To you who have been planted here, in this place, now, in this time, in the bottomlands, the sandy loams and clay, in the fertile places and those choked by noxious interlopers, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and from the LORD Jesus Christ, our sower and Savior. Amen.
Sometimes, the Word of the LORD comes so softly as to evade even the most attentive listeners among us. In a wisp of air, a whisper as immaterial as a cottonwood puff lilting along over a meadow, a word is spoken to us beyond our capacities to take it in, to grasp it, treasure it, and say for sure that it happened. Other times, life just gets too plain noisy to hear anything clearly, and in a vigorous clamor we are lost to any sensible state of mind, only dealing with what comes up in front of us, only able to respond to the clashes and crashes of wave upon wave of interference, static, tumult, and upheaval as we fight for balance, for solid footing and an easy breath of air. We get turned around in a wall of sound of competing voices… this one calling forth desire from us, that one inflaming our scorn and wrath. We become deaf, left in dire straits without a word from our LORD, drifting haplessly from one gaping mouth to the next, hoping in vain that the honey or bile that drips and spills from them will sustain us completely. So many voices calling for our ears, which is the one we long to hear?
And again there are those times when the Word catches us squarely in the eardrum. It reverberates through us, we feel its echo from the soles of our feet through to the tops of our heads and we cannot resist this word as it enters our hearts to change us again and again and again. Finally, this Word works its way out of our own mouths, parting our lips and drawing our breath to speak its way into the ears of another sinner, to kill and make alive in Christ as it has killed us and made us alive. It’s as if we were made to hear this Word, to receive this very gift, as though there were some acreage in us all just waiting for the sound of this voice.
Like seeds and soil, like earth and the rain that falls upon it, like sun and heat and air and space, the Word of the LORD and the heart of a sinner are made for each other. When we feel the ancient sting of conscience in us, when we wilt under the blaze of our tormentors in this life, when we lose all hope for the good ground, the Word that God has unleashed upon the world falls like a welcome soaker on a hot July day: feeding us, cooling us down, bringing a reprieve from the pinch and poke of sin. And though this Word falls wherever the sower has passed with his satchel of seed — on barren lands, on rocky ground, among the thistle and thorn or in the sweet bottom lands where the black dirt smolders in sunlight after a warm rain — it WILL NOT RETURN TO THE ONE WHO SPEAKS IT EMPTY. It will NEVER FAIL to accomplish its purpose. Whether it brings down to death, feeds, gives comfort and assurance, or brings about new life where there was none before, this Word can be trusted… not because we are good at trusting or because it satisfies our endless testing of it on the basis of our logic, our emotional responses to it, or our consensus about it, but because the One who speaks this Word is eminently trustworthy.
So many types of soil, and yet the same seed falls on them all. It can become easy to let ourselves believe that we are one or another type, while our neighbor falls into a different classification according to our assessments. We can get too busy decoding this story about a sower and his seed and find ourselves lost in a game that only pins labels that we invent on people.
Is that really what we’re after? Is that what we want? Is that what Christ calls us to when he comes and tells these parables to us? No. Surely this is loss and nothing else but the folly that we all invent when we’re all sitting around waiting for the rain to stop.
God’s Word remains — it has taken up residence… dwelling in us — this isn’t a “one-shot deal” here, as so many false preachers and tormentors of conscience like to present it. God is so generous, so loving, and so abundantly gracious, that in Christ Jesus we will never cease to receive the gifts of his righteousness, his innocence, his blessedness as long as we shall live. No, this LORD of yours has decided that you will not go one second without having his Word spoken to you. So all creation preaches his Word to you: birds sing, owls hoot and coyotes howl at night, the wind blasts the leaves and rushes past your drapes to scatter your paperwork so neatly arranged on the table, horses stomp and whinny and fart in the pastures, and the bustle of an entire metropolis interrupts you to place you completely at the mercy of God who has chosen to speak to you and never shut up, never give up, and never give in.
The sower sows with glee, with wild and reckless abandon, slinging seed wherever it falls from his hand, to do what seed and soil do when they are placed together. The Holy Spirit in the same way calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the entire world by way of Christ’s body the Church; keeping it in the one true faith in him by way of nothing more permanent than a drawn breath and a spoken word. As good farmers, we would think that such a waste of good seed deserves scornful reproach and swift correction lest this maniac exhaust the supply. But there’s where the LORD’s work differs from our own: he never runs out of seed, he never comes up short on resources, and his stores of treasure never run dry.
We are each of us subject to all of the experiences Jesus describes in this parable. Sometimes we’re the hardpan ground of the path, and the seed never has a chance to even sprout before becoming bird food. Other times we’re full of rocks (I keep all of mine in my head), lending nary enough space for a tender sprout to sink roots and grow strong. We get lost sometimes among the “itchy pokies,” the thorns and briars, brambles and nettles, having so many other voices draw us away that they simply choke out any chance of a healthy plant producing fruit. And other times we are that ground where everything has come together: nutrients and rain, tillage and drainage, sun and wind and space. So the seed falls on us, sprouts, takes root, and grows strong to produce so much fruit as to overwhelm the harvest.
You are the LORD’s treasured home; your heart has always been his one and only destination and deepest desire. That you receive his grace, his mercy, his steadfast and unfailing love for you defines the joy in his constant work in the Spirit, who keeps you in the knowledge that there is therefore no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus. For that is exactly where you find yourself today: fed, watered, weeded, harvested, and flung again as his own beloved child… forgiven for Christ’s sake and given in Christ’s faith to those whose ears have not yet heard. Go, the rain has stopped, and his reign has begun. You are a worker of joy in a kingdom of overflowing plenty. And may the peace of God that surpasses all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
