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| Picture by Steve Dawson |
Text: Mark 4:26-34
To
Him who loves us and has washed us from our sins by His blood and made us a
kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever
and ever. Amen.
All
over the world people know how seeds work.
Otherwise stated, they know that if a seed is planted, then trees or
fruits or crops will grow.
All
over the world people understand that mankind cannot make a seed germinate and
mature, that is to say, mankind cannot get into the ground to manipulate and
force the seed to develop and spout.
All
over the world people understand that when a seed is planted, a farmer must
wait patiently to harvest the crop.
All
over the world people understand that if a good harvest is desired that one
must first start with planting good seed.
This
common knowledge about seeds and farming help us to understand Jesus’ parable
before us today in our Gospel reading.
In
the parable from the Gospel of Mark, the good seed is the Word of God. The person sowing and planting the seed is the
Lord. The ground and earth are those
living under God’s reign and rule.
Therefore, what Jesus is attempting to do is grant us faith and
encouragement that the Word of God is powerful.
The Word of God is planted in the lives of people through the preaching
of the Word. This preached Word has the
power to not only convert sinners, but to cause us to live a Christian life as
well.
Keep
in mind though, only God can produce life.
He does this through seed, both physically and spiritually. At creation God put seed into plants,
animals, and humans beings for reproduction.
Seeds from plants fall to the ground; a man plants a seed into a woman;
life is produced. Likewise the Word of
God is a seed as well. It is cast out
into the world from pulpits just like this.
It is cast out into the ears, into the minds, and into the souls of
people just like you and me. And through
this powerful seed—the Word of God proclaimed—faith, forgiveness, life, and
salvation are created and take root.[1]
In
our North American context though, we are rather impatient with seeds taking
root. All of us are like impatient
little children. The day after corn seed
is planted, we expect blades of grass.
The day after that we look for leaf sheaths. Then the next day, expect nodes to
develop. By week’s end, we hope for ripe
kernels that have fully emerged.
This
is so because we are surrounded by a culture that expects instantaneous
results. With hyper-speed technology,
modern commercialism, fast-food restaurants, and advancements in traveling, we
have come to expect things instantly.
Even in our small town of Gwinner, Fargo is only an hour away and Amazon
ships in two day. We really don’t have
to wait for anything anymore. Everything
is at our finger tips.
I
mention this because we then carry these expectations of instantaneous results
into the church, which then creates tremendous problems.
Permit
me to explain.
As
Christians we can acknowledge that it is good when the Word of God is preached
into hearts and lives—that the Gospel seed is cast into the soils of ears,
hearts, and minds. However, like
impatient children we want to see things happen right away. Pastors, like me, often feel discouraged when
they do not see the immediate fruits of their proclamation of the Word. Parishioners get frustrated when the pews
don’t fill up; they want to see their small congregations grow overnight.
Indeed,
as the church we can all agree that planting seeds—that is to say, proclaiming
the Word of God—is noble and good. Seeing
the ultimate end of a fruitful crop—that is to say, new converts and full
pews—is also gratifying. However,
waiting and trusting that the Gospel seed will germinate and grow is the
difficult part. It is difficult to wait
and it is difficult to trust that the Gospel seed does the work by itself.
Because
of our expectations for immediate results, more often than not, our impatience
does not speed up the growth of seed, but hinders it. Otherwise stated, when our impatience drives
us nuts, we may be tempted to try and help the Word of God along. However, in doing so, we typically uproot the
seed—make a mess of things—and ruin everything.
This was the case in the 1990s.
In
the 1990s a movement began that was called the Church Growth Movement. It was a movement that enticed me as a young
Christian, as well as many pastors across our country. This movement developed ways for the church
to grow and grow right away. It
guaranteed results. It implemented
business principles, strategic goals, SWOT analysis, and so forth. In the Church Growth Movement, simply
preaching the Word was not sufficient enough—the Gospel seed needed help. Therefore,
the church was encouraged to create sports programs, have praise band concerts,
create daycares, put rock climbing walls in the narthex, have bouncy castles
outside the church for children, give away free food, put coffee houses in the
back of the sanctuary, have raffles for flat-screen TVs, create target markets
for evangelism, and on and on and on.
Churches that wanted to simply preach and teach the Word and did not want
to do all of this extra stuff were accused of being behind the times,
irrelevant, not loving, and not caring about reaching the lost.
In the early 2000s another movement came about called the
Emergent Church Movement. This movement
told young pastors like me that the office of pastor and doctrine and sermons
should be downplayed. If the church was
to grow, it wasn’t enough to simply invite people to come to the church to hear
the Word of God, but the church needed to be involved in all sorts of projects
and deeds in the community. As a result,
churches services were canceled on Sundays and parishioners would venture out
into the community to rake leaves or clean up garbage in ditches, in order to
make a difference and somehow grow the church by proving to the world our robust
love.
I
mention these two movements as examples of the church being impatient. These two movements are the attempts of
people, like you and me, wanting to have immediate fruit and results in the
church. While the original intentions of
these movements may have been good, we must confess that after 25 years, these
two movements have had little impact on the attendance and membership numbers
of the church. In fact there is
considerable evidence that these two movements have actually hindered and
uprooted the seed of the Gospel—the Word of God. Personally I wonder if the Lord God may have
just thwarted these two movements as a way of showing us that we are not in
control.
Given
these points, attempts to help the Gospel seed along are no guarantee of growth
my friends. In fact, history and the
scriptures have shown us that the more we press ourselves to work harder, the
greater the danger becomes that we think our work is what matters most, as if
the Kingdom depends on us. Furthermore and in blunt terms, we in the church can
get so focused on the end results of the fruit and matured crops that we
actually neglect the planting of the seed in the first place. We can get so focused on programs and gimmick
and strategies and plans that we either forget the Word of God altogether or we
drown and smother the Word with all sorts of meaningless stuff. It is like we are saying to the farmer, “Stop
fretting about good seed! Be concerned
about good fruit instead!”[2]
Dear
friends, if you and I are concerned about good fruit and good crops, you and I
are concerned about good seed as well.
And in considering good seed, we hear from the Gospel reading today that
the good seed is powerful. It is ‘all’
about the good seed of the Word of God! In other words, Jesus is illustrating in
our Gospel reading from today that it is the Lord who does the work of
converting, sustaining, and growing His church and the Lord does His work ‘through’
His powerful proclaimed Word—this seed that is planted into hearts, minds, and
souls.
Listen
carefully, it does not depend on you and me and our efforts and our additions. It is all about the Word of God—this powerful
seed.
It
is as Martin Luther preached: “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word;
otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept [cf. Mark 4:26–29], 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. … I let the Word do its work. What
do you suppose is Satan’s thought when one tries to do the thing by kicking up
a row, [by trying to help the Word along through human effort]? He sits back in
hell and thinks: Oh, what a fine game the poor fools are up to now! But when we
spread the Word alone and let it alone do the work, that distresses him. For it
is almighty, and takes captive the hearts …”[3]
What
this means is that, “Jesus gives us the comforting assurance that
responsibility for the Kingdom’s growth does not rest on our shoulders. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to supervise the
scattering of the seed that is the Word of God.
Perhaps He will give you the privilege of scattering the Word of God by
confessing your faith to your family … your friends … your associates. Perhaps He will work in some other way to
scatter the Word of God. The point is
that the Holy Spirit will see to the scattering of the Word of God, and He will
attend to the growth. The growth will
not come as the product of [your] efforts and [skill]. The Lord of the harvest is in control. There’s no need to worry.”[4]
Truly,
dear friends, it is God’s Word, not ours.
The Lord is the one who converts souls and grows the church. He uses us when and where He pleases to
proclaim and plant the Gospel seed. And
as we confess this Gospel we do so knowing that the Gospel does the work. It will not return void.
Baptized
Saints, be confident, it is about the Holy Spirit through the sure Word of God,
the Word that has called you, granted you faith, enlightened you, sanctified
you, and kept you in the true faith. You
are forgiven all of your sins for Christ sake.
Baptized
Saints, do not let your ears be tickled by the gimmicks of mankind, it is about
the Word of God proclaimed from this church in season and out of season.
Baptized
Saints, stand firm for it is about the Word of God proclaimed whether it is
popular or not, whether politically incorrect or not.
Baptized
Saints, take comfort, it is all about the Word of God—for you and for the
world. The powerful Word will not
whither or fade, but will stand forever.
The
peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] Harold
Buls, “Buls Notes on the New Testament,”
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/bul/epip-5.html (accessed
June 11, 2015).
[2] C.F.W.
Walther, Law & Gospel: How to Read
and Apply the Bible (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2010), 25.
[3] Martin
Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets
(1525).
[4] James t.
Batchelor, “Third Sunday after Pentecost,”
http://lcmssermons.com/index.php?sn=4199 (Accessed June 12, 2015).
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