Sowing Seeds that Yield a Harvest

Sexagesima

January 31, 2016

Luke 8:5-8

Sowing Seeds that Yield a Harvest

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Matt and Camille, you are farmers. I know you are a store manager and a chiropractic student, but Jesus called you farmers.

A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown. (Luke 8:5-8)

Jesus was answering a timeless question, that even the young wonder about:

“Why won't everyone enter into everlasting life with Jesus?”

Jesus' pictures of seed being stolen away and new plants withering away isn't some riddle to figure out. The sad and simple answer is unbelief. They reject Christ and His hard-won and freely-given forgiveness.

Jesus' parable is also insightful for parents who are faithful farmers. As parents of two you have already been farming for a few years now. So often our efforts to sow the Word of God among our children seems to fall on rocky ground or among weeds.

For example, we teach our children to share with others. They often don't and even take things from others. We want our children to have a good sense of humor without being crude. They are often gross. We want our children to learn to receive Jesus' Word every Sunday. Sometimes they don't want to be here. There always seems to be a struggle about something. And this struggle can be felt in a small way in the struggle to keep plants alive. If you've ever tried to grow an avocado tree from seed in Iowa, it's frustrating.

Being a Christian parent can feel like being a farmer trying grow a crop on bunch of rocks. Yet faithful parents trust the Word that they sow will produce a harvest. Like a farmer, you sow the seed and our dear Lord makes the seed grow.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

Today, Camille and Matt, you have seen the seed sown and watered in Jonah's baptism. This means that Jonah has been made into good soil where God's Word now grows.

And in the years ahead you will sow Christ abundantly into Jonah's ears. You will bring him to church to hear Christ speak to him. You will pray with him and speak Jesus to him at the dinner table and at his crib. Like farmers praying for rain and good crops, Camille, Matt, and Amelie, too, you will pray for little Jonah and join your hearts to the words of Paul:

We thank our God every time we remember Jonah. In all our prayers for him, we always pray with joy… being confident of this, that He who began a good work in Jonah will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:3-6, paraphrased)

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21