“A Wondrous Sowing, A Wondrous Harvest”
“A Wondrous Sowing, A Wondrous Harvest”
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
In the name of the Living God and the Risen Christ.
The excitement about Jesus, the Messiah, is growing in Galilee. Greater crowds press in on the Lord to hear his teaching and experience his divine power. But as the excitement grows, so grows the opposition. The religious authorities of the day seek to entrap him in legal technicalities. When this doesn’t work, they “go big, or go home” and accuse him of being in league with Beelzebub, the prince of demons. The Lord even meets some resistance from his own family as he redefines this most basic building block of society in a new and radical way: those who believe in him and follow him in this kingdom are a new, eternal family which cannot even be separated by death.
When the crowds grow too large, he embarks in a boat and sets out a little way from the shore—partly just for space, and partly for some better acoustics for preaching. Then he gives what St. Matthew records as his first parable, and one of his most famous. It is a wonderous parable indeed. Wonderous in its sowing, and wonderous in its harvest.
First, the wonderous sowing. You might be familiar with the Sunday School definition of a parable. Anyone remember? “An earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” Now that’s not a bad definition, but I might add “often with a surprising twist.” So, “an earthly story, with a heavenly meaning and a surprising twist.” The surprising twist in the parable of the Sower and the seed is the abundant, almost wasteful tossing of the seeds everywhere. I mean, who runs a farm like this? Or business like this? Or a household like this? “Oh, just toss the seed everywhere and see what happens!” I’m sure someone like Mike or Evan in this congregation can help me with this, but isn’t there some metric like an “efficiency quotient” or something by which you gage how wasteful a company is, or how efficiently you make a product, or how much you’re getting out of your workers? Yeah, this farmer’s failing at this—he’s definitely going to have a tough conversation with HR this week! He sows the seed everywhere. He tosses it near and far. He throws piles of seed almost recklessly.
Admittedly, part of this we might be able to explain by ancient farming practices in Israel. They didn’t have thousands of acres of turned-over prairie in straight lines, like you’ll see in downstate Illinois. The seed was not placed in neatly prepared furrows, on perfectly flat land, but rather scattered on the winding terraced hillsides of Israel.[1] But I think there’s more in Matthew 13 than just a different style of farming in a different era. What we have here in the wonderous, almost reckless sowing of the seed is a picture of the wonderous, reckless, grace of God. The Lord is not cheap with his life-giving word. There’s no efficiency quotient of the gospel. There is ultimately no metric for mercy, except “more.”
In this we have a wonderous picture of the amazing grace of God for all of us. God sent the very most He could—His only begotten Son—unto the very worst He could—a broken, fallen, and rebellious creation. And this word of God made flesh the Lord Jesus poured his whole self out for the life of the world. All the world. All the different types of soil: far and wide, hither and yon, across the many terraced stratum of society.
It is wonderous to reflect on the abundance of God’s mercy to you and me; and how wasteful or even reckless the word of God’s grace might seem to be. But how the believing Christian heart must fill up with joy and spill over with praise when we realize God didn’t go cheap on us!
Nor do we, as his redeemed and renewed people, go cheap on his word sown through us. We sow like the wonderous Sower, not with an eye to efficiency but towards faithfulness. We sow everywhere; always; abundantly; even when we don’t know what the results might be; or if we’ve sown there before; or even if it sometimes seems like a waste. And yes, some will fall along the path, where it takes no root and the evil one snatches it away. And yes, some will fall along the rocky soil, among those who receive the word quickly and with joy but whose faith is shallow with no root. And yes, some will fall among the thorn bushes where worldly wealth, accomplishment, or success chokes the word, making it unfruitful.
But here’s the thing: we cannot identify the type of soil before we sow the seed. And we cannot control what the Lord will do with his word once planted in a human heart. And we dare not be stingy with his word when we have been given it with such abundance and grace.
So, that’s the first twist in this earthly story with a heavenly meaning—the wonderous, even wasteful sowing of the word.
The second wonderous thing is the abundant, fruitful harvest that follows. The good soil, those who hear the word and understand it, yield 100, or 60, or 30-fold. To be honest, we don’t even know exactly what this means. Are we talking one bushel sown produces 100 bushels of produce? Or is it 100 grains on each head of wheat? (I’ll have to ask Dwight Deppen about this. See, I need a lot of congregational help today in my sermon!)
The point is the wonderous abundance—that when the word of God takes root in a person’s heart, there is an amazing result of faith and fruit that follow. As Martin Luther put it in his explanation of the Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “God’s kingdom comes when, by the Holy Spirit, we believe His holy word and lead lives according to it.” Faith in abundance—trusting God in all things; following his word, even when everything else tells me otherwise; knowing that he’s got me in his arms no matter what the future holds or how hard the road might be ahead.
And works in abundance. In response to the gospel seed sown and by the power and grace of the Spirit, the Christian life shows forth the fruits of faith in love, service, and sacrifice to others. And as amazing is the abundance of the word sown, so equally amazing is the effect it produces in the good soil that receives it. Hearts and lives are transformed by the power of the Spirit moving in them. When you see it, it is wonderous to behold indeed!
An earthly story with a heavenly meaning and a rather surprising twist. God’s word is like seed sown on the ground. But when He sows it, He sows it in abundance and without boundary or limit. And the power of God’s word is such that it transforms people’s faith and life, in the most amazing, reckless ways. The harvest lasts even unto eternity.
May God give us His Spirit that our hearts may receive His wonderous word and that wonderous lives of faith and service will follow.
Come soon, Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] Larry Hurtado, International Biblical Commentary, Mark, p. 71