Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. Those are four things, four verbs we pray for in the collect today. Four things we want to do, ought to do, need to do with God’s holy word. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.
If we just read it – as any other book, well that won’t benefit us much. We can mark it – take special note of it – recognize the Bible is different than other books, as many do, but still know little to nothing of its contents. And we can even learn it, learn about it, commit parts of it to memory, or even get a PhD in biblical studies and still be an unbeliever (and I could even name some names here). Indeed, the devil himself knows Scripture better than all of us. He’s learned it.
But to inwardly digest. To take it fully in. To make it a part of yourself. This is something that only happens by faith. This is a gift of God. This is the mystery of why some receive the word and believe it – and others turn away, fall away, or reject it entirely.
The collect might well be echoing Jesus’ fourfold explanation in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 13, the Parable of the Sower.
Like most of Jesus’ parables, these earthly stories with a heavenly meaning invite us to ponder a short story or example of something from everyday life. But something about these stories is usually a little “off” and therein lies the hook, the hint of deeper meaning. The clue that Jesus is teaching us something about his kingdom.
In this case it begins with a man who went out to sow seed. Farming – growing food – is a common human experience and activity, though mostly done now by corporations on a large scale. But still, we know the process even from an early age when our gradeschool teacher has us sprout a bean in a wet paper towel. You start with seeds. Common enough. But already at the outset this farmer is a little bit “off”. He’s acting irrationally, we might say. Or I like how the hymn puts it, “the sower sows, his reckless love”
He doesn’t seem to care where the seed lands. Here, there, everywhere. It’s chaotic and disorderly, or so it seems. Is he really concerned about the harvest at all? Doesn’t he know that seeds need good soil to grow well? Does he care that he’s wasting all this seed? It certainly doesn’t seem like he cares. “Oh, what of that? And what of that?”
But as a schoolchild might guess, and as Jesus clearly explains to his disciples later, this is no ordinary sower. This is the Lord. And the seed is, of course, his word. So it may seem that he lacks wisdom and sense by sending forth his word in such a manner. But we dare not question the wisdom of the one who created all things, including seed and soil, sun and sky, you and me. We dare not presume to judge the one who sends forth his word, even his own son, the living word. For he tells us that word will always accomplish the purpose for which he sends it. Hm.
Some falls on the path and is snatched by birds. Jesus says this is the evil one who snatches the Word of God away so that some get little change to even hear it.
Some falls on rocky soil, and springs up quickly, but then they quickly wither and fall away. Spiritual ADD. Their faith has no depth or grounding. Easy come, easy go. On to the next thing.
Then there are those who are choked out by the weeds and thorns – the cares and concerns of the world. The worries of life. The deceitfulness of wealth. Really anything in life that competes with or crowds out the Word of God.
And then, of course, some seed falls on the good soil. This is the one who hears and understands the word, the one who produces a crop. These are the believers, the faithful, the true Christians.
And so we might be tempted to stop here and feel a little good about ourselves. For after all, we’re the Christians. We’re the good soil, right? I mean, here we are at church, reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting. We hear the word and sing and pray and believe it.
But don’t the cares and worries of the world sometimes get the best of us? Doesn’t the devil sometimes snatch the word away from us, or us away from the word? Don’t the worries of life and the deceitfulness of riches put stumbling blocks in our path, and stumble nonetheless?
The truth is, within each of us, there are all four kinds of soil. Just as there is an Old Adam and a New Adam, a sinner and a saint. And the parable is not meant to confirm us in our self-righteousness, or make us feel assured in our own worthiness as “good soil.”
Rather, we might draw two conclusions.
First, that the fact that some hear the word and end up not believing, or that they believe and then fall away, should not surprise us. God knows what he’s doing. While it remains somewhat of a mystery exactly why some respond to the word in faith and others do not – it should not come as a shock, for Jesus tells us this is how it is. We ought not despair of the power of the word, or think that God is too weak or foolish to accomplish his purposes without our help. We see in the sower’s approach a very free, maybe even reckless love, a liberal casting of the Gospel far and and wide, with no respect to persons, young, old, rich, poor, high and lowly. And yet, it’s true, not all will believe. We’re not universalists in the Christian church.
But we might also conclude that this liberal and free casting of the Gospel is good news for you and me.
It’s like this: Because he loves so freely, I know that I am loved by Christ. Because Christ’s word is for all, I know that it is for me. Because Jesus died for the sins of the world, and I am a sinner in the world, I know that his blood effects my salvation, his death takes the sting out of my death, and his resurrection means I too will rise on the last day.
The hymn says it well:
The sower sows; his reckless love
Scatters abroad the goodly seed,
Intent alone that all may have
The wholesome loaves that all men need.
Jesus Christ is that wholesome bread from heaven, that bread of life, that all men need. He gives his body and blood for the sins of the world, and even now, even here, also, scatters and distributes these blessings to his whole church in the sacrament of his altar. Here, grace abounds. Here, sins are forgiven. Here, faith is strengthened and nourished. Here a harvest increases, a hundred fold or more. “Ah, what of that, Lord, what of that!”
No comments:
Post a Comment