Grace Lutheran Church

+ In Nomine Jesu +
The Rev. Evan Gaertner
July 13, 2008
Proper 10A
“The Powerful Word”
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

There are certain stories in the Bible that for a long time it was expected that people just knew. The number of Bible stories that people know now are decreasing and even when we do know the stories we may be forgetting the impact these stories had in Jesus’ time and should still have in our time.

Jesus used stories to share the greatness of the kingdom of God with others. His stories often were about simple events that people were experiencing in their everyday lives. The power of the stories he told were in how he redefined for the people their relationship to God and how they were to relate to one another. Today the parable of the sower is the story for us to consider.

The story is about the planting of seeds. Can you imagine a meeting in Hollywood with a writer trying to convince a producer about how he has this great story about a guy that plants seeds. This story will revolutionize the way we think. I don’t know how that pitch meeting would go. But it is interesting that after Jesus tells this story the disciples ask, “Huh? Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

Jesus used the stories I think about everyday events that brought a new reality to the their thinking of the kingdom of God and their relationships to their neighbors because he wants us to realize that the kingdom of God and our relationships should everyday be changed in our lives.

The parable of the sower has some basic details.

A sower went out to sow.

Some seed fell on the path, some on the rocky ground, some among the thorns, and other seeds fell on good soil. Seed from sowers hands fell on all different types of ground. Nowadays with our high tech farming practices the amount of seed is precisely planted and the percentages of fertilizer to be dropped can be computer programmed to change depending on the needs of each section of soil.

This sower does not use his opportunity to drop the seed to withhold the seed from areas that he could presume it would not succeed. He drops the seed on all ground and does not presume what is going to be the good or the bad. The sower in the story is following traditional practices of grabbing the seed from the bag and spreading it across all the ground in front of you.

What is revolutionary in this story is extending this idea of a sower spreading his seed to the idea of God’s Word being spread to all people. God in his mercy desires that all people hear the good news and come to saving knowledge of him.

One sinful tendency is to worry about losing control of God’s Word and so preventing who receives it and who gets to share it. It is remarkably easy to attempt to establish ourselves as gatekeepers of who deserves the Word of God and who does not. Remember that in the parable of the sower the seed is scattered upon all ground. Now the seed doesn’t prosper everywhere it lands, unfortunately. But nevertheless the sower does not presume what ground is going to be good and what is going to be bad.

God desires all of us to be the good soil in which the word of God is fruitful. Our sinful desire is to control access to the Word and prevent the undesirable and the undeserving from getting a chance. The truth is not everyone who hears the Word of God will lead lives of repentance and faith in Jesus as their savior. But how can they believe unless they have heard, and how can they hear unless some has preached to them?

Recently I had to alter my path while walking to a playground because an area of grass had been fenced off. The school was trying to get the grass seed to grow and so it put up a fence.

Sometimes our church community can becomes like that guarded grass. We want to prosper and grow, but we don’t want to share this with others. Daily we are called to be witnesses the grandness of God’s mercy. Indeed God has blessed even you and me with the opportunity to hear the life saving message of Jesus Christ.

When the heavenly father sent his only begotten son in the flesh to be our savior he came to rescue all of creation. Jesus did not get up on that cross for only some and he did not die on that cross for only the ones he knew would believe in him. God so loved the whole world that he gave his only son for us so that those who believe in him would not perish but have eternal life.

We trust in Jesus Christ who came to save us, all of us, those we see as good or bad or ugly, because we all are in need of rescue from sin, death, and the devil.

As you consider where and to whom we should share the good news with I want you to consider where we should find God. Where should God’s Word be found in this world? Well start by answering where did we find Jesus? We find Jesus with the hurting, the struggling, the outcast, the forgotten, the set aside, the sinner, the sick and broken. Our God came in the flesh to save us from our sin. Jesus shed his blood for us in the most ugly place that others mocked and scorned. He died on a cross, executed alongside of criminals. When you wonder if you deserve God’s love, remember where God desires to be. God desires to be in your life.

The seed was scattered on all the ground and the sower did not hold back. God desires you and he does not hold back.

Soli Deo Gloria