Automatically

Mark 4:26 He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷ Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. ²⁸ All by itself the soil produces grain-- first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. ²⁹ As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come." ³⁰ Again he said, "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. ³² Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade." ³³ With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. ³⁴ He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

On Thursday afternoon I received a phone call from a WELS pastor up north asking me to visit John in the hospital. John is the son of one of this pastor’s members. John is a professed unbeliever. John had also attempted suicide. It didn’t quite work, however, his injuries were extensive enough that John was now in a coma, in all likelihood, dying from his suicide attempt.

I stood beside John’s hospital bed and shared with him how the thief on the cross had lived a life of sin and unbelief, but he had heard Jesus’ words of power, compassion and forgiveness in those last few hours of his life. While lying on his own deathbed of the cross, the thief asked, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replied, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:42). I told John that there is no situation in life that is so desperate that the Lord cannot help you through it. There is no sin in his life so great that He will not forgive it. He who did not spare His own Son but sent Him into our world to save us, never stops caring for us, even when it seems that no one else cares.

I also read Psalm 121 about trusting the Lord in all things. I said a prayer and read the stanzas of the hymn, “I Walk in Danger All the Way.” And through it all, John’s eyes did not open. He didn’t move once. He remained motionless in his coma.

So why would I spend that time sharing God’s Word with a man in a coma, who was a professed unbeliever throughout his life and had now tried taking his own life? Because God’s Word works. We don’t know how or when it works. But God Himself promises through the prophet Isaiah, “[My word] will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). Jesus told us in His first parable this morning, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” The seed is God’s Word. We scatter the seed of God’s Word – in hospital devotions, in worship services, in Bible studies, in the classroom, on the internet, face-to-face – however we can sow the seed, then we let God do His work. Because God’s Word works!

Automatically!

Our Bibles translate verse 28 “All by itself the soil produces grain.” That phrase, “all by itself” is really one word in the Greek: “automatos.” It is where we get our English word “automatically” from. That is the key word to understanding this whole parable! God’s Word grows automatically, by itself, without any help from us. We cannot improve the effectiveness of the Word with our creative efforts or ingenious methods. All we do is throw the seed onto the soil. God’s Word does the rest.

That is a huge comfort! That’s why I have complete confidence that God’s Word can be heard by an unbeliever in a coma, or that the Word can be fruitful in the heart of an Alzheimer’s patient who doesn’t remember my name, or can break through the wall of grief and bring comfort at 2 am in the hospital after the death of a father, or can make a newborn child in an incubator a child of God through water and Word. Because you or I do not have to do anything! We simply share the Word … and get out of the way!

But, I’m afraid, that we as Christians and as the Church, have lost much of our confidence in the Lord and in His work in these last days. We think we know better. We think we can do it. Or worse, we think we have to do it, and have a certain degree of success, and convert a certain number of people, and have a certain amount of growth each year in worship attendance. How many pastors and churches run from one gimmick to the next, one slogan to the next, one program to the next? In order to grow the church, we are told we need to attend this worship conference, go to this evangelism workshop or see that stewardship guru. We start believing that what we do matters, so the pastor has to have humor and better stories in his sermon; the worship committee needs to play around with the liturgy and make it more contemporary and entertaining; the church needs to be more fun, more friendly, more … something. Be this, be that! Do this, do that! Grow your church! Save some souls! And it becomes about us; what we’re doing; what we’re contributing.

But it isn’t just pastors and committees and churches who doubt the power and effectiveness of God’s Word. We individual Christians fail, also. When you realize that the seed is the Word, who is Jesus Christ the Word in the flesh, and the soil is the hearts of men and women, you start to get a picture of how our God operates His Kingdom in our world. He scatters the Word of Christ all over the place, without regard for whether it lands on good, productive soil, rocks, weeds or hard pavement (Mark 4:14-20). And the Word does His thing. Automatically.

Can you imagine a church that took this parable seriously? Can you imagine a church that sows the Word of Christ recklessly, without concern for where it lands? Can you imagine Christians walking door-to-door in the rougher neighborhoods of Racine to invite people to our church? Can you imagine Christians openly reading their Bibles in the lunchrooms at work and sharing a message with their co-workers? Can you imagine Christians striking up a conversation with a next-door neighbor, a fellow resident in the nursing home, a grieving spouse, a joyful new parent, a hurting family member, an ailing grandmother – whomever, wherever, however – and sharing Law and Gospel, sin and grace, Christ’s love and forgiveness? Can you imagine Christians going out into the world to proclaim Jesus Christ in their various callings, and not being terribly concerned about who hears it, or if they are “ready” to hear it, or if they will perhaps respond favorably? Can you imagine if baptized believers and confirmed Christians simply started sowing the seed of Christ’s Word?

Why don’t we? There are many reasons, I suspect. Fear of rejection; laziness in doing the work; apathy toward lost souls; and maybe chief among them is lack of trust in God’s Word to do its thing. Part of our problem, and the reason why we’re always tinkering and meddling, is that we trust our eyes instead of our ears. We’re impressed with big buildings and large crowds and growing statistics and a good show.

If you are a gardener, you know that you plant the seed in the soil, you cover it up, you fertilize it and you water it. But most of all, you leave it alone. If you go out every morning and uncover your little seed to see how it’s doing, you’ll kill it. It will never sprout, much less grow. But if you leave it alone, it will do just fine.

Our Lutheran Confessions say something similar when they speak of the ministry of the Gospel and the Sacraments: “Through these, as through means, the Holy Spirit works faith when and where it pleases Him and those who hear the Gospel.” That’s why, when I give tours of our church and school to prospective new members, I admit to them that we don’t have a lot of fellowship events or exciting programs or fun youth ministries or other things that other churches may have. I tell them that we consciously and conscientiously focus on the ministry of the Word – relevant, solid, Lutheran Law and Gospel sermons; great, powerful Lutheran worship services with various instruments and voices; and a strong, Lutheran Christian education system in our grade school. The ministry of the Word in sermons, worship services and school – everything we do flows out of our ministry of the Word. We sow the seed in people’s hearts and get out of the way.

Martin Luther had a profound sense of his own non-necessity. He once remarked, “While I drink my little glass of Wittenberg beer, the gospel runs its course.” That’s how a free man talks. He can preach the Word, and then cheerfully step down from the pulpit, take off his robe and have a glass of beer, confident that the Word is at work doing its killing of the Old Adam and raising to life of the New Man in peoples’ hearts and souls.

Jesus’ first parable says the same thing. The farmer sows his seed in the field, then he can go have a beer. And the seed will grow just fine. Because Jesus Himself is the Seed that is sown. He is the Word of God made flesh. He is the kernel of wheat who dies and is buried, who rises and bears much fruit. The whole earth rises from the dead in the power of His one Sunday morning resurrection. Whit Jesus’ resurrection comes a harvest of the new creation, and no one quite knows exactly how it works. It just does. Automatically. Sow the crucified and risen Jesus in any old world – a world full of losers, deadbeats, and plain old sinners – and let the Seed go to work. He forgives sinners. He raises the dead. Our anxiety and busyness and programs add nothing to what Jesus does. They just take the joy out of being part of it.

In His second parable, Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a single mustard seed – small, insignificant, easily overlooked. But that tiniest of seeds grows into a great big shrub, the biggest one in the garden, with room enough in its branches that even the birds can make nests in its branches.

Jesus’ life and death may not have looked like much. His ministry didn’t seem all that impressive. His death was certainly wasn’t much to look at. It may have seemed like a tiny mustard seed in the course of world history at the time. The Seed was planted in the ground on Good Friday, when all seemed lost and hopeless, packed with death and mourning. But the Seed exploded from the ground on Easter morning with resurrection and life, forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with God, peace everlasting. You might not have been able to see it at the time, all may have looked dead and dry, but God was planting Paradise again. A new tree of life for the life of the world. The Tree of Life from the tree of death.

And Christ’s Kingdom has grown into a tree that covers the entire world. But the beginnings of that Kingdom in people’s hearts continue to seem so small and insignificant by our standards, too powerless to create faith and save eternally. The water used in Baptism isn’t even enough to wash faces. But with God’s Word, it is enough to wash away sin, create faith and make a sinner into a child of God. The wafer of bread and sip of wine in Holy Communion isn’t enough to satisfy our bodily hunger. But with God’s Word, it is enough to strengthen faith, forgive sin and sanctify the saint. The word of Absolution the pastor speaks is only a few sentences in the beginning of worship, but it is enough to drive despair from the heart, bring peace and forgiveness to troubled consciences. The words in the sermon, in the Scripture lessons and in our hymns and prayers, may only take up an hour of our time, but they are enough to awaken dead souls, afflict those comfortable in their sins, comfort the afflicted and open the gates of heaven to all who hear and believe.

And God is blessing our little branch of His mustard seed Kingdom. Epiphany Lutheran Church has grown tremendously over the past few years. Within the next few months, God willing, we will grow by at least another 18 souls through baptisms, transfers, professions of faith and adult confirmations. Then we will be close to 500 souls in our church’s care. We have grown to such a point that we are beginning discussions of calling a second pastor in the next two years of so, so that we may better sow and scatter the seed in our community and better tend and water and fertilize the seeds already planted here at Epiphany.

Whatever happens at Epiphany, we are privileged and blessed to use Christ’s simple, small, seemingly insignificant Means of Grace in water, bread, wine, absolution and Holy Word. And it works. Converting unbelievers, creating faith in the newborn, comforting the grieving, consoling the hurting, forgiving the depressed, healing the broken families – slamming shut the gates of hell and opening wide the portals of heaven to all who hear and believe. And Christ in His Word will continue to do so, now and until His return. It is inexhaustible; it cannot be worn out; it cannot be used up; it cannot be underestimated. He Word will grow the Kingdom in God’s good time. It will not fail to do what God wills it to do. So Christ remains the center of our preaching, the center of our teaching, the center of our worship, the center of our lives. He is the Seed upon which our faith, this church and school, and God’s entire Kingdom grows. Automatically. On its own.

We can scatter the seed. Share the Word. And relax. Maybe even have a beer with Luther. Amen.