This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.
Grace, mercy and peace be to
you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed
on the ground.
Prayer: May the words of my
mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In the Book of Judges, we
read about Gideon. Gideon was one of the judges whom God raised up, and he
defeated the Midianites in battle. When Gideon was gathering together an army,
God kept telling him that he had too many soldiers. We read: The Lord said
to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into
their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ Eventually
God kept on reducing the number of the army from 32,000 men down to 300 men. If
32,000 men won a victory, they would congratulate themselves. But if they could
win the victory with only 300 men, then they would give glory to God for
helping despite such bad odds!
In the Book of Judges, we
also read before the battle, how God sends Gideon down into the Midianite camp
to listen to what they are saying, and he overhears a man telling his fellow soldier
a dream. He says: Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley
bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so
that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat. Here we head
about this man having a dream where a bread roll rolls into the camp and knocks
over a tent. The other soldier says: This is no other that the sword of Gideon
the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all
the camp. And so we read that Gideon with his measly 300 men, wins the
victory over the Midianites. From a human point of view, it seems so unlikely
and so impossible, but God is on their side. It is as unlikely as a bread roll knocking
over a tent!
And so, also in our Gospel
reading today, Jesus tells us about seed scattered on the ground, or a mustard
seed being planted. From a human point of view, these seeds look so small, so
insignificant, so useless, but actually, they grow up and become useful plants,
and large bushes and trees. The seed here in the reading is God’s word, and the
Gospel, and the Kingdom of God. It looks so small and insignificant, just like
a bread roll, or Gideon’s army of 300 men. But when the seed grows, it flourishes
and blossoms and flowers and produces fruit. God’s word, the Gospel, and the
Kingdom of God have all the power in heaven and earth to destroy all the
strongholds of the devil and to crush him. When God is the one at work, then a little
bread roll can knock over a whole tent, and Gideon’s army of 300 men can defeat
the Midianites.
So in our reading we read about
two parables: the first is about the seed scattered on the ground, and the second
is about the mustard seed.
Jesus says: The kingdom of
God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night
and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces
by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But
when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle.
This is an amazing parable. Here
the seed is the word of God which is scattered, and grows into the wonderful
kingdom of God. And in the Gospel of Matthew, we read where it says: All
these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to
them without a parable. This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet: “I
will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the
foundation of the world”. Here Matthew quotes this prophecy from Psalm 78: I
will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the
foundation of the world.
In the parable of the
scattered seed, it brings us back to the foundation of the world, back to Genesis
chapter 1, where we read about creation. Here we see God creating the world,
but he doesn’t just sit down and set about doing it, he does it in a particular
way and with particular means. God creates the world through his word. He
speaks and it happens. He says: Let there be light, and there was light. And
so we see how God’s word has this wonderful creative power in it. It does
things, and it brings things about, and brings new things into existence. It’s really
quite an amazing reality for us to think about!
But we also read about the creation
of plants and seeds. It says: Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants
yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each
according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth
vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing
fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it
was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
So we see here how God’s word
produces plants, but then that these plants yield seed. And these seeds fall to
the ground and produce more plants and more seed. God creates nature to be
continually fruitful, and productive.
And so we also read in our
reading today, how God created seeds and plants to reflect the way in which the
word of God, and the kingdom of God works, and how they grow, and produce, and
are fruitful. God created seeds to work in a similar way to his spoken word.
Just as his word brings things into existence, so also seeds bring forth rich
harvests, bountiful crops, fruitful vines, bushes, and abundant trees. Jesus
says: The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the
full grain in the ear.
What is so important in this
parable is that the most important thing is the seed. And this tells us
something about mission. We are living in a time when we are seeing a great
decline in churches all throughout the western world, and it is something that
can sometimes make us depressed and worried. We can worry about our congregation
and parish finances. People start to think, “how can we bring more people in”?
Now, we are living in times
that are dominated by buying and selling. Everything is for sale, and it seems
like everyone is trying to sell us something. Sometimes we can easily fall into
the trap of thinking like this as Christians too, and we start to think, “How can
we grow the church, so that we can pay the church’s bills?” No wonder people
are suspicious sometimes of Christians, if they think we’re just after their
money! So there’s a real danger of treating the church like a business, and people
like consumers.
The problem is that we focus
on the harvest, instead of the seed. We often want to see the church full of
people, we want to see the church as successful, and productive, and flourishing!
But every farmer knows that if you want a harvest, you have to plant your seed.
Unbelievers are not customers—they are empty ground in need of the seed of God’s
word. We could share the word with them as we are able, we could pray for them,
we could invite them to church, or make friends with them and help them, and
treat them as we think a Christian should treat them. God has placed us in
particular homes, in particular areas, workplaces, or families, and we all have
our different gifts—some in speaking, some in serving, some in helping, or
however. What Jesus calls us to think about here is not the harvest – let God
sort that out. He calls us to focus on the seed. And the seed here is the word
of God—it doesn’t look like much, but it has incredible power to produce a very
rich harvest indeed.
Now, in the parable, we read
something quite amazing. It says: The kingdom of God is as if a man should
scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts
and grows; he knows not how.
Here we see that the power to
grow this seed belongs to God and not to us. The seed grows and sprouts even
while the farmer is asleep. Now there is a very famous quote of Martin Luther
about this passage. He says: I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s
Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with
my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no
prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word
did everything. (LW 51:77).
You can see here how
confident Martin Luther was knowing that he has simply preached the word and
sowed the seed. He could go to sleep now, and have a beer, because he knew that
the Gospel was now doing its work. Now, Luther was not saying that once he had
preached the Gospel, he could now have the other six days of the week off! But
he was saying that while he slept, while he drank his Wittenberg beer, the word
of God was working, it was changing people, it was growing a harvest. And so
the glory did not belong to him, but to God who was doing the work.
In 1 Corinthians, St Paul
talks about how people were playing him and Apollos off against one another. We
suspect Paul was not a particularly good public speaker, but Apollos was known
to be eloquent. And even though Paul was the apostle, and Apollos was not, people
started to prefer Apollos because he was a better speaker. But in the church,
we are not simply sowing the seed of public speaking and rousing speeches;
public speaking and rousing speeches can whip people up for a while. Even
Hitler knew how to put on a good speech! We are sowing the seed of God’s word,
and the glory belongs to him. So St Paul says: What then is Apollos? What is
Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. The glory belongs to
God, not to Paul and Apollos.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul
writes: Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming
from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers
of a new covenant. Paul and me and you are nothing but insignificant bread
rolls – the power to knock over a whole tent belongs to God.
Sometimes, we might look at
ourselves and our weaknesses and our insecurities and our failings and all of
the things that we wish we had or we wish we could do or we wish we were, but in
reality we don’t have, we can’t do, and ain’t – then it’s time for us to look
to Jesus’ words in 2 Corinthians 12, where he says: My grace is sufficient
for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And Paul writes: Therefore
I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ
may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am
strong.
And so Jesus says, while you
sleep, while you are weak, while you are useless, while you are completely out
of the way, the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces
by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when
the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.
Now we come to the second
part of the reading, about the parable of the mustard seed. Jesus says: With
what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It
is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest
of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is grown it grows up and becomes larger
than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of
the air can make nests in its shade.
Now, there is a wonderful
passage in the book of 1 Kings, where Elijah is feeling very miserable for
himself. There is a terrible king on the throne, King Ahab, and Elijah thought
he was the only faithful follower of God left. But God says to him: I will
leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal. Elijah
feels like he is the only one left, like he is just a little mustard seed, a
little black speck on white sandy beach. But God knows how to grow a large tree
from a mustard seed.
We might even look at the life
of Jesus. He lived in a time when he was the only one who preached the message
that he did. His own people didn’t receive it, and every single nation on earth
did not know the God of Israel. He was just a small mustard seed – but here we
are, over 2000 years later, on the other side of the world, part of that
mustard tree, part of his branches.
But then, sometimes in the
church, we can often find ourselves as small insignificant people in a big
world, where nobody cares about us or what we’ve got to say. But we speak the same
word of God, we plant that same Gospel, even if no one in the whole world cared
for it or not, even if no one in the whole universe listened to us. Because
when it is God’s word that we speak, then we know that his power is able to make
that mustard seed turn into a large bush, a large garden plant, and put out
large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.
At the end of the reading
today, we read two little verses, that look very insignificant, like two grains
of mustard! It says: With many such parables [Jesus] spoke the word to them,
as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but
privately to his own disciples he explained everything.
The amazing thing about the
way Jesus teaches here, is that as we think about these parables, and churn them
over, we find new insights and new discoveries that we never thought about
before. The pictures that Jesus plants in our minds of the seed and the mustard
seed produce fruitful and rich thoughts in our minds. Sometimes we don’t
understand the parables, and we think about them, and think about them, and
push and push, but we don’t seem to get it.
Now, just imagine if we were
reading some Shakespeare, or something, and we didn’t know what he meant. And
all the Shakespeare scholars don’t really know either. If Shakespeare were
still alive, we could ring him up, or write him a letter, and ask him just what
he meant.
But the Scripture is different,
because for every book of the bible, there are two authors. We have the person
who wrote the Gospel, whether it is Matthew, Mark, or Luke, or whoever – and then
we have the Holy Spirit. Now we can’t ring up Mark or John or Ezekiel what they
meant, but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are still alive. The
problem is not that the word is not clear, it’s that our minds are not clear.
Sometimes there are people who think that the bible is just a dead word, and not
the voice of the Holy Spirit. So no wonder when they talk about the bible, it
sounds like a coroner’s report. However, Jesus is alive, the speaker of the
parable has risen from the dead, and if we ask him, he will teach us and send us
the Holy Spirit, and explain to us what the parable means.
So we read: With may such
parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. By
nature, because of our sin, we are simply unable to hear the word, until the
Holy Spirit comes and opens our ears. It says: He did not speak to them
without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything. To
the outsider, nothing that Jesus is saying makes sense. But when Jesus sends us
the Holy Spirit to enlighten our understanding, then it makes sense. It’s similar
to when the apostles found themselves very busy in the book of Acts, and they
appointed some helpers to share their work. And they said: But we will
devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. These two
things go together: prayer and the ministry of the word. They go together
because they can’t do the ministry of the word without Jesus’ help, and so they
continually ask him for help.
So let’s commend ourselves to
him, to Jesus, who died for us and rose again from the dead, to win the forgiveness
of sins for us and the promise of eternal life. This word of God doesn’t look
like much, maybe like a little seed, but it grows and produces, and puts out
branches, and brings about a wonderful harvest. Amen.
Dear Jesus, plant your saving
and powerful word in us, and let your kingdom grow. Send us the Holy Spirit,
that we may hear and understand your word more and more. Amen.
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