A teenage boy had been mowing lawns and delivering newspapers for years so that he could save up enough money to buy a car when he got his driver’s license. The day that he got that license he took his father to the local used car lot, where he discovered that the only vehicle he could afford was an old subcompact car with a very small and very weak engine. But it was a car – and it was all his – so he proudly bought it and drove it off the lot. As he drove that little car around town he became somewhat careless about tromping down on the accelerator, for he knew that no matter how much pressure he applied to the gas pedal, his little car could never do more than accelerate very slowly. No one thought that he was a bad driver – in fact, people talked about how carefully he drove down the city streets.
A couple of years later he had earned enough money in his part-time jobs that he could afford a better car – this time a muscle car with a powerful V-8 engine. When he left the car lot he tromped down on the accelerator – just as he had always done with his previous car – not really realizing the difference between a small 4-cylinder engine and a powerful V-8. He accelerated like a bolt of lightning, and he wasn’t able to stop before slamming into another car that had the right-of-way at the next intersection. No one was hurt, but his beautiful new car was totaled. People talked about what a terrible driver he was. He who has ears, let him hear.
What I have just told you is a parable. It’s not a true story, but it does include many details that could be true. You may know someone whose experience is at least somewhat like that of the young man I described. Based on your experiences with teenage drivers, you may understand how the events that I related could have happened. I purposefully included many details in my parable, some of which are totally extraneous. They key for understanding is to study and decide not just what details truly are important – but also why they are important.
Jesus told a lot of parables during his ministry. Although some might quibble with a few, the generally accepted number of parables recorded in the four Gospels is 55 in all. Today and for the next two weeks we will be focusing on six specific—but very much related – parables from the 13th chapter of Matthew. But before we start looking at those parables, consider the first words of our text, where St. Matthew writes: “That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.” The first question that comes to mind might be this: “What same day?” To get the answer we go back to chapter 12, where we read of a heated confrontation between Jesus and some Galilean Pharisees. You see, this ministry of the young rabbi had not been going all that well. Yes, the crowds came to hear Him preach and see Him do miracles, but there’s a great deal of antagonism with the religious establishment and a general lack of belief in Jesus as the Messiah. You almost wonder if perhaps the disciples might not have been wondering among themselves about the future and where all of this was heading. Yes, they believed in Jesus – they had given up everything to follow Him – but there didn’t seem to be much in the way of solid results. To put it in today’s church growth terms – where were the numbers? If Jesus was the real deal, then why couldn’t everybody see it? Why weren’t people responding the way that the disciples thought they should respond? Their fellowship ought to be growing by leaps and bounds. But that didn’t seem to be happening.
On this day, however, the crowds are back. So many people have crowded together that Jesus leaves His seat by the sea and he moves back to a seat in a boat. And then, the first parable – the one that is labeled “The Parable of the Sower.”
Sowing seeds in ancient times was obviously far different than how farmers plant their crops today. Fields were small, and the farmer would walk across the field, casting the seed with a sweeping motion of the hand and arm. With practice, the sower could probably be pretty accurate as to where he threw the seed.
As Jesus tells us, some of the seed that was cast by the sower fell on paths. It would be similar to us spreading seed on a sidewalk. There’s no soil – there’s no place for the seed to take root. The seed just lies there, totally exposed, and the birds swoop down and eat it.
Some of the seed falls on rocky ground where there is very little real soil. The seed germinates and starts to grow, but there’s no real depth for the roots to take hold and find nourishment. And so this seed dies, too.
Some seed falls on good soil, but that ground is also infested by weeds. Our ESV translation uses the word “thorns,” and we’re essentially talking about any kind of thorny weed that grows like wildfire and literally kills everything else in that soil. So in this instance the seed actually germinates and begins to grow – but those thorny weeds eventually kill the good growth, and ultimately nothing good remains.
And finally, some of the seed falls on the good soil. The seed germinates and grows and thrives and produces an incredibly bountiful crop. Not every seed produces the same bounty, but that doesn’t really matter. The harvest is good, and it is plentiful.
As we heard in the Gospel reading, Jesus later goes on to explain exactly what He is saying in the parable. The seed that fell on the path never had a chance, because immediately the devil took away the message of the Word – took it from people who never got the chance to hear it, to understand it or to believe it. You probably know people like that.
The seed that falls on rocky ground refers to people who hear God’s Word and initially – for a short while – believe it. For a time they follow Jesus. But their roots just never seem to grow beyond that first initial burst of enthusiasm. Their young faith has no depth and never matures. When something bad happens or there is some personal difficulty, their faith in Jesus starts to decline … to wither … to die off. They stop hearing the Word of God. You probably know people like that.
The seed that falls on ground infested with thorny weeds refers to people who initially hear God’s Word for a time and follow Jesus. They become regular church goers and enthusiastically participate in the life of the Church. But eventually the thorns of this world start taking precedence in their lives. They may be distracted by possessions, by pursuits of materials good. They may let thoughts of cares and worries become more important than their thoughts of faith. They may begin to look for and to find reasons to not come to church and to not hear God’s Word. The weeds spread like wildfire, and the faith that once prospered dies off. You may know people like that.
And, of course, some of the seed falls on good soil. It grows and blooms and produces an abundant crop of good fruit. By now I’m sure you realize that Jesus is talking here about people of faith. In Luke 11:28 Jesus says: “Blessed, rather, are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” They remain faithful to God, faithful even to death. You know some people like that, too. In fact, you’re sitting with some of them this morning.
When I began today with my made-up parable about the teenage boy and his two cars, I mentioned that I had included many details. Some of those details were important, and others – well, not so much. We see the same thing today in the Parable of the Sower. Yes, it is correct to identify the sower in the parable with Jesus. But the important detail in this parable is not necessarily the identity of the sower – but ultimately the identity of the seed. The seed that is cast on the path and the rocky ground and the thorn-infested soil and the good soil is God’s Word, the Gospel good news of our salvation through Jesus Christ. This seed – God’s holy and precious Word – truly is life-giving. Only through this life-giving Word can we be brought to faith by the Holy Spirit – and only through this faith can we look forward to eternal life with our Savior in Heaven.
One other aspect of this Word of God is that it remains constant – it never changes – and it always produces good fruit. The problem in the minds of the disciples and in our minds today is that we don’t understand why it doesn’t produce good fruit in each and every person. We’re no different than the disciples, because we want to see results. We want to see growth. We want to see numbers. St. Paul wrote to his young friend Timothy that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” so why aren’t people flocking to this church every Sunday morning and packing our pews to hear this Word of God? The crowds who followed Jesus and the Pharisees who repeatedly opposed Jesus – why didn’t they believe that He truly was the Messiah, the Son of God?
Jesus gives us the answer. We live in a sinful world. None of us – not a single one of us – has any good soil within us. We are, by the power of our original sin, soil that rejects any growth of the good seed that is God’s Word. But through the undeserved grace of the Holy Spirit, our soil has been made good. As St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
Many of you know that I spent my vicarage year in Southern Illinois working to start a mission church in an area that had absolutely no Missouri Synod presence. In the towns of Harrisburg and Eldorado there were more than 50 Baptist churches, but for all practical matters people in that area didn’t have a clue what Lutherans taught or believed. We initially spent a lot of time canvassing the area, and after several months we were ready to start a weekly Bible Class in our very small rented home. Ten people had expressed interest in attending that first class, but when the time for that first class came, it was me … Sharon … and two other people. The eight others who had said that they would come didn’t show up. When I tried to contact them, I learned very quickly that they were never going to show up. Any interest they had expressed was either false – after all, sometimes people will tell you exactly what they think you want to hear even if they don’t mean it – or they changed their minds. The seed had landed on the path or on rocky ground or on ground infested by thorns, and it yielded no fruit.
But for two of those people, the seed had landed on good soil. They remained faithful. And little by little, God blessed that mission church by planting seeds on more good soil. By the end of my vicarage we had seven regular and faithful attendees at Bible Classes and our Sunday worship service.
Let me make it clear that neither I nor anyone else who participated in that church plant deserve any credit for that modest start to that mission church. Nothing that happened was of our doing. It was all the doing of God. It was all the doing of the Holy Spirit working through the Word, the good seed that always produces good fruit. That is true in Harrisburg and Eldorado, that is true in Pana, that is true anywhere and everywhere that God’s Word is proclaimed.
As Jesus said so often at the end of a parable: “he who has ears, let him hear.” And as He tells us in the final words of today’s Gospel lesson: “As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
Note: the modern-day parable included at the beginning of this sermon was adapted from one created by Professor Jeffrey A. Gibbs for his Concordia Commentary volume entitled Matthew 11:2-20:34.
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