Sexagesima Luke 8:4-15 (2022)

The Seed Is The Word

Luke 8:4-15

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

            St. Luke 8:9-11 ⁹ Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?” ¹⁰ And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, 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.

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord…  In order to understand the parables of our Lord rightly and properly, you need to know why Jesus told them.  Our Lord’s parables were almost always addressing some particular circumstance or event.  For instance, Jesus didn’t tell the parable of the Good Samaritan just to give a nice moral teaching; He told it in order to humble a self-righteous lawyer.  And He told the parable of the Prodigal Son in response to the self-righteous Pharisees who were grumbling about Him that He was eating with tax collectors and sinners.

The same thing is true about today’s Gospel parable.  Jesus told it, in part, in order to warn against pride and self-righteousness in His own disciples.  Luke writes that a great multitude had gathered around Jesus, and that people had come to Him from every city.  A lot of people had heard about Jesus; and because of what they had heard, they wanted to see Him.  Therefore, Jesus told this parable in order to make something clear, especially to the twelve.  They might have been getting a little puffed up, a little full of themselves thinking that this was going to be just one big victory procession, because everything seemed to be going so well. 

But Jesus told this parable in order to give a dose of reality.  He said that there are four possible outcomes to the hearing of the Word; and out of those four possible outcomes, only one of them is good.  For three out of four hearers, the Word of God comes to no effect.  The apostles were to understand that they are going to experience more failure than success, they are going to experience more rejection than acceptance in the long run.  Jesus wanted them not to be fooled by the large crowds coming out to see Him.  Big numbers don’t mean anything, in and of themselves.  Not everyone in those large crowds were believers. 

In fact, it is important to recall that there actually came a point in Jesus’ own ministry when the crowds stopped following Him.  There came a point where all Jesus had left were the 12 disciples, and even one of them – Judas Iscariot – would turn away from Him and betray Him. 

After the feeding of the 5000, Jesus had been teaching how the bread that He would give for the life of the world was His flesh, and how His flesh was real food and His blood was real drink (John 6:55).  That was too hard for the people to accept; Jesus went from 5000+ down to only 12 followers.  Finally, Jesus asked the 12, “Do you also want to go away?” (Jn 6:67)  Peter replied in those familiar words, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68) 

And that is exactly where we can find some comfort, especially in this little flock called Divine Savior.  When everything is going great in terms of numbers, we can be tempted to self-absorbed pride.  And when and if things are going poorly in terms of numbers, we can be tempted to self-absorbed despair.  But what we must finally cling to in both cases is not outward signs of success, but the sure promise that the Word of Christ is living and powerful to fulfill its purpose. 

Sometimes, dear friends, the purpose of the Word is to reveal the unbelieving heart.  That is why we have those unsettling words in today’s Gospel when it says that Jesus spoke in parables so that, “seeing, they may not see, and hearing, they may not understand.”  Blindness and deafness to the Word brings God’s judgment.  But above all, the Word of God is sent to give life and joy to us descendants of Adam created from the dirt.  Remember what God said through the prophet Isaiah in today’s Old Testament reading: “(My word that goes forth from My mouth) 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’s Word always does what it says.

The going forth of God’s Word is like the scattering of seed on all different kinds of soil.  God scatters the seed of His Word recklessly, freely, even on places where there seems little hope of a harvest, for in His love He desires all to be saved.  The Lord’s Word is alive with His Spirit to give life even to the worst of soils.

First, like the hardened, foot-worn path, some people become hardened to the Word of God.  Perhaps they’ve been “walked all over” in their lives; perhaps they have been mistreated and abused.  Or they have been pressed down and wearied by the struggles and difficulties of life.  They say, “Where has God been for me?  Why should I even listen to His Word?” 

Or it could very well be that Satan has pressed and hardened some people with his lies about the Word being untrustworthy, or that the Bible is foolish superstition, or that this whole “church thing” all just a power play in order to manipulate people.  And so, the Word goes in one ear and out the other, like seed bouncing off a dirt road.  The birds of the air snatch it away – which is a reminder of that passage which describes the devil as the prince of the power of the air.  Think of all the stuff that flies across our airwaves which seeks to counter the truth of God’s Word.  For the first group, then, the Word doesn’t penetrate the heart and bear fruit and do what it has the power to do.

Be on guard, therefore, against inattentive and nonchalant listening to the Word of God.  This is how Martin Luther teaches this point in under the Third Commandment in the Large Catechism: “This commandment is violated not only by those who grossly misuse and desecrate the Holy Day, like those who, in their greed or frivolity neglect to hear God’s Word or lie around in taverns dead drunk like swine, but also by that multitude of others who listen to God’s Word as they would to any other entertainment, who only from force of habit go to hear preaching and depart again with as little knowledge of the Word at the end of the year as at the beginning.” 

On the other hand, wrote Luther, “when we seriously ponder the Word, hear it, and put it to use, such is its power that it never departs without fruit. It always awakens new understandings, pleasure, and devotion, and it constantly creates clean hearts and minds.  For the Word is not idle or dead, but effective and living.”

 In our Lord’s second example, in the planting of the Seed on the rocky soil, there is the listening that hears and rejoices, that believes and thanks God, and yet it is only a shallow, good-times faith.  When the bad-times come along – and they always do sooner or later – the person lets go of the Word and his faith withers and dies.  

One of the purposes of hearing the Word regularly is to store up in your heart and mind those passages that will see you through the hard times with your faith intact. God’s Word has the power to do exactly that, if we don’t let it go. So often this happens when tragedy comes; people stop going to church, they stop listening to the Word, and then they are surprised when their faith grows weaker and weaker and finally dies.  Remember: faith is never something you can keep alive inside yourself. It only comes from hearing and holding the Word of God.

Next, our Lord reminds us that even folks who listen to the Word can still lose it if they let that Word get crowded out of their lives by the thorns.  Jesus says these are the cares, riches, and pleasures of life… And that is a bit odd because usually when you think of thorns, you think of something painful, something that hurts.  And yet the thorns Jesus mentions include riches and pleasures, things which seem to be the opposite of pain. 

But experience teaches that Jesus’ words are true; the very things that often promise us the most pleasure end up bringing us the most pain.  The things of this world can give only a temporary happiness, but they leave us with a lasting sadness and emptiness if they are what we set out hearts on – that is, if they are our gods.  These thorns can lull us into apathy and cause a choking of the Word of God, thus squeezing it into an ever smaller place in our lives until, in the end, we don’t really hear it at all.

And then our Lord reminds us that it is possible to hear His Word in such a way that it does indeed bear abundant fruit.  Jesus describes those hearts that hear and hold fast to the Word as “noble and good.”  How did those hearts get to be noble and good?  Certainly not of themselves.  All of us are by nature the first three soils.  Only the Word and Holy Spirit of God have the power to till up and clear the soil and renew our hearts.  If, as the Apostle says, faith in Jesus is what purifies the heart, and “faith comes by hearing” the Word of God, then our hearts will be “noble and good” in no other way than by that very same Word making its home inside of us, and creating in us a clean heart – the heart of Christ.  

Here it the best way to think of it:  Jesus is Himself the fourth perfect soil.  He is the eternal Word of God, the Seed, having taken root in the earth of our humanity – fully human but entirely without the rocks and thorns and hardness of sin.  This Word became flesh and bore all that has infested your soil.  Jesus was planted in this world by His heavenly Father to save and redeem you. 

Behold how this Seed is cast to the earth, how Jesus the Word is thrown onto the wayside – the way of sorrows – where He is dragged to His cross, mocked in His suffering like the caws of scavenging ravens.  But notice that the birds of the air do not devour Jesus’ body, as was often the case with other crucified criminals who would be left for the animals to consume.  This Seed is hurled upon the rocky ground of Golgotha, where He lacked moisture and cried out, “I thirst!” 

But in spite of His suffering and thirst, this Seed would not wither away permanently.  And Jesus was even crowned with thorns, the very symbol of Adam’s curse; yet this Seed would not be choked out of existence, but would rise again.  A seed has to die, if it is to rise out of the earth and bear much fruit.  The fruit of Jesus’ suffering and death and resurrection is your salvation.

It is in this way – in Jesus’ passion, suffering, death, burial, and resurrection – in this way our Lord has overcome all that stands against you.  Jesus has overcome all that keeps you from having life.  Jesus has overcome all that keeps you from growing to maturity.  In Christ, dear friends, you are free from hard-heartedness and the rocks of shallow faith and the thorns of this world.  In and by Christ alone you are the holy fourth soil, pure and righteous and fruitful and forgiven.  In you, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Word of God is implanted.  You have been watered with the Word in your baptism.  And the Word is sown in the soil of your body, placed on your very tongues, in the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood.  The power of God to give life is in the Seed.  And the Seed of the Word is in you and with you and for you, the Word of the Father who wants you with all His heart to share forever in His life.

Therefore, we are eager and excited to confess this saving and life-giving Word with our mouths before the world.  Let the scattering of the holy Seed continue outside of these walls, out in the daily callings of your life into which God has placed you. 

May God’s Word accomplish its purpose with your unchurched or de-churched friends and family.  Invite them to the Divine Service; invite them to study the Word with you or even to join in Adult Catechesis toward becoming a member of Divine Savior and joining us at our Lord’s Table.

And let God’s Word strengthen and feed you for those joyous tasks.  Receive the Gospel preached and the Sacraments administered as often as they are offered.  And when you do, you can be certain that your Lord fills you with Himself, delivers His forgiveness to you, and keeps you in the one true faith unto everlasting life.

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