"Seed, Scripture, and Sacraments"
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost—Second Sunday in Apostles' Tide
St. Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23
July 13 and 16, 2006
(St. John Lutheran Church, North Tonawanda, New York)
IN NOMINE JESU
It is a tremendous blessing that we are a liturgical church, making
use of liturgical space and liturgical time. We are gathered in this
space around the Word of God, delivered from lectern and pulpit,
planted in our hearts, that it would take root in us and grow. We are
gathered at a unique time. We also get to make use of liturgical
time. Today is the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost; we are in the
"green" season; that is to say, the liturgical color for this week is
green. Green is used to symbolize the growth of the Church following
the Holy Spirit's coming at Pentecost, growth that continues today in
the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eight. This "green" season is made
up of five tides—mini-seasons within this longest season of the church
year. We are in the second tide of this post-Pentecost season, having
passed from Trinity Tide to Apostles' Tide, during which time the
Church celebrates specifically the ministry of three of the Apostles
and celebrates the so-called apostle to the Apostles: Peter, Paul,
Mary the Magdalene, and James.
Before the Lord sent out His disciples as apostles, He taught them of
the kingdom of God, using parables to do so. One of these parables is
the basis for our text today: the Parable of the Sower. He would
later send them out, as apostles, to sow the seed that is the Word of
the Lord. All who hear the Word of the Lord are the ground upon which
the seed falls. Some parts of the ground are more receptive to the
seed than are other parts. Some of the seed falls on the path, and
the birds came and devoured the seed. That fowl is that old buzzard,
the devil, the foulest of them all, who, along with his minions, seeks
to steal the Word from those who do not understand it, depriving them
the opportunity to hear the Word of the Lord and keep it, and so they
bear no fruit of the Gospel. Some falls on rocky ground, which are
those who initially receive the Word with great joy, but panic in the
face of trial and tribulation, and their faith withers away because it
had no roots; their faith was so shallow that it was not rooted in the
Word. The thorns are the cares of this world that choke a person off
from the Word. Then there is the good soil, those who hear the Word
of the God and keep it; the seed bears fruit in them. They hear the
Word, they understand it, and they love it. They bear fruit, and the
seed that is the Word spreads and abounds. It returns to the Lord,
for it accomplishes His purpose for it, that through the reading and
preaching of the Word He would draw us closer to Himself. This is why
we are here, for the Word to be planted into our hearts, to take root
and grow in us, that we would grown in our faith and be ever closer to
the Lord, for "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"
(Rom. 10:17).
It is the Word of the Lord that comes to us, and it is the work of
the Lord to cause that Word to bear fruit in us, for "this is the work
of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent" (Jn. 6:29). For this
reason the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His
gifts, sanctifies, and keeps us in the one true faith, that you would
"let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were
called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in
you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your
hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in
the Name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through
Him" (Col. 3:15-17). This is living liturgically, living in response
to what our Lord has done for and given us. To this end, the public
reading and preaching of the Word has been central to the people of
God, gathered together for thousands of years. In Exodus we hear the
Holy Spirit inspiring Moses to write:
So Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all
the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said,
"All the words which the LORD has said we will do." And Moses wrote
all the words of the LORD. And he rose early in the morning, and
built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars
according to the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young men of
the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed
peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. And Moses took half the blood
and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar.
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the
people. And they said, "All that the LORD has said we will do, and be
obedient." And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and
said, "This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with
you according to all these words." (Ex. 24:3-8)
The Word of the Lord was indeed read in the public assembly of the
people of God from the beginning. However, there is a major
difference between the responses of the faithful then and now. In
those days they heard the covenant the Lord made with them, and they
responded, saying, "All the words which the LORD has said we will do."
They heard Moses read the words of God's covenant, words of Law, what
they had to do to please God. Today you heard me read the Word to you
a few moments ago, following each reading with the words "This is the
Word of the Lord," and you responded with "Thanks be to God." They
responded by the Law. We respond by the Gospel, for the Lord Jesus
Christ has kept His covenant for us, shedding His own blood and not
that of oxen, for we could not keep the covenant, even as our Old
Testament forebears in the faith could not keep it.
It is easy for us to ridicule, criticize, and condemn the Israelites
for their repeated unfaithfulness to the Lord and His Word—easy, but
not fair. It is not fair for us to ridicule, criticize, and condemn
them because we are no better than they were. They were lost in the
wilderness for 40 years, and, like them, we are lost and condemned
creatures, for sure. Like them, we have not allowed the Word to take
root in our hearts and bear fruit. Two weeks ago we celebrated the
Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, two apostles of our Lord who also were
very much sinful and unclean. Peter, as a disciple, had denied the
soon-to-be-crucified Lord three times. Before his conversion, Paul
persecuted the Church. In fact, we heard in last week's Epistle Paul
calling himself a wretched man on account of his sin. Like the
Israelites, Peter and Paul were not on solid ground all the time, and
neither are we, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but
punishment. Paul writes in this week's Epistle: "Therefore, brethren,
we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For
if you live according to the flesh you will die" (Rom. 8:12-13a).
According to our sinful nature, we are carnal beings; that is to say,
we seek to satisfy the desires of our sinful flesh. We may receive
the Word with joy, but we don't remain joyful because we concern
ourselves not with the higher things but with worldly things,
forgetting these words of our Lord:
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will
eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.
Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at
the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into
barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value
than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the
field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you
that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and
tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O
you of little faith?
"Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall
we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the
Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these
things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about
tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient
for the day is its own trouble." (Mt. 6:25-34)
We sin as we preoccupy ourselves with the troubles of this world and
our own sinful flesh, for we make these things our gods—fearing,
loving, and trusting in these things above God. We allow these things
to choke us off from the Word and do not allow it to take root in our
hearts. The Word does not bear fruit in us. The wages of sin is
death, as Paul also reminds us (Rom. 6:23a). This death is the direct
result of our sin of preventing the Word from taking root in us, and
we shrivel and die in our sins. In the words of the Psalmist in the
Introit appointed for today: "As for man, his days are like grass; as
a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it,
and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more" (Ps. 103:15-16).
What, then, are we to make of the seed that falls upon the path?
This is the seed the birds devour; that is to say, the devil seeks to
steal the Word of God from the faithful by pouncing on it and
devouring it, "because your adversary the devil walks about like a
roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Pet. 5:8). He has sought
to steal the Scriptures from us and continues to work through the
world and our own sinful flesh. He has a demon at work in Minnesota,
a college professor who has publicly sought to desecrate the
consecrated elements of the Eucharist from any congregation, asking
someone to steal them for him, so that he would publicly desecrate
them, desiring to do more than a college student in Florida did
recently in merely holding the elements hostage. They desire to deny
us the food that we need for our spiritual survival. Just as plants
need to be fed to survive, we also need to be fed on the Word of God
and on His Sacraments. We need to watch out for those who make a
mockery of the Means of Grace, whether they are in Florida, Minnesota,
or even here in western New York—and we need to pray for them and all
who seek to deprive us of the pure Gospel, the right preaching of the
Word and the proper administration of the Sacraments, that the Holy
Spirit would convict them in their vile sin. We also need to pray for
ourselves, that we would not lose hope, that our faith that would not
shrivel and die, lest we face eternal condemnation in hell, where
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Kyrie eleison! Christe
eleison! Kyrie eleison!
Our Lord does indeed have mercy upon us. He does not leave us as
orphans, as those who have no hope. Listen to what He says through
the prophet Isaiah: "All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is
like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades,
because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are
grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God
stands forever" (Is. 40:6-8), and again—this time in our Old Testament
Reading for today: "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" (Is. 55: 10-11). The
Lord has sent His Word, sending His undershepherds to plant the seed
of the Word in us so that God would cause it to grow in us and that we
would grow in Him. The Lord causes the growth of His Word. He uses
men He has called to plant the seed, as St. Paul writes: "Who then is
Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as
the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave
the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who
waters, but God who gives the increase" (1 Cor. 3:5-7).
God causes the increase of the Word in our hearts. He causes the
growth in our faith. Through the Word He draws us nearer to Himself.
Even as a plant needs water to grow, we also need water to grow and
bear His fruit. In fact, we need a lot of water—so much so that we
drown according to our sinful nature. This is what Holy Baptism does,
as "it indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition
and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and
that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in
righteousness and purity forever" (Baptism IV). St. Paul writes,
"Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that
just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4). This
daily dying and rising is our living our Baptism; what was begun at
the font continues in our liturgical living each day. In this daily
living our Baptism, we live in the forgiveness of sins. Just as one
speaks kindly to a plant to spur its growth, so also our Lord speaks
to us with the sweet words of His Gospel, of His absolution, declaring
us forgiven for the sake of His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Through His called and ordained servants of the Word—through His
pastors—He declares to us that we are forgiven in the Name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord planted the
seed from the cross when He said, "It is finished," thereby declaring
to the world, to you and to me, that the path to our salvation has
been completed—perfected!—on our behalf. He has washed your sins
away.
We see in Scripture numerous accounts of the Lord sending His
undershepherds to plant the seed of the Word in people's hearts. In
Acts chapter eight, the Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah but could
not understand until the deacon Philip proclaimed to him that Jesus
Christ is the Suffering Servant, of whom the Ethiopian read. The Holy
Spirit moved the Ethiopian to desire to become baptized. At
Pentecost, Peter preached the Word, leading his hearers, convicted by
the Law, to repent and become baptized, receiving the Gospel through
water and the Word. As St. Luke writes, "Then those who gladly
received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand
souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the
apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in
prayers… praising God and having favor with all the people. And the
Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved" (Acts
2:41-42, 47). Even as the Church began anew at Pentecost, she was
already living liturgically, as there was, in those verses from Acts
2, a liturgy already in place: the apostles' doctrine and fellowship,
the breaking of bread, and prayers. The term "breaking of bread" was
Luke's way of speaking in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles
regarding the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The first Christians
broke bread together; they gathered together around the Lord's Table
to be fed on the body and blood of the Lord.
At a home-and-garden store, one can find food specifically made and
sold for plants, as an aid in their growth. And so it is with the
Lord's Supper; it is food for our souls. He gives us His body and
blood, which is His Word attached to the bread and wine. Moses said
to the Israelites, "So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed
you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that
He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man
lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD" (Dt.
8:3). And so it is with us, for our Lord has brought us to
repentance, that He would wash us in Holy Baptism and Holy Absolution,
and He feeds us in Holy Communion, that we would be forgiven and live
in Him, bearing the fruits of faith, the fruits of the Spirit: "love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22b-23a). King David praises God in
the Psalm appointed for today, Psalm 65, as he exclaims:
You visit the earth and water it,
You greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
You provide their grain,
for so You have prepared it.
You water its ridges abundantly,
You settle its furrows;
You make it soft with showers,
You bless its growth.
You crown the year with Your goodness,
and Your paths drip with abundance.
They drop on the pastures of the wilderness,
and the little hills rejoice on every side.
The pastures are clothed with flocks;
the valleys also are covered with grain;
they shout for joy, they also sing. [Ps. 65:9-13]
Through His Means of Grace, our Lord makes you the good soil on which
the seed that is His Word falls. Through His Word and Sacraments He
continues to make you fertile ground for His Word. Through His Holy
Spirit He brings you here each week to be fed on the Bread of Life,
Jesus Christ, the Word-become-flesh who comes to you in His read and
preached Word. Through His Office of the Holy Ministry He gives His
gifts, that we would continue to receive "the Spirit of adoption by
whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit Himself bears witness
with our spirit that we are children of God," as we heard in today's
Epistle Reading (Rom. 8:15b-16). As we come to our heavenly Father in
prayer, as we will do corporately in a few moments, we get to do so
with an even greater closeness than a little child has with his or her
daddy, crying out "Abba, Father!", making our petitions and
intercessions known to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with Him and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and
forever.
"Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food,
supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of
your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all
liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God. For the
administration of this service not only supplies the needs of the
saints, but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God,
while, through the proof of this ministry, they glorify God for the
obedience of your confession to the gospel of Christ, and for your
liberal sharing with them and all men, and by their prayer for you,
who long for you because of the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks
be to God for His indescribable gift!" (2 Cor. 9:10-15)
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
--
The Rev. Pr. Mark A. Schlamann, Niagara Falls, NY
Sermons available at http://lcmssermons.com/Schlamann
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