Sexagesima
Luke 8:4-15
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
The weather lately certainly hasn’t been gardening weather. But I imagine that there are at least a couple among us who have some old garden seeds stored away somewhere in the garage or in the basement or a drawer in the kitchen–maybe some leftover green bean seeds or cucumber or zucchini seeds, or sweet corn or flower seeds. If you think about it, seeds are really remarkable things. They can lay around for months, seemingly dry and dead. And yet consider what they do! A buried acorn becomes a huge oak tree. An almost invisible speck produces the lettuce and carrots and tomatoes and other vegetables we eat. A hard pellet imbedded with complex DNA codes and intricate chemical systems starts a chain reaction when something as simple as water is added to it.
The seed is an important element in several of Jesus’ parables. One of His shortest ones goes like this, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is larger than all garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
The seed teaches us of the hidden way God works. What appears unimpressive, even dead, is precisely where the action is at. Seeds are, in a way, a sacrament, an earthly element that contains within it the life-giving Word and command of God. Seeds bear in them the creative power of God himself.
The Lord God created a perfect world in the beginning teeming with life; and seeds were a key part of this great creative plan. In fact, only twelve verses into the Bible, we read: “And God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind.’” Seeds have always been integral to God’s creation. And these seeds were there to give food to mankind and all living creatures. Seeds are the ongoing creative work of God to sustain man and beast alike.
But what did man do? He abused the seed, he took advantage of God’s gift, eating that which was not sown for him. And after the Fall, God announced the consequence to man: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” No more would seeds sprout effortlessly for man. Now birds would eat what the man has sown–animals no longer living in harmony with man, but in competition. Rocky ground and lack of moisture would make his job harder, making him till and water the ground. Thorns would entangle the seed and choke it out, requiring constant weeding and hoeing. Good ground would become hard to find, and the man would have to labor hard to eat his bread.
But interestingly, God announces to the devil only a few verses later that a Seed was coming to fix what had been broken. He tells Satan that the Seed of the woman will crush his head. The Seed from the body of Eve, the offspring of the very woman who committed the first sin, would come to conquer the Serpent and set the world right again.
The Seed was promised throughout the Old Testament, in particular to people like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God said to Abraham, “In you and in your seed all nations on earth will be blessed.” The prophets reminded God’s people of His promise. It continued through David who reigned over a prosperous kingdom, and through God’s messengers who saw the Temple destroyed and the people taken captive. Through wars and conquests, occupation and bloodshed, the promise of the Seed remained alive, passing from generation to generation.
And when the ground was ready, the Seed was finally sown. Unlike any other human seed sown by an earthly father in the natural way, this Seed was sown supernaturally by God Himself, through the Holy Spirit. The angel of the Lord appeared to Mary and sowed the Seed into her womb through speaking into her ears! The Seed is none other than the Word of the Father, the only begotten Son of God Himself! And having been planted, that Seed of the Word became flesh; it germinated in the fertile ground of the Blessed Virgin, and grew into a Man, the fulfillment of God’s promise back in the Garden. Jesus, the very Word of God, crushed the Serpent’s head in a totally unexpected way: by dying, and rising from the dead. For Christ himself told us that unless a “grain of wheat”–a seed–“falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Fellow believers, hear this clearly: The first three soils in today’s Gospel are descriptive of us. You are the hardened soil of the wayside, sometimes callous to God’s Word, letting it in one ear and out the other without letting it penetrate your heart, acting as if you’ve heard it all before. You are the rocky soil, on fire for the faith one minute, withered away in unfaithfulness the next. You are the thorn-infested soil, all caught up in the pursuit of money and the pleasures of this life, anxious about this and that, forgetting the one thing that’s most needful. Acknowledge this, repent of it, and believe in Christ.
For this is the purpose of the Word and why it has been sent to you. First of all, the seed shows the soil for what it is. There’s never anything wrong with the seed. But it’s being cast onto the soil reveals the nature of the soil–hard, rocky, thorn-infested, unfruitful The soil was surely this before the seed fell on it. But the seed confirms this judgment. It pronounces it and manifests how things truly are with us. It does what it was supposed to do. It shows how the soil is powerless to change itself. As Isaiah said, “Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.”
But then notice this: The Sower casts the Seed, the Father sends His Son right into the midst of all of this for you, into such corrupted soil. Jesus is the One who has borne this corruption all for you to take it away from you. For behold how this Seed falls to the earth, how our Lord suffers on the cross. Jesus, the Word of God, the Seed, is thrown onto the wayside, the way of sorrows, where he is dragged to His cross. But notice that the birds of the air do not devour Jesus’ body as was often the case with other condemned criminals, who would be left for the animals to consume. And this Seed is hurled upon the rocky ground of Golgotha, where he lacked moisture. But in spite of his suffering and thirst, this Seed would not wither away permanently. He was even crowned with thorns, the very symbol of Adam’s curse, and yet this Seed would not be choked out of existence. For while the Seed did die, He rose again in victory over the devil and the world and our sinful nature.
So do you see? By His holy suffering and death and resurrection, our Lord has overcome all that stands against you, all that keeps you from having life, all that keeps you from bearing fruit. In Christ you are free from the hardness and the rocks and the thorns. In Christ and in Him alone you are the holy fourth soil, pure and righteous and fruitful and forgiven. In you, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Word of God is implanted through preaching. You have been watered with the Word in your baptism. And the Word is sown in the soil of your body, placed on your very tongues, in the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood. The power of God to give life is in the Seed. And the Seed is in you and with you and for you.
And be sure to notice how the Father sows the seed. He doesn’t just plant it here or there in soils He deems suitable and acceptable. He scatters the Seed everywhere, on the good and the bad, the worthy and the unworthy, on all of us. That is the nature of His love, love that extends to all. And the Word of God does what God intends it to do. Just as the rain and snow fall from heaven, so the Word of the Lord will not return void or empty, but will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. For even in the midst of thorns and thistles, the prophet Isaiah said that cypress and myrtle trees will grow and replace the briars.
So even though a sermon from a preacher, or a few words spoken over bread and wine, or an announcement of the forgiveness of sins, or a sprinkle of water and the name of God on a sinner’s head don’t look very powerful, they are indeed the very same Seed that crushed the Serpent’s head: the Word of God which is “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.”
The Word of God is truly the most powerful thing in creation. For it brings life and creation into being. It is far greater than the power of our fiercest weapons or the energy of the sun. For only the Word of God overcomes death, makes us worthy to stand in the presence of God, and gives us life beyond the grave itself.
Therefore, fellow Christians, let us thank God for his Word, for his Seed. As Isaiah said, “Go out with joy, and be led out in peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” All of creation rejoices because of the fruit that the Seed bears. And you are that produce of Christ; you are that fruit that has the seed within it. In fact Galatians 3 goes so far as to say this, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
(With thanks to the Rev. Larry Beane for some of the above)