Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen. The text is from the Gospel lesson from Matthew 13.
When
I was a student at Zion Lutheran School in Walburg, we were taught that a
parable is an “earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” Not bad, but I think we
can do better – after all, Jesus says that the purpose of a parable is “to know
the secrets of the kingdom of heaven,” understanding that “secret” means things
that are hidden temporarily but are waiting to be revealed. But the challenge
of calling it the kingdom of heaven is that we think of kingdoms as
places, locations, like the United Kingdom or the fictional Kingdom of Narnia.
Instead of thinking of this as a place, a noun, let’s instead think of this as a
verb – the kingdoming, or less awkward, the reigning work of Jesus as King of
Kings and Lord of Lords. So, for our definition we’ll describe a parable, then,
as a story to help us see and understand the reigning work of Jesus as God’s
anointed one. And, because these stories tell us something about Jesus, there
is often a unique twist, an unexpected element that catches us off guard from
what is considered the norm.
So,
now that we know what a parable is, let’s speak to the story. It’s quite
simple: a sower goes out to sow seeds. Depending on where the seeds land, some
are eaten by birds, some choked out by thorns, some die in the heat, and still
others produce wonderfully. Easy – right? Maybe not, since not even the
disciples didn’t understand, having to ask Jesus for clarification. So, maybe
there is more to this story than first meets our eyes. So, with our own eyes
open and our hearts inclined to Jesus, let’s consider this story anew.
pinterest.com
I
have it on good authority that sowing grain by hand is a bit of an art, and a
lost one at that. Now we use grain drills, air seeders, and planters to
precisely and carefully place each seed 1.8 inches deep, about an inch from its
neighbor, in rows that are 5-8 inches apart. Until the late 1800s, a sower
dipped his hand into a bag of seed carried across the shoulder and then swinging
the arm in an arc, let the seeds dribble through his fingers, fast enough to
cover the ground but slow enough to not get clumps of plants that can’t grow and
open ground elsewhere. A good sower knew exactly how to use the wind to
disperse the seeds in the field he tilled and prepared so carefully, not
wasting the seeds and their potential harvest. Each seed is precious; each seed
is valuable, the product of the previous season’s crop, carefully reserved to
be replanted and produce its own crop the following year.
That’s
how it’s supposed to go: deliberate, carefully sowing of seeds to maximize
return on investment, labor and sweat.
But
that’s not what Jesus says. This sower-of-seeds grabs handfuls of seeds and
just starts flinging them every which way, willy-nilly, caring neither whit nor
whim where they land. Good soil here, hard-packed soil there, rocks over yonder
and thorny wasteland that way, this sower seems absolutely irresponsible in how
he distributes the seeds. This is the part of the story that makes the
listeners say, “Waitaminute! What kind of sower would be so wasteful, so
reckless with his sowing?” You can understand why. Let’s say you bought a
hundred pounds of Bermuda seed for your yard and hired a guy to spread the
seeds for you. You watch out your window as he throws 25 pounds into the
street, 25 pounds slung into the neighbor’s scraggly, never-watered weed patch
that he calls “lawn,” and 25 pounds flung into the other neighbor’s xeriscaped
rock garden, with only 25 pounds actually landing in your carefully prepared
and chemically balanced yard, you would be livid. I mean, yeah, that 25% grows
really well, but who is so reckless with 75% even before starting? You can
understand why people were not comprehending Jesus’ story. It makes no sense.
Let’s
go back for a moment and try to figure out our cast of characters. In a sense,
parables are allegories, which is to say that each character in the story
represents someone in the reigning work of Jesus. Since Jesus doesn’t tell us,
exactly, we have to consider who fits the parts. Of course we like to make
ourselves the center of attention. It’s tempting to say that we are the sower
and the seed is the Good News of Jesus. So, the parable is one where we’re
called to sow the seeds of the Good News out into the world. The work of
casting, and its ultimate success, seems to land on us, then. If we would have
done better, the seed would have been better dispersed with a better return on
our evangelism work. But, remember, the parables tell us something of Jesus and
His work, not ours. So, no – I don’t think we are the center of this parable.
Who else could the sower be? Well, perhaps it’s Jesus. If He’s the focus of the
parable, then He must be the main character, right? He’s sowing the seed which
must be the Good News that He is the very One for whom Israel had been waiting.
That’s a little bit better – at least Jesus is the one doing the action – but
it seems to be too obvious, too simple for it to be a secret, a mystery, that
Jesus says it is. No…I don’t think Jesus is sower and the seed is the Good
News, either.
Let’s
rethink…if the sower isn’t us, if he isn’t Jesus, and if the seeds aren’t the
good news, then what – who – could these things represent?
Jesus
Himself gives us a clue to this unique mystery. “When anyone hears the word of
the kingdom…” Don’t think word equals the spoken vocables that travel through space
from the vibrating vocal chords to the ear canal where the brain translates
those vibrations into words. Think Word as in Jesus is the Word incarnate, a la
John – “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
was God.” So, it’s as if Jesus is saying, “Let me tell you a story to show how I
am beginning my work of reigning…”
Consider
what God the Father does with Jesus: He sends Jesus into the world, scattering
Him – to use the imagry of the parable – hither and yon, to those who hear and
believe, to those who hear and reject, to those who are indifferent, only
wanting to use Him for their benefit, and to those who reject Him. It seems
irresponsible for God in His infinite and perfect wisdom to waste – to use the
term – to waste Jesus in this way. Why not only send Jesus to those who will
listen, believe, and be saved? Why scatter Jesus’ words, actions, and mercy to
those who will reject Him and even kill Him? Why, indeed.
Jesus
comes to rescue and redeem the world – not just this group or that group, these
peoples or those peoples. “For God so loved the world,” remember. So God
scatters Jesus out into the world, into places where the weeds of the world and
worry distract from Jesus, and into space where the rocks of trouble and
persecution makes one afraid to follow Jesus, and into the hardpan soil on the
path where satan snatches Jesus through the sinful hands and hearts of the
Jewish leaders and the Roman government. Jesus is even spread into the rich,
fertile ground of repentant hearts. You know what’s remarkable in the parable?
In every place, the seed does exactly what a seed is supposed to do. It may not
be what we expect, or what the sower expects, but the seed does its seeding
work. On the path where the birds eat it? The seeds feed the birds. In the
rocks and weeds? The seed still tries to produce, sprouting and starting to
grow. The seed doesn’t give up just because it’s not the best spot. That is
true for Jesus, too. Wherever He goes, He does the work and will of God,
preaching, teaching, proclaiming the reign of God is there, among them.
But
the most important work of the seed in the parable is the seed that lands in
the good soil. You know, the imagry is remarkable, but understand why. For a
plant to grow and produce thirty, sixty or a hundredfold, first the seed must
die. A seed dies so that its offspring might live. Jesus, the Word of God made
flesh, used this imagry for Himself. The day after Jesus raised Lazarus from
the dead, speaking plainly of His own death, “Jesus answered them, “The
hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and
dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” It’s both an
agricultural truth as well as a prophetic truth: Jesus, the seed, would fall
into the earth and buried in the borrowed tomb, dead. But in His resurrection –
and, again this time Paul picks up the agricultural imagry – Jesus is the
firstfruits of those who will rise. He is the first fruits; we are what comes
later.
So,
the parable of the sower reveals the mystery that God sends Jesus into the world.
Isaiah tells us that the Word of God does exactly that which God intends. Jesus
does what God intends in His words and in His actions. It’s a mystery, itself,
that Jesus will not have overwhelming success, from a worldly perspective. Like
the parable describes, some will quickly follow Him and just as quickly turn
away. Some will even go out into the world as disciples, but when challenges
and persecution comes, they surrender. Still others will not believe at all, satan
plucking Jesus away like birds eating the seeds from the path. Even here,
remember, Jesus does exactly that which God intends. Consider the bird that
eats the seeds for a minute. Pardon the image, but what goes in must go out.
The bird helps distribute seed – perhaps not where the sower originally
planned, but the seed, landing elsewere, still produces. Sometimes, in a strange
and left-handed sort of way, God even uses Satan as a means of distributing
Jesus as hardships come and persecutions rise and death knocks and in that moment
people, formerly under the power of satan’s grasp, receive Jesus instead. The
Word, Jesus, does exactly that which God intends.
And,
that is what made it a mystery for Jesus’ first-century hearers. It didn’t make
sense of how irresponsible and wasteful this sower could be. They couldn’t
understand. They refused to believe. They denied Jesus was God-in-flesh. Jesus
didn’t seem powerful; His work seemed so small, so trite. His ministry had
nothing to do with strength. He spoke of His own death, not making others die.
He spoke of His own sacrifice, not the sacrifice of others. He proclaimed
grace, mercy, and salvation as gifts given, not earned. It was too much, so Jesus
and His work of salvation remained hidden from them. Since they disbelieved, it
was as if Jesus sighed and said, “Let me tell this story. You might not
understand or believe, but perhaps it will pass through you and someone else
will hear and believe.”
A
moment ago, I said we like to be the main cast – at least supporting
characters. But where are we in this story? We have to do something, right? No –
I don’t think so. A parable is about the reigning work of Jesus, not you or me.
But, we are in the parable – just not an active part. We – the Church - are the
thirty, sixty, one hundred fold harvest that is produced by the Seed - Jesus.
He does the work. We receive life through Him. Rooted in Him, together within
the field of the church, we grow and are nourished in the life and death of
Jesus and in His gifts of word and sacrament. That’s where the story stops. It’s
not about what the harvest does, it’s not about you. It’s about Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment