Pentecost 8
Confirmation of Caitie Johnson
Jesu Juva
“A Promised Harvest”
Text: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23; Isaiah 55:10-11
Grace, mercy, and peace to
you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Predictability. That’s how we tend to like things in our
lives. We want our car to start when we
turn the key. We want our TV shows on
when we expect them to be. We want
things when and where we like them to be.
We want it hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and cool in the spring
and fall. We want good to always triumph
over evil, and friends to be friends, and enemies to
be enemies. Consistent. Reliable. Predictable.
That’s what makes Jesus’ parable
in today’s Gospel so maddeningly frustrating!
It’s not predictable. A farmer goes out to sow his seed, and he
doesn’t know what’s going to grow, or how, or where. And he doesn’t seem to care! He just throws the seed out, and we think how
terribly wasteful and inefficient this is.
It’s certainly not how we’d do
it, for better to be predictable – or, at least, put the odds in your
favor. Dig furrows, plant the seeds
carefully and at just the right depth, water, fertilize, put little stakes at
each end of the row so we don’t step where we shouldn’t! . . . But even with all our care and science,
that’s not all that predictable either, is it?
At least not in my garden! I can
do everything “right” and I still have trouble getting my plants to grow! There are some things I just can’t control.
And that, Jesus is teaching today, is how it is –
from an earthly perspective – with the Word of God. It is
unpredictable. You can sow it, plant
it, scatter it, and water it – but you don’t know whether that Word is
going to take root and grow or not. You
don’t know which is going to get snatched, which will bake, which will choke,
and which will produce an abundant harvest!
It is out of our control . . . and I will leave for now whether
you think that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Unpredictability. Perhaps some examples are in order here. We had our Vacation Bible School a week or so ago, and last Monday we had our church booth at the
And so even though we want God’s Word to be
predictable, and neat and clean, and even scientific in its application, and
grow where we want it to grow, today Jesus says: “Nope! Sorry!” You had it predictable, consistent, and
reliable once, you know. There were no
weeds, no thorns or thistles, no hot baking sun, in the Garden of Eden, and everything
worked and grew as it was designed and created.
That those things are here now, it’s our fault. We did it.
We sinned. And still do. And that sin that we do, and that’s in us and
in the world, creates all this stuff that chokes and steps on God’s Word.
There are the
weeds in our lives: the difficulties at work, the struggles at home, the
arguments with friends, the hard and hurt feelings, the grudges and anger and
jealousy . . . and do not these very things choke the Word of God in our hearts
and lives?
There are the
shallow roots of popular “feel good” Christianity; that temptation that we all
have to think that if God loves me, then everything will go well, my struggles
and burdens will vanish, and life will be happy and carefree. And so when things get
tough and struggles come, is it any wonder that the Word of God is baked
and burned out of our hearts and lives?
And then there is the Word that bounces off our hard hearts and ears: when we doubt the Word that
we hear; when we misbelieve; when our reason and “great intellect” tell us to
believe something different than what God has told us. And Satan is more than happy to come and
pluck away the Word that we reject and don’t want in our lives.
And, ironically, here is the predictability
that we were yearning for – except it’s not the predictability we were looking for! – that
if it were up to us and in our control, it is sure and certain that nothing would grow at all. It would all either die or be snatched away
from us.
And yet there is
growth, Jesus says here. Not predictable, but miraculous. For all the enemies of God’s Word that we
cannot overcome, or engineer our way out of – God can. For one Word from
His mouth, one drop of His blood, one taste of His body, one watering with His
water, can make hard, rocky, weedy, no good soil, into good soil. Good soil that grows good and strong plants
of faith. Good soil that produces a
harvest 30, 60, or a hundred-fold. What
we cannot do, He does. What we cannot
control, He controls. What we cannot
predict, He knows. We are not called to
produce the harvest – that’s not our job, that’s His job! We are called to sow the seed, to scatter the
Word of God. Not looking for the best
candidates, targeting our efforts, and trying to create the right environment –
because we don’t know! We can’t predict
– instead, Jesus says, trust. That the Lord of the harvest will produce the harvest, when and
where it is pleasing to Him. And
if that’s maddeningly frustrating for us, then perhaps we need to adjust our
thinking! And remember that the Word is
His, not ours. The Church is His, not
ours. The growth is His, not ours. And the harvest is His, not ours.
And so instead
of predictability, we have something
better – we have His promise, as we heard in Isaiah:
For as the rain and the snow come down from
heaven
and do not
return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower
and bread to the eater,
so shall my word
be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not
return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
And this is good! For when things are in our control, in our
hands, we can never be sure. For on our own, what can we do? What can we accomplish? I can’t even make my garden grow, let alone
produce a harvest for God!! . . . But in God’s hands, His creating hands, His
nail-pierced hands, then we can be sure. Absolutely sure. For those hands, once pierced and fastened to
the cross, but now raised from the dead, are the hands that have defeated all
our enemies. Those are the hands that
have taken the weeds and doubts of our sins and pulled them up by the roots and
forgiven them. The hands
that shield us from the burning persecution of Satan and shade us in His grace
and care. And those hands, that came down from Heaven to be with us,
will one day carry us up to be with
Him, once again in Paradise. . . . None of
that can we do. But all of that He has done, for you, in your life, and it is His desire to work the same
in all lives. That your heart be good,
fertile soil, producing a harvest of faith and love and thankfulness and praise
to our God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – who does such wondrous things for
us.
And what does such a harvest look like? It is not simply numbers and crowded pews –
it is the harvest of the fruits of faith toward God and love toward our
neighbor. It is the fruit of confession,
a word which means saying back to God what He has said to us. Or in other words, returning His Word to Him
not empty, but in faith. And so as He
has told us we are sinners, we confess that we are. As He has told us that He is our Father and
Saviour, we confess that He is, in the Creed. And this is the Word doing its work in us, making
good soil, granting us faith and the forgiveness of our sins. . . .
But not only that – for the Word not only returns
to God in our words, but in our lives. In lives of good works.
Lives of helping and loving and serving. And not just in big, spectacular ways – in
fact, usually not in those
ways! But in ways that may seem to us
rather ordinary and mundane. In doing
the good that God would have you do right where He has placed you: in your
life, in your family, in your home, in your job, at your school, with your
friends. There, producing fruit. Living as Christ. Loving as you have been
loved. Forgiving
as you have been forgiven.
Serving as your have been served.
These are the fruits that are pleasing to Him.
And Caitie, this is the faith and life you are today
now, in just a moment, being confirmed into.
Today is not an ending, but the beginning of a new stage of your life in
Christ. And Satan hates it. He hated it when you were baptized, and he
will howl in agony as you confess your faith publicly this morning! And so you will face challenges. Satan and his allies are going to attack you,
and as we heard in the parable, try to choke or burn or snatch away the Word of
God and faith that are in your heart – planted there by your Saviour Himself,
by His Holy Spirit. He has been
attacking you already, but now even more. And if it were up to you to keep your faith,
or to produce your own fruit, you would fail.
Miserably.
Just like the rest of us!
For life is not predictable,
and I do not know what lies ahead for you, or for any of us. But this I know, and encourage you with: remember
always the promise of your Father, who claimed you as His own in Holy Baptism and
who is greater than Satan. Remember His
promise that as He has saved you He will be with you, and feed you with His
body and blood, and keep you, and protect you.
Remember His promise that His Word will not return to Him empty, but
produce a harvest in you, in accordance with His good and gracious will. And remember His promise to bless and keep
you, to make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you, to look upon you
with favor, and give you peace. And in
His hands, you can be sure. Absolutely
sure, that He who makes such wonderful promises, will also keep them.
So what is God going to accomplish in you, and
through you? I do not know. But I am eager to see. For He has brought you to this day for a purpose, and He will see
it through to completion. For you
are His dearly loved child. And though things will not always be
predictable, you can be sure and certain that all will be good. For His good He will accomplish in you,
through His Word, through His body and blood, through His forgiveness. Making you good soil. Producing an abundant
harvest. You have His promise,
signed in His blood.
In the Name of the Father,
and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.