Sower and Soils Redux

I have three purposes behind this “corner.” A) To offer a meaningful engagement with the Word of God for those who might not make Sunday service or one of the Bible Studies. B) To occasionally challenge or simply announce some activity or need of congregational life. C) To provide an example of Christian meditation. The word is a lamp to our feet and a guide to our path. What that means is that hopefully we are walking somewhere purposefully and not just aimlessly stumbling

The parable of the Sower and the Soils was the gospel reading last week. And I know in my sermon delivered that I encouraged more meditation in the Sower and less on the soils. More recognition that the Sower’s supply is inexhaustible, that He doesn’t care about the current soil status, and that sowing is not a once and done thing but moves in seasons. I think these are all the gospel elements Less concentration on discerning the soil, unless that discernment was turned toward the status of one’s own heart. Where have I been rocky soil, hard packed, shallow? What weeding or cultivation of my own heart might I do?

I usually do not have trouble leaving the prior lessons behind. Every Sunday before leaving the building I read the lessons for next Sunday. They can sit in my head and gut on my day off out of the office. Maybe they have germinated by the time I get back. But this week I could not shake the image of the soils. Many if not most of us give little thought to institutions. It is popular to be cynical about them. And many deserve it. Or if we are not cynical, we assume that they will be around forever even without our help. The seed sown is the Word of God. But the Word of God turns into a plant that is supposed to be fruitful. Maybe stretching the parable beyond what it is meant to take, but plants are planted somewhere. We are planted somewhere. We grow somewhere. And that somewhere is often various institutions.

At the most basic level we are all planted in specific families. We are citizens of specific nations. We are members of a specific church. And within those three estates – or broad institutions – we often have roles to play in other groups. And those groups are both shaped by us, but more often form us. I’ve been reading Vice President Vance’s recent memoir of his return to faith. My interest is professional. What type of faith did he have? What type of faith has he returned to? What spurred it? Who or what helped or hindered along the way? And his story is largely one of formation by various institutions. His family gave him a faith, but honestly not one set on a very secure foundation. He watched more televangelists with his memaw than Sundays he was in a church. He had developed something of a relationship with one pastor in one of the phases where his Dad was active in his life, but it could not have been that great, because when he tried to contact that pastor he was surprised the man had taken a call elsewhere. “I had no pastor that I could turn to…and I was too far away to stay in close touch. (p49).” Life in the Marines and especially in Iraq had given him both the best witnesses and a perfect storm of cynicism as waiting for his discharge he got sucked into an attempt to end a Sarge’s career.

In his story it isn’t the institutions of Ohio State and Yale Law that destroy his early ungrounded faith. That work had already largely been done. But the soil of those institutions grew something different. Ohio State drilled in the idea that “I deserved everything that came to me…any sense of community attachment – that we owe something to the people from whom we come – gave way (p67).” Yale put that on steroids and added pure status. “I wanted to go to a good law school because that is what other’s wanted (p72)…the belief system of places like Yale had a way of turning real vice into perceived virtue (p79).”

Vance’s loss of faith is a story of non-participation and weak institutions. His loss of faith is a story of his family absenting themselves from the institutions of that faith, and then stronger institutions stepping in to provide different ways for the plant to grow. Within his story I think is something for us in general. If you want good soil that produces 30, 60 even 100 fold, you’ve got to maintain it. It is those institutions that are often the soil. And we have not done the work to maintain them.

Why Does It Feel So Hard at Times?

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Biblical Text: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (Isaiah 55:10-13)

The core text is the Parable of the Sower and the Soils, one of about two or three Biblical stories that I think are still general knowledge even today. Although honestly this sermon doesn’t treat them as that. It has a good section talking about basic textual meaning. A smart preacher once said, “assume they know nothing.” Now the best thing about this text happens to be how great a service you can construct with the hymns. Including ending with LSB 923 Almighty Father, Bless the Word which ends on the actual Doxology. You don’t get better.

But turning back to the sermon, the text at a very basic level is one of the few answers to a why question. It’s a common and natural why question, why if God gets his way and he wants people to believe are there so many that do not? The parable of he Sower and Soils explains that. The gospel comes a certain way – by proclamation, by the Word. And it has enemies. The sermon matches these up with three types of soils. In this sense the parable is legalistic in that it describes the basic functioning of the world. But I do think there are ways it proclaims the gospel. And those come not by focusing on the soils, but by focusing on the sower. And then with the picture of the sower pondering the nature farming. How it is a seasonal game. In that sense I don’t think you are meant to take the soils are unchangeable eschatological statements. They are more encouragements to examine ourselves. What type of soil has our heart been?

Anyway, maybe it is getting older. Or maybe my personal standards are slipping. But I like this sermon.

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Dr. Luther and Summertime Sadness

Sure, you could pick up the Old Testament reading and mine it for something. This week’s is Isaiah 55:10-13 and it is perfectly paired with the Gospel lesson – the parable of the Sower and the Soils. The Isaiah passage is surely part of the understanding of the soils. We do not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And that word does go out. And that word does accomplish what it was sent to do. Now we might wonder at why some of it falls on hard soil and apparently does nothing, but that is about the human heart. The Word does do something. It reveals the state of our hearts. And maybe like the rain and snow of Isaiah’s passage, that Word can eventually crack even the hardest of hearts. Or maybe they are like Pharoah. Knowing our own heart is tough. Does it bring up thorns? Or shall it become a tree, a cypress, planted over the waters?

You could turn to the Romans passage. But that would be cannibalizing what you are going to say in Bible Study after worship. Sure, that is only 20% of the worship population, but they deserve something prepared and fresh. But supposedly 60% of the total roster opens this email. If on any given summer Sunday you are fortunate to cross 50% of the roster in worship. And you humor yourself into thinking that 80% who open might at least read the first paragraph. You get to the idea that this little article is probably the item of work most engaged with in the week. And besides, as the epistle says (Romans 8:12-17), “you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.” Oh, you could certainly come up with something that quickens the spirit from that. At least if you are willing to cut it off there and ignore Romans 8:17, “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” Even then maybe you could invoke Tennyson’s Odyssey – “made weak by time and fate, yet strong in will…to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.” Unlike Odysseus who angered Poseidon and suffered, we have not angered God and so suffer. Our journey home through suffering is walking with God, with angels, with Jesus all the way.

But as you stare at the blank page, maybe stuck in a bit of summertime sadness, you hear something moving down the hall. What soul is it in need of solace that without knowing it is giving your soul purpose? And then you get the surprise. “Dr. Luther, it’s been a few years, I was beginning to think that we might not meet again in this realm. How is Leo X doing? Are you guys having a good chuckle over another Leo excommunicating another group (SSPX) that insists they are just preaching and teaching what the church has always taught?”

“Heh. Yes, that little episode has certainly come up. Although maybe I’d point out with a little too much pride, half of Christendom sided with me. Bishop Lefebvre’s group is smaller than even your little Synod.”

“You got me there Dr. Luther. Heaven doesn’t issues traveling passes lightly. What brings you to my small corner today? Why does the great man show up in this humble parish study?”

“What is that pungent phrase you just invoked? Summertime sadness?”

“Yes, well, I stole that, from the singer, Lana DelRey. It’s kinda her entire vibe. And it’s a little infectious.”

“Yes. I can understand that. All the best lines are stolen anyway. We are all just recycling the Word that went out from God originally. Although being German we never called it anything as trite as sadness. We called it anfechtung. There are so many different ways of suffering. Stealing someone else’s line, everyone you meet is engaged in a great struggle. Maybe not over half of Christendom. Maybe over a single soul. Maybe theirs. Maybe that single struggle engulfs all of the Kingdom with it.”

“Dr. Luther, you’ve never been indirect before. Is the sadness spreading, even in heaven? Make it clear, why are you here?’

“Read your Isaiah again. You know I called him the fifth evangelist.”

“Yes, who did you steal that line from?”

“That’s mine, or that’s my story. But focus now Herr Pastor. Does the Word fail?”

“No. But I know where you are going. Look at things. Does this look like success?”

“So are you now the judge? Were you there when he laid the foundations? Have you discerned all the purposes of almighty God? I remind you I’ve had 500 years in paradise and Leo and I are just starting to put some of our lives together.”

“Fine. No. I’m not. But what it your point.”

“You live by faith. God’s word goes out and it accomplishes his purposes. Whether you know them or not. You can go out and come back in in joy.”

And with that Dr. Luther must have been needed elsewhere. Although without a good bye, maybe I shall see him again.

All Authority

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Biblical Text: Matthew 11:25-30

National holidays – like July 4th – sit uneasily within the church. Why is that? The short answer is various authorities of the three estates. This sermon talks about those three – home, church and state – and their rightful authority. And how the authority of each is rightly derived from Christ who all authority in heaven and upon earth has been granted to by the Father. The sermon is an attempt to walk the middle path between a couple of ditches that the church so often falls in when it comes to national celebrations.

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Prisoners of Hope

Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of Hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. – Zechariah 9:12

Some phrases just dwell in the imagination. Prisoners of Hope. That’s one of them. Two words that you wouldn’t normally put together. Prisoner and Hope. Prisons of various types are famed for the words put over their entry. The entry is Hell in Dante is “Abandon Hope All You Who Enter Here.” The entry to Auschwitz was “Work will set you free.” On Riker’s Island (NYS Prison) you will find the correction facility motto “New York’s Boldest.” On one Soviet Gulag it said, “Shock labor is the path to early release!” It is absurdly funny that Hell might have been the most honest. In most ways we might think of prison as being the opposite of Hope. Yet the prophet Zechariah ties these two things together to describe faithful Israel, prisoners of Hope.

Zechariah is prophesying to Israel in exile. Their kingdom gone, their temple destroyed, the reality of their covenant with God at least in question. Would any God with any reality allow this for his people? Israel’s exile for most of Christian history has been used as a metaphor for the church in this world. Wherever you find the church, that is not its native ground. That is a beachhead in Satan’s territory. The people of God an infiltrating Army in this old world. And often an army surrounded. Maybe an army in chains. Most of the apostles found themselves in various prisons. Yet they were always prisoners of Hope. As Paul once said, “it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain. (Acts 28:20)”

And what is that hope?

That you would behold your King coming to you righteous and having salvation. That the chariot and the war horse would be cut off. That the battle bows would be broken. That your King would speak peace to the nations. That his rule would be from sea to sea, from The River to the ends of the earth.

That sounds great, by why is this my hope? Why would I endure chains now, for that hope? Why would I consider myself a prisoner held by this hope?

“Because of the blood of my covenant with you.”

Christ has shed his blood for you. Christ has given you his body and blood. He has marked you in your baptism as one redeemed. And these things – these sacraments – are the acts of his covenant with you. Now we might break contracts or covenants. We might be faithless, but God is faithful. God fulfills his promises, his covenant. And He has given us a covenant sealed with the blood of his Son. “I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.”

We have been washed in the waters of Holy Baptism. The Good Shepherd will lead us beside still waters. Today, we might find ourselves in chains of various kinds. Worldly chains of fame and status and want. We might find ourselves in personal chains of besetting sins. But God has set us prisoners free in the blood of his Son Jesus.

Today we might be prisoners of Hope. Tomorrow, God declares, “I will restore to you double.” As Jesus said last week. “You will not lose your reward.” We are prisoners of this hope. Even the shiniest and most gilded cage of the world’s prisons can’t promise this. They all lied, other than Hell which has no hope. But with Christ, we have hope.

Walking in Danger All The Way

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Biblical Text: Matthew 10:34-42

The hymn referenced at the start is I Walk in Danger All the Way – LSB 716. The meditation is based largely on Jesus’ statement, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Which saying I think is one of the hardest for the current generation of Christians to absorb or think about. I am rarely simply happy after a sermon. There is always something that comes up after that I think “that would have been a lot better.” But this one I have a strange contentment about. So I’m just going to say listen, maybe after you read through the stanzas of that hymn.

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Election Returns

I’ve been struggling what if anything to write about our Synodical Presidential election. I suppose I will start with the simple facts. Matthew Harrison, who has been Synodical President for 16 years/5 terms, has been reelected to a sixth 3 year term. To anyone handicapping the election that result would not have been a surprise. The surprise was in how that came about. It took three ballots. He won on the first ballot his previous times often with vote shares approaching 60%. This time his share was 50.1%. He got 4 votes over the absolute minimum on the 3^rd ballot. Now after 16 years the “time for someone else” vote is going to grow naturally. But this particular vote was not just that. Todd Wilken, the host of Issues, Etc, I think has it right. “The Venn diagram of voters against Harrison often had a single point of overlap – anyone but Harrison.” There were people in the Synod mad over the closure of various Concordia System schools and various lawsuits around those schools. There are people mad because they want expansion of ways onto the ministerial roster. There are people mad because they want a reduction in the ways onto the roster. There are people mad over Harrison talking more explicitly about the order of service and Lutheran distinctives. There are people mad that he doesn’t cast out of the synod those who are not using “our hymnbook.” And behind all of this anxiety is the fact of decline. Peak reported membership was around 2.8M in 1970 – the year before my birth. The last published reports (2026 Lutheran Annual) that number is 1.6M. And of course membership is not attendance. On any given Sunday the last reported attendance numbers were a little over 500K.

Something that I believe to be the truth that impacted this election, and impacts what this summer’s convention is going to debate, falls under Hemmingway’s observation about bankruptcy. How did it happen? Slow, then fast. I think the reality is that many congregations within the Synod have reached that “fast” part of the decline. And there are a variety of reasons. There are congregations on the great plains that are just the victims of their emptying out. What used to take 100 people to farm now takes 1. The town I grew up in at that time had a population of 6000. Today it is 3000. In more populated areas either you have congregations spaced before the advent of the car, or based on assumptions rooted in 1960s attendance and growth, we spaced congregations too close. And when those assumptions didn’t pan out, you’ve had undersized, undercapitalized and in competition with each other congregations for decades. All of that exacerbated by other changes, like the wholesale move of women into the workforce. Congregations that responded by hiring people to do what used to be done by volunteers benefited. Those that did not saw entire generations leave. And none of that incorporates all the one off church fights that blighted otherwise healthy congregations. And none of that even touches doctrinal rails or failures.

All of this reflects our Old Testament lesson this week too much for my comfort. You’d have to back up to the start of the chapter – Jeremiah 28. It takes place before the full exile, but the King of Judah and the temple artifacts – ark, candelabras, etc. – have been deported to Babylon. Jeremiah has been prophesying this – absent repentance, absent change – for more than 28 years. But Hananniah, a temple priest stands up and says he has a word from the LORD. The King and the temple vessels would be returned within two years and peace would be established, that Babylon would be broken. It reminds me of what many a Synod President has said over the years. That everything is fine. Everything will be fine. That nothing large needed to be done. Many congregations have heard that over the decades. Meanwhile Jeremiah hears Hananiah and responds. “Amen! May the LORD do so.” It is not that this wouldn’t be nice. But Jeremiah points everyone back to the authentic prophets that everyone accepts. Is it ever that easy? They all prophesied something like “rend your hearts, not your garments.” They all prophesied absent doing something hard, returning to the LORD your God, returning to you first love, “war, famine, pestilence.”

God works in a peculiar way his wonders to perform. He works by death and resurrection. He does a new thing, and the old thing often has to die for the new to come in. Whether that death is the death of the old Adam in ourselves that often stands in the way of the Kingdom, or that death is not just the loss of the temple artifacts, but the temple itself, it happens. But the Kingdom ours remains. Because the Kingdom is not of stones – even such great stones as the temple. The Kingdom is the living stones built on Christ. And God has placed that stone. It shall not be moved.

Family Troubles

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Biblical Text: Matthew 10:21-33 (34-35)

These lessons early in the “green season” are about discipleship expectations. And this one touches on something that effects many Christians today – the family is all over the place in regards to faith. Not long ago, within living memory of those who live in Christendom lands, being baptized and being a Christian were just assumed. And it was often a good assumption. And even if people might complain or worry about a living faith, you didn’t have the open opposition that these verses talk about. Today that is different. And the sermon addresses, there isn’t a family that isn’t torn like this. The text says this is the more likely reality. Because the kingdom advances by hearts and minds and souls. Household by household. Eternal stakes.

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The Man of Sorrows & The Sparrow

Jeremiah is a hard book and when I first looked at the lessons for this week I wondered what they were doing pairing this reading (Jeremiah 20:7-13) with the gospel lesson. But the pairing might not be as off as I first thought.

The first thing you should put in your memory is the context of Jeremiah. He is a prophet for forty or so years. And his message the entire time is essentially “you guys are doomed.” Jeremiah is the archetype for the “The End is Near” sandwich board guy ringing a bell. He’s the archetype, but with two primary differences. That guy to us is a character of mirth. The end never comes. The end most definitely was coming for Jerusalem. That comedic guy is not self-aware. He goes ringing that bell with the pure bliss of ignorance. Jeremiah is self-aware.

And that is where our lesson today starts, with one of the most heart rending verses of the entire bible. “O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day, everyone mocks me (Jeremiah 20:7).” Jeremiah has been preaching doom for 40 years, and it has not yet come. He has been shouting “violence and destruction” for decades, and the walls of Jerusalem still stand. Everyone wants him to just shut up to the point they would be willing to kill him. “Denounce him! Let us denounce him…and take our revenge on him! (Jermiah 20:10).” It’s the guy with the sandwich board who knows how everyone looks at him. And know that his message has no effect.

This burden is enough for Jeremiah that he attempts to put it down himself. “I will not mention him, or speak anymore in his name.” But the Word of the LORD, the prophetic calling is too powerful. “There is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot (Jeremiah 20:9).” The LORD is stronger and has prevailed. The Word finds its way. Yet the question I think lingers to anyone who reads it. How can God do such a thing? Is this really how God is, a divine tyrant making us the rump of jokes?

Jeremiah works his way to his answer. Those who laugh at him now will not have the last laugh. “The LORD is with me as a dread warrior; my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me.” He even manages to get in a bit of bragging. They are laughing at Jeremiah like sandwich board guy, but “They will be greatly shamed…Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten (Jeremiah 20:11).” And indeed it is not forgotten. 2600 years later the book of Jeremiah is still read. 2600 years later his message continues to resonate and spread the warning to those with ears. 2600 years later, those residents of Jerusalem standing on the precipice of destruction who would not hear, who looked to kill the prophet of the LORD are held up for derision, for blind eyes and stubborn hearts. Jeremiah’s ultimate answer is that the LORD “tests the righteous and sees the heart and mind.” That this LORD justifies all who commit their cause to Him (Jeremiah 20:12). And like all hard meditations, it ends with praise. “Sing to the LORD!”

Jesus himself is a fulfillment of Jeremiah – the man of sorrows. We put him to death in the most shameful way possible. But his cause was trusted to his Father who raised him from the dead. And we disciples are not above our teacher. We can expect these things. Cause part of our message is definitely “The End is near.” If not capital T capital E THE END, we all meet our end. “Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. (Matthew 10:28).” The LORD is not the tyrant we might fear, but one who shared the temporal shame. He is one who knows when every sparrow falls. And are you not worth more than a sparrow? Entrust your cause to the LORD.

Harassed and Helpless

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Biblical Text: Matthew 9:35-10:20

It is very rare you stumble across something in translation that I’d describe as uniquely terrible. Words don’t just mean one thing. They have a range of meaning from hyper-literal to extremely metaphorical. You could also label them formal to slang, and general to specific. Most translation issues are more like “I think the translators were a bit to formal and general. The word in its original context is more specific – say raven and not just bird – and more colloquial – say it happened instead of behold.” And the translators would rightly point at their degrees and expertise and tell me to shut up. And this is part of the reason people migrate to different English translations. If you look at about 5 version you can get a sense of the range (say KJV, ESV, NIV, NRSV, NLT) because each of those translation committees tended to have their sweet spots. But occasionally you find something like “affliction” is Matthew 9:35 in the ESV. The ESV tends to default where possible to the KJV. But the KJV goes with sickness. The NLT illness. The RSV with infirmity. And the point in getting this picky is that affliction is something that comes from outside. The word itself, which the RSV gets, is something that comes from the inside, some softness, some weakness, an infirmity. And so you have two type of A to Z phrases. Jesus heals every disease (outside) and every infirmity (inside). And you have the people being harassed (outside) and helpless (inner strength).

And the gospel is that Jesus heals all of these. The Devil and the World might harass. Our sinful flesh makes us helpless. Jesus heals.

The sermon develops that insight.

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