“SEEDS ARE BURIED IN THE GROUND”
Saint Luke 8. 4-15
Sexagesima Sunday: 19 February Anno Domini 2006
Fr Watson
This parable is not about the so-called "Great Commission." This story of Jesus is not a command to you to get busy with planting the word all over Johnson County.
You sin when you think you're the planter; the Sower. The sin is called synergism. You sin when you think that people are saved because you do your part, your work, your cooperation and your obedient agricultural "ablazin.'" That kind of false teaching is full of an agricultural by-product.
Be still and hear the Word of God. Be still and let the Holy Ghost convict you of the Lord's full counsel. Hear Jesus.
The Savior says clearly: "The seed is the Word of God." By this, Jesus means two things, which are really only one thing. First, Jesus means that the recorded, "inscripturated," Hebrew writings are the actual revelations of God. Jesus means that Genesis through Malachi is His own thoughts, desires and cosmic realities. The prophecies of the Patriarchs, Fathers, Kings, Prophets, and Poets are His very own tongue and heart reduced to tablet, scroll and papyrus. This Holy writ, of course, also now extends to cover and include the apostolic message of His identity and work as well. The Word is also Matthew through Revelation; the Greek New Testament and all of its translations.
You sin when you think you can grow other Christians, other members in our pews, congregational registers, Sunday school classrooms, Bible Studies and pot-lucks with anything other than the Seed of the Word.
Second, and most importantly, Jesus means that He Himself, the Incarnated Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the God/Man, is the Word. The Apostle of Love so records: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God." Our Lord was, and is, Himself, a walking, talking, preaching, healing, loving, forgiving, life-bringing, full-sized, bi-pedal, bearded, Galilean-Jewish Word; "The" Seed in the "walkin-talkin-flesh."
The crop, how big it will be, how strong and high it will grow, and when it will sprout and be ready for final harvest, are all in the hands of the Sower and His Seed. The Sower is the Lord God. He created the world and all that is. He sent His only-begotten, beloved Son. He with the Son sent the Holy Paraclete to testify to the Seed and to create an abundant crop only through that holy Seed, that Holy Body and Precious Blood; those Words of Remission and Freedom.
You are not the Sower. You are not the Seed. You are the dirt. Sin has made you dirt. Adam's sin, and your own voluminous daily trespasses have made you dirt; ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Without the Sower and His Word, which is really one and the same thing, all you can ever be is dirt.
Why some dirt is hard packed with little sub-soil; why some ground is infested with more or fewer thorns; why some is plundered more by the thieving Satanish-Sparrows; is not yours to know. Dirt can't answer the mysteries of Sin and Grace no matter how it dresses itself up and divorces itself from its maker and re-maker; the Sower. When dirt tries to act on its own, it ends up watering the ground with its own blood and the blood of its victims; witness your brother Cain. This parable of Jesus is meant to give you His truth; Himself, for He is Truth. You are not the hard rock any longer, for He the Rock of Ages was busted up for you by Roman soldiers and Sanhedrin "hit men." You are no longer choked to death and hell by weeds of self-will because The Real green "Vine" allowed Himself to be ripped and shredded by thorns and nails, and choked to death by the asphyxiating weight of your sin.
Jesus is "The Seed," which has sprouted forth in your new life and identity in Him.
Seeds are not made to look at and analyze. Seeds are not made for glory and triumphalism. Seeds are made to be buried in the ground. The Word made Flesh was killed dead, and planted in the hillside tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea. The Seed burst through the dead earth of death itself, and the devil and your sin, to be ever alive on that greatest Sunday two thousand years ago; but this very Sunday as well. For the Seed which is Jesus' doctrine, Jesus' absolution, and Jesus' "still" Body and Blood, is planted in all of you; and in good and honest hearts you keep it. The Christ "living" and "growing" in you, you branches to His vine, loves God perfectly and loves neighbor as self.
The Seed of the Word, The Lord in you, is daily watered by the Spirit who simply sprinkles, showers, and deluges you with...more Word, more Scripture, more Forgiveness, more Sacrament, more Jesus.
From dirt to Man, created in His image, is a good and decent crop.
But from fallen and condemned man, from enemies of God, to the restored, liberated and loosed crop of brothers and sisters of the Son, that is an abundant and mature crop; a "hundredfold" harvest for the ages.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost