produce fruit, rejoicing in God’s Word, until…it gets too hard to follow Christ. Until the time of temptation comes, especially the heat of persecution. Then the plants wither and dry up, one by one.
Included among these are Christians who know the truth, but when push comes to shove, they remain silent when they know they should speak. They know the truth but are not deeply rooted in it enough to withstand the attacks of the devil and the attacks of the world. They prefer to remain on the fence, if choosing a side would mean having to suffer. And if they are forced to choose a side, if it gets too hard to stand up for the truth, they fade into the background and disappear, preferring to follow after error rather than suffer the heat that comes with faithfulness to God’s Word.
Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.
The rocks of persecution are lethal to some. The thorns of earthly cares, riches and pleasures are lethal to others. They hear God’s Word, and may even enjoy hearing it, until…other more important things come up. There’s work to do, money to earn, families to spend time with. There are friends to hang out with, parties to go to, drinking to be done. Oh, Sunday morning! So hard to get up… And the thorns choke the faith that had sprung up from the Word.
And these disciples of the Word become useless Christians. They’re no good to anybody. They don’t grow; they don’t produce fruit. They know as much of God’s Word at the end of the year as they did at the beginning. And who has time to worry about their neighbor—helping him, serving him, praying for her—when there are so many other cares, riches and pleasures to pursue?
But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.
The Word of God is never wasted. Even if 3/4ths of the hearers hear without hearing, there are always those who hear and humble themselves before God’s Word and submit themselves to what it says. There are always those who hear the Word of Christ, that He is the Savior sent from heaven to save sinners by His death and by His resurrection from the dead, and they believe. And the Word of Christ sustains them in life and prepares them for death and convinces them that death is no longer anything for a Christian to fear, because Christ has defeated death for us and brought us into His victory through Holy Baptism. These disciples of the Word have their faith nourished by the body and blood of Christ. They live on it. They live for it. And they bear fruit in works of love toward their neighbor, a crop a hundred times more than what was sown.
And, Jesus says, they bear that fruit with patience. That means it isn’t always easy or pleasant. There is persecution that threatens. There are cares, riches and pleasures that tempt. But these hearers of the Word patiently bear up under the cross. When life heats up, they turn back to the Word for strength and they turn to the Lord in prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Now, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, this Gospel isn’t intended for us to sit in judgment of the people “out there” as we sit here and assume that we in this church are perpetually good soil. Jesus calls us who hear His Word today to hear—to hear for ourselves, to hear about ourselves. Take heed how you hear the Word, not just today when confronted with this parable of the sower, but daily, weekly, yearly, every time it is sown through your ears into your heart.
Jesus didn’t tell this parable just to inform His hearers of how things go, just so you know. On the one hand, He is comforting His disciples so that when you see the vast majority of hearers being deceived by Satan or withered from persecution or choked by carnal pleasures, you don’t lose heart. When you see a group of hearers of the Word, “church people” divided into two or three or four different categories, you shouldn’t be surprised or wonder what’s going wrong. This is the way it is with the Word.
On the other hand, it shouldn’t surprise us, either, when, sometimes, people hear the Word and it does take root and it turns a person around and makes him or her willing to die, willing to lose everything rather than compromise even a hair’s breadth on the Word of God.
God says to you in His Word, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” As the Word of God is planted through your ears and into your hearts today, this very Word points out the dangers along the path, the dangers among the rocks, the dangers among the thorns. The point isn’t for you to despair, as if you were at the mercy of the devil, of the world or of your sinful flesh. You are not abandoned to fate. The point is for you to return again today to the mercy of God, who promises to work powerfully through His Word to increase your faith and to make you a fruitful servant in His kingdom.
Trust God. Trust His Word and cling to it for dear life. And take heed how you hear it, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Amen.
