Encore Post: A parable is a story told about very ordinary things and events, but that has a hidden spiritual meaning. Jesus loved to teach by parable. About 35% of His teaching uses them. Jesus used parables to help us understand God, His people, people in the world and the things God wants us to do. The stories themselves are very easy to understand. Sometimes the meaning is not so clear. In fact, Jesus once said He told parables so that some people would not understand at all. Thankfully, Jesus almost always tells His disciples what the story means.
Most parables make just one point. All of the details in these stories are there to make that one point. So, for example, the three parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son (Prodigal Son) (Luke 15) are about the joy God wants us to feel when He saves someone and not so much about the grace of Jesus who seeks and saves the lost.
Allegories are parables where each character or thing in the story has an independent meaning. These allow for many different interpretations. When Jesus wants us to draw more than one point from a parable, He tells us when He explains the story. He tells us what each item in the story stands for. This he does with the Parable of the Four Soils (The Parable of the Sower) (Luke 8:4-15).
Strictly speaking, simple metaphors are not parables, but proverbs or illustrations. Parables are stories. So sayings such as the City on a Hill, the Light of the World and simply metaphors. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether Jesus is telling a parable or simply speaking about something that actually happened. The Good Samaritan is one of these stories. (Luke 10:25-37)
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The words of our Lord Jesus should make your ears perk up, as it most assuredly made the ears of His original hearers perk up. Seed, sower, and ground. A word picture of creation. That is what you see when a seed is scattered on the ground, it sprouts up and begins to produce its flower and fruit or grain. It just happens. 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, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind (Gen 1:11-13). So also, in the beginning when God gave dominion to man and woman, He said to them, “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:26-28) They were to grow and scatter, filling the earth, living before the Lord God forever in gladness.
But the unthinkable happened, the serpent, the murderer from the beginning, came and brought upon Adam and Eve and the fruit of their union and every union since, death (Gen 3:1-19) You plant a seed, but you bury a body. A planted seed sprouts, a buried body is food for the worms. The children of Adam and Eve would be going back to the dust from which they came without any hope.
But in this moment of utter disaster, when all hope of living before God was lost, the Lord God came to the defense of Adam and Eve and spoke that beautiful promise you heard last week. A new Seed, the Seed of the woman who would come and defeat the serpent at his dirty game. This Seed would be planted into the earth and would bear the fruit which the Old Adam no longer could even dream of producing before God.
The Seed is none other than Jesus Christ. His father sent Him, and He was planted into the womb of the Virgin Mary by the preaching of the Angel Gabriel. He was born to the Virgin, in the town of Bethlehem. He came just like a tiny mustard seed in the eyes of the world. Hardly a soul paid a bit of attention to the babe in the stable. And this Seed would grow in wisdom and stature. He was becoming like the noble cedar prophesied by Ezekiel in our reading from his great prophetic book.
It is He who came to crush the head of the serpent. Jesus reminded His disciples in what manner this would come about. In John 12 Jesus says, “Truly, Truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” There are those who would say Jesus is wrong, that the bible has an error here. A seed has to germinate to produce fruit say the scientists, and they are true. But this Seed, Jesus, He must die in order for you to have life again. He is speaking about the manner in which your redemption would come about. He must go to the cross and die and be buried and in three days rise from the dead. He gives up His life for you. Paul says in his first epistle to the Corinthians, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20-28). Jesus went through death and rose from the dead that you, who confess faith in Him, would as well.
The cross of Jesus is the tree which is the refuge of all who are weak and heavy laden with sin and sorrow in this life. Come and take up refuge here in its shadow. The benefits of Christ’s cross comes to you in the Sacraments which Christ our Lord instituted. Through them you are given the fruits of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Your sins are forgiven. They are washed away by His cleansing blood. You are made new in Christ Jesus in the waters of Holy Baptism. You are made in the image of a new seed, the kind that no longer dies. You will live forever with Christ in the Kingdom that has no end. Your faith is sustained in the eating and drinking of his body and blood.
This is the message which we have received by the preaching of God’s Ministers of the Gospel. This is the promise of Christ Jesus by which you have been called to faith in Him. That yes, while still live in our sinful flesh and still sin much because we fall into many temptations, we have a Lord who has come and has saved us from the wages of sin. Death no longer has dominion over Him, and by faith in Him it no longer has dominion over us. This is our confession. Indeed, we deserve punishment and eternal death for our sins, but for the sake of Jesus our Lord who died for us, we have the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation in His Name. Thanks be to God. We have found shade and refuge in our Lord Jesus Christ.
The world does not look favorably upon our Lord, His cross, our His sowers of the blessed Gospel. But the Word of our Lord is powerful, and will sustain you unto the time that the Lord deems the harvest ready. His Word speaks to you, you literally have the seed planted into you by the preaching of it, and it sprouts and faith grows in the fertile heart. God sends His Word, and it will not return to Him void. Therefore do not stop being edified by the word of God and the preaching thereof. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Joyfully hear Christ’s Words for you in order that you be sustained in this faith delivered to you in the waters of Holy Baptism as you traverse this life. Remember you are not alone as you walk in this world. He promises He is with you and never will leave you nor forsake you.
He promises He will create something new. And He has by His Son’s death and resurrection. We may not look like much right now in the world — nothing more than the tree from Charlie Brown’s Christmas — but we appear glorious in the eyes of our heavenly Father. John the beloved disciples says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
And you are sustained by the hearing of His Word and the reception of His Sacrament, His Body and His Blood. You are being kept safe in His love, the love poured out for you at His cross. And being seed of His kind by the waters of Baptism, you will bear the same fruit. You are called to a life faith in the Lord as well as a live of service and love to one another. As Paul said last week, “so we believe, so we speak.” So, speak about the new creation you are because of Christ Jesus because He has come to save you. You are of good seed, seed that is imperishable. We are called to talk about what has happened to us in Christ Jesus. It might not look like much with earthly eyes, but the message is true. Let hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
The Sower of Christ’s Word is called to simply sow the Word abroad. God, Himself, gives the growth. And the seed will grow where it will in the time that God has appointed. We will likely not see the fruits of such scattering, but rejoice and be glad that you are called to the labor of proclaiming Christ to those who surround you in this life. And rejoice all the more if the Lord lets you see the fruits of faith come to maturity in those you have spoken the good news of Christ. The Kingdom might look tiny, just like the baby in a manger, or man naked on a cross, but what we are is known to God, and I hope it known also in your conscience. You are of good seed, you are Christ’s. Therefore, you are a new creation and will be numbered with the fruit following the firstfruits of Christ.
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Ever the great catechist, Jesus, gives us, his catechumens, the same lesson in a different form. We ought to forgive one another so that we might be reconciled to one another but more importantly be reconciled to God our heavenly Father who forgives us or debts for the sake the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered on the cross for the sins of the world. We are after all children of a Father who forgives.
Peter’s question gives Jesus the opportunity to give the parable of the unforgiving servant. We might want to be like Peter, “Lord, how many times do I have to forgive?” He still does the same thing over and over again. He never says he is sorry for what he does. There does not seem to be any genuineness. Do I really need to give forgiveness? When is enough, enough?
It is so much easier to give forgiveness when the person who committed the sin against us says they are sorry. But perhaps we need to take a step back. In today’s world repentance, confession, and absolution are all confused. Peter along with the disciples didn’t seem to get it right away either, as his question reveals.
Only when we identify sin as sin, are we able to then move on towards repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Knowing sin comes by knowing God’s Word where He defines it. Because let’s face it, if we do not know what God defines as sin, we will not be able to tell a person that they sinned against us in order that we forgive them properly as God desires us to do. Also, when we sin against someone else it difficult to repent of something, we don’t know to be a sin. And if we don’t believe what we are doing to be sin, then we certainly will not seek the forgiveness of sins found in Christ Jesus.
So first we need to know what sin is. And we should also add in we need to know what the consequences of sin is. God tell us straight up: “The consequence of sin is death.” But God does not desire the death of the sinner. That is already established. In His great mercy, God has given us His Son Jesus Christ as the one who stands in our place, taking into himself the punishment of death and hell that should be for us. Christ comes proclaiming that God has been reconciled to his creation in the giving of the Son at the Cross. Forgiveness of sins comes by way of the cross where the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ flowed.
Yet, we keep on sinning. We still transgress against every single one of those 10 commandments. We are sitting ducks for the hungry serpent seeking to devour his next victims, especially if our consciences are so seared that we feel no guilt, regret, or shame for our sinful words and deeds. The world has thrown the Law of God out the window and the really the word sin, except for the most egregious things or the sin of being politically incorrect, or speaking against the tide of culture. You can see the moral degradation all around us. And what is worse is that we, who ought to know better being Children of God by Holy Baptism, go along with it. Like the World, we sin against God thinking we know better than He. Or we think we can declare God’s Word to be obsolete and behind with the times and thus follow the flow of culture. We allow our own children and grandchildren to follow in the ways of the world far too often, to do things which are contrary to God’s word. Sins which we let go unchecked causes pain to not just the person who commits the sin but there is also collateral damage done. A so-called individual sin that shouldn’t hurt anyone hurts a lot more people than you think and can lead many to their own sins too. And he heard what should happen to someone who causes a little one who believes in Christ to sin. Repent. Yes, we all have left sin unchecked. We have failed to identify sin as sin. We have failed to seek out our brother when we have been wronged. And we have tried to cover up our own actions and deeds where we have sinned against someone else.
We need to be made aware of our debts. And if we are honest our debts are to numerous to count. Unfortunately, this practice has all but been lost, especially in our Lutheran Churches, but when Luther lived He went to confession. Private Confession. Now at the time it was taught that you must confess every sin that you had ever done since your last confession. In other words, you had to innumerate your sins. Luther could spend hours at a time in that confessional booth. On one occasion Luther left the confessional only to come running back to the booth because he forgot one or two sins. The Church no longer says that we need innumerate our sins. For who can know all of his errors? But knowing our debts and our sins are important because then we just can see how merciful our Lord and God is to us for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by our Lord’s messengers, the Gospel is proclaimed so that faith in Christ be created. We hear Christ was crucified for Me. He died for Me.
For we are like the one with a 10,000 talent debt. We have sin up to our eyeballs and we won’t stop sinning. There is no way we can pay what we owe. We can only throw ourselves at the mercy of the Judge. Lord, mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us. And God has had mercy on us for the sake of Christ, who came to die for the sin of the world, paying the debt we owe. Paying not with gold or silver but with his holy and precious blood poured out for us and the world at the cross.
Last Sunday we talked a little about how God deals with the problem of sin in the Kingdom of Right, the Church, by going to the heart and changing them. Ezekiel talks about a heart transplant. When our hearts are changed by the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we then can forgive those who have brought us pain, suffering, and grief because of sins. A sinful heart will not forgive. But a heart made new in the image of Christ will. Mercy has been shown to you by God your Father in Heaven. If you are children of the Father in Heaven, you then will also show mercy to your brothers and sisters. For God did not send Christ only to pay for your debt, but Christ paid the debt of all mankind. Christ died for the sins of that person who has sinned against you, so then you also should forgive them. Just like God forgives you. It plays out time and time again when you hear the news of a senseless death, if Christians, the family will speak forgiveness to the person. One such event the brother of such a victim spoke directly to his brother’s murderer and said “I hope you go to God with all your guilt, all the bad things you might have done in the past, I know I speak for myself, I forgive you, and I know if you go to God and ask Him, He will forgive you. And I love you just like anyone else.” The world cannot even begin to deal with this type of behavior. At the time political activists and journalists came unglued and unhinged at the forgiveness given by this man to the murderer of his brother. They wanted hate to spewed. The did not want forgiveness to be offered but anger to held on to. But you, a child of the Heavenly Father, forgive your brother, for your Heavenly Father has forgiven you.
But it is hard to do! It is hard to do because we are still sinful and we are still sinned against! We still agonize over the hurtful and angry words spewed our way because of our own positions and opinion. We don’t like to give forgiveness to some who can’t say “I am sorry.” We hurt when people do not take our words in the kindest way. We can get burned by those whom we confront about a sin they do not really want to have exposed. And it hurts too when you know you have sinned against someone and try to ask for forgiveness but rather than hearing “I forgive you,” you get “its okay.” That is not the same as hearing absolution. Use the words Jesus has given us to speak his love to one another. Forgive one another for the sins that you commit against one another.
So how are we able to do all this in the midst of being so hard and so contrary to the way of the world? Be where Jesus is, acknowledge your own debts to the Lord, your own sins for what they are, deserving of death and hell. But call upon God to be merciful and Just, as He has promised to be. For again, he does not desire the death of the sinner, but that the sinner turn and be reconciled to Him. And God has done all the work to forgive and reconcile us to Himself. He has had mercy on you. He sent His Son to be your Savior from sin, death, and hell. And having been made a child of the Living God, be like your Father, who continues to show His mercy to us who sin constantly against him, let us show mercy to those who sin against us.
Be made ready and capable to pass this mercy of your Heavenly Father on by filling up with Christ’s mercy at His Supper. Therefore be a vessel through which the mercy of the Lord may be made known to those who may have never seen God’s mercy before. Forgive richly because you have been richly forgiven by your Heavenly Father for the sake of Christ Jesus your Lord.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Something that every Christian ought to be doing is reading their bibles. Some folks like to read from start to finish, and that’s fine, but we can easily get distracted if we began in Genesis and Exodus and then we hit Leviticus. The laws of Israel get us bogged down and we lose interest and stop reading. However, if we were to sit down and read through a Gospel say, Matthew, in one sitting it might surprise you how many connections the Gospel has interwoven throughout the book. Matthew was a master at this, as He was crafting and using his Gospel to teach new Christians about Jesus, the faith granted to them and the new life of faith in Christ.
Consider Matthew’s gospel as a catechism book, God’s Word, but crafted and put together in such a format that every chapter builds on the themes before it, word choice and ideas that show up in the beginning get refined, and more poignant as the book progresses. Jesus’ parable of the weeds picks up a few ideas from St. John the Baptist primarily the fire at the end, and the parable that precedes it with the words and ideas of the seed, planting, and the field. It also deals with some of the themes from the Sermon the Mount, primarily the part of judging. Reading the Gospel of Matthew in sitting certainly helps begin to see how masterfully Matthew was in tying together any loose ends.
So, lets imagine shall we that we are students of St. Matthew and the best catechist ever: Jesus and see what this parable says to us in our day and our age. It is nice that Jesus like the parable of the Sower gives an explanation for us because if he had only given us the explanation of the first parable we would just assume the seed had the same meaning, as well as the field, etc. And we could certainly see how this would fit. But Jesus has another meaning in mind, which is why he gives this parable an explanation as well.
He explains the parable: “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”
The workers, the angels were at the ready to pluck the weeds from the word go. But the Lord knew better because what had been made good in the beginning had been so corrupted that nothing of man was good, there would be sons of the kingdom, unless God Himself acted on behalf of his creation. His own son would need to be planted into the world. The Son, born of the virgin, the seed of the Woman would have to come into the world in order for there to be any fruit at harvest. Without the coming of this “son of the kingdom” there would be no additional sons and daughters of the kingdom. It would only be a harvest of weeds ready for the fire. And God did not want that. God does not desire the death of anyone. Jesus later in another parable concerning the last day speaks of the fires being first and foremost created for the devil and his angels, not for people, but people who reject this preaching of Jesus and the promise Jesus gives in this preaching will be sent their as well.
So, having heard the first parable of this chapter the parable of the sower, you see that God has shown mercy upon his creation. He did not destroy it when He saw the corruption of sin and the fruit of that sin: death. He has sent His Son into the world, to sow the seed that is His Word into the hearts of men, who have been corrupted. But by that word, the men who hear and believe, in others words have been called to a knowledge of Christ Jesus as the Son of the living God, Emmanuel, would be transformed from weeds to a plant that bears fruit and a harvest, making them sons of the Kingdom. Note this is strictly being done by the grace and power of the Lord’s Word. And this merciful and powerful work has taken place in you, for you gladly hear it, and learn from it. By hearing Christ’s preaching, you have been called by His Gospel to faith in Him, and have been made a son or daughter of the kingdom by the waters of Holy Baptism. And you are made righteous for the sake the very Son of God, Jesus Christ, who came to restore and reconcile you to your heavenly Father.
You have been made and accounted Righteous before God in Holy Baptism, but you still live in a sinful world, and you yourself still live in a body marred and corrupted by sin. You still have evil thoughts that come out. You still show your weediness. You having been called sons don’t always act like sons of the kingdom. More often than not we are just like the weeds when it comes to the kind of fruits we produce, good for nothing but the fire. But remember the promise given you in Baptism. You are deemed righteous for the sake of Jesus. And you have forgiveness and life everlasting because Jesus has granted it to you.
And let’s remember folks, Jesus is pretty clear that the enemy is still sowing his seed. We see evil still around us, and its easy to spot as it does not even seem that enemies of Christ and his Church try to hide any more. They are coming from all angles. Even within the tent that is “called Christianity” we have folks who speak the opposite of what Scripture speaks. So how much longer until the end? How much longer do we have to wait? We don’t know. I don’t know, and if you hear someone give an exact date, run from them for they are not speaking for God. Jesus even says he does not know the day or the hour of the return of the Son of Man.
But what is clear also is that Christ is still sowing his own seed. He who has ears let him hear. Jesus still showers us with his mercy and his grace. He has not returned yet for harvest. Until that day, there is still time for his mercy to work to on the hearts of those who are his enemies. He has made you his own. He has given His Words to preached, in order for faith in Him be created in the heart of men and women alike. Weeds can be transformed. You who were once weeds, have been made wheat for the sake of Jesus’ death on the cross, and you have been granted the name of son and daughter of God. And having been made wheat, you bear a harvest because you are grafted into Christ.
Jesus also teaches us to be diligent and remain awake. One of my favorite hymns for this day puts it this way:
Rise my soul to watch and pray, from your sleep awaken! Be not by the evil day Unaware’s o’ertaken; for the foe, well we know, is a harvest reaping while the saints are sleeping. Watch against the devil’s snares Lest asleep he find you; For indeed no pains he spares to deceive and blind you. Satan’s prey, Oft are they Who secure are sleeping, and no watch are keeping.”
The hymn is 663 and I strongly encourage you to learn this hymn and keep it on your lips during these days. Satan, the world, and our own flesh are fighting against us and the church, and we cannot let our guard down lest we lose what Christ has given us. He who has ears let him hear.
So, in catechetical fashion: How does one remain diligent and awake? And how does one with ears hear? Be where the word of Christ is preached. Be where the food which nourishes us and works in us good works is provided. Receive the watering of Christ’s Holy Gospel and the free forgiveness won for you by Christ’s bitter sufferings and death at the cross. Receive the “miracle grow” that is his body and blood, that works in your own heart to trust Christ at his word more and more as well as doing good works toward your neighbor. For by these things you are made ready and kept for the harvest when that day comes.
Out of faith and trust in Christ flows the fruit of the harvest. What those works look like are different depending on your stations and vocations. Perhaps you are a nurse, so caring for the patients put under your charge. Maybe you are a son of elderly parents, so making sure they don’t need to be mowing their grass in the heat of summer by mowing it for them if called upon to do so. Maybe you are the wife of a farmer and so perhaps it’s the simple act of driving the truck to the field with his lunch. What makes these good in the sight of God is that they are done in faith in Christ. Maybe you are student and you have to put up with the false teaching of evolution and listen to the dogma of the secular world, grin and bear it, yet speak the truth when able.
Though you might not feel it now, and you might not feel like you are shining, soon all that seems to have overtaken the truth and the sons of the kingdom on earth will be gathered into bundles and burned at the last. And you, being deemed righteous and good for the sake your Savior Jesus, will be made to shine like the sun, like you were supposed to always shine before our heavenly Father in his Kingdom. May God continue to protect us night and day from the assaults of the Enemy, strength and faith increasing, so that still mind and will shall unite to serve him and forever love him. Amen.
Note: If desiring to hear how this sermon came out in the service, email pastorhercamp@gmail.com. Blessings in Christ!
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Encore Post: Mustard seeds were important to people where Jesus lived. Mustard seeds were the smallest crop that farmers planted, but grew into a tree as large as 10 feet tall. The seed of this kind of mustard plant was black. Farmers ground the seed to make a spice and to use the oil in them. Birds loved to eat these seeds and would often come to eat the seeds and build nests in their branches.
Jesus compared the mustard seed to the Kingdom of God. The kingdom starts small, but grows very big, so that many people can become part of it. The kingdom doesn’t seem to be important, but it will change everything for the good. When we share the Good News of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the forgiveness he won for us on the cross, the Holy Spirit uses it like a seed, to plant faith in hearts and cause it to grow there. Soon the kingdom of God blooms there and spreads.
