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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
It was a doctoral student in agriculture who taught me the difference between soil and dirt. She said that soil is what you grow things in. Dirt is what you clean out from underneath your fingernails. I really don’t know much about growing things, and I’m not very good at it either. It seems like that’s not something that I inherited from my mother. She was really good at that. And I even managed to kill a cactus once, okay? But I’m amazed at farmers and gardeners who can grow things so easily. How they love the soil and love working in it, and being able to bring thriving life out of the seeds that they plant. How they can take dirt and make it into productive soil.
Well, today we hear the parable that Jesus tells about the sower, or the parable of the soil sometimes it’s called, with the Word of God being the seeds that are sown into different types of soil, and the Word of God is proclaimed and it’s heard and responded to in different ways. That’s the type of soil that’s illustrated here.
Now, a common application of this parable is to get people to identify what kind of soil that they are and encourage them to be that good, rich soil. They say, don’t be the path or don’t be the rocky soil or the thorny soil. Instead, be the good soil that grows the gospel sort of approach here. Well, this passage is often preached then to motivate people to kind of improve their behavior or the quality of the soil that they are, but that’s really not the gospel, okay? And that’s not where I want to go with this message today because that kind of approach really I think misses the point of who we are kind of before Christ and after we have received him.
Such a sermon on the parable in that way usually has a title like, “What Kind of Soil Are You?” And if you noticed, that’s the title I chose for the sermon today. But purposely, “What Kind of Soil Are You?” Well, I want to answer that. Without the work of God in your life, you’re bad soil, you’re dirt.
How so? Okay, well, like the path, you may hear God’s word, but it gets snatched away from you because you might ignore it, or don’t want to grow in it, or are just apathetic toward it, or you hear God’s word with joy at first, but like the rocky soil, it doesn’t take root and it gets scorched by the sun and withers. And then when life gets tough in some way, with trouble or persecution, you might fall away from your faith. Or the thorny worries of life, things like finances and health, employment, family, relationships, grades, they can choke the growth of the seed of God’s Word in you. You see, by nature, we’re not good soil. In fact, we’re more like dirt, actually. And that’s what sin does to us. And isn’t that a good description of sin? Is dirt. Dirt that sometimes doesn’t seem to wash off too easily, and it’s hard to get off from underneath our fingernails. Sometimes the sins that you commit make you feel, well, downright dirty. Sins that bring embarrassment, guilt, and even shame. It feels dirty.
But God doesn’t treat you like dirt. No, God doesn’t see you as something to just clean out from under his fingernails. In fact, like gardeners and farmers that I admire what they can do, God takes the dirt of your life and he loves working in it. And he’s able to bring life out of it with the seed of his word.
And here’s where we’re good soil. God makes you into good soil. You may recall in the Bible how God created the first human being, Adam, okay? God took dirt and formed it into a man and then breathed into it the breath of life, and Adam became a living being. Well, we see how this life-giving works with God’s Word. From 2 Timothy 3, verse 16, it says this:
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” By sowing the seed of his word into you, God breathes into the dirt of you. He breathes into the sinful disobedient person and makes you into good soil and brings life out of it.
As God breathed into Adam through His Word today, God breathes into you life. He breathes into you His Word. The good news of Jesus Christ who died on the cross to forgive the dirt of your sin and to turn you into good soil and to bring life out of you. God’s word of the gospel changes you. It changes your sinful, dirty life into quality soil that grows life and salvation.
As Lutheran Christians, we have this wonderful view of God’s word that it’s a means of grace. It’s how God graciously offers the forgiveness of sins in Jesus by speaking it to us, by giving us the words of this promise. And by hearing the word, we receive that grace in the good soil of faith. God works that in your soil for it to grow and to take root. It’s a wonderful thing that this means of grace, of God’s Word to us, whether it’s spoken, or sung, or heard, or read, or signed, this is grace of God to us. Good news, salvation, and eternal life.
And we need God to continually work that soil of our lives to keep it good and fruitful. And He does it through His Word. So how can this happen to us? How can this constant work of God working in our soil, how can that happen? The answer is we need more Word. We need more Scripture. If it’s God’s Word that makes us good soil, then we need more of that.
How do you do that? Okay? Well, kind of simply, just be in the Word more. Here’s a couple of ways, too. Number one, get off of the path of daily life and commit time to reading the Scriptures. In other words, get out of the ordinary schedule, and have time dedicated each day for some scripture reading. It doesn’t even have to be a lot, okay? Any bit can do. Read one chapter or one psalm a day, even maybe even one verse. At University Lutheran Church, something I do every day for my students is I send them a verse of the day. It’s called the VOTD. They get a text with a verse that I pick out for them to read so that hopefully they’re at least reading one verse a day and meditate on that throughout the day and think about it. So just take some time to read.
Number two, get out of the rocky places of your life. Get away from the thorns and situations where temptation can cause God’s word to be taken from you. Okay, you know what those are. You know what situations that can cause compromise for you or cause struggle for you. Get out of those places and instead be in a place where you can be, God’s Word can have more effect on you.
Number three, get into reading or studying God’s Word alone or with a group. Okay, find some time, you know, each day alone to read, and also with a group. St. Paul offers many opportunities for that, even during this time of some isolation with the whole COVID thing. There’s a lot of opportunities that Pastor Wolfmueller has on Tuesdays, on Wednesdays, on Sundays to be involved in the study of the Scriptures.
And number four, be in worship, and it’s kind of a duh kind of thing, but this is what we need to do, to be in worship where we’re together as the soil of a congregation, we’re involved in hearing and speaking and singing and signing God’s Word together. A little tough in these days, in these times, I know, but even virtually we still gather together around God’s word to hear it and to grow in it.
And I wanna say this today in a bit more urgent way to you here because I think it’s that important, especially today where we hear talk about these are uncertain times and unprecedented times that we live in today and weird times, wild times, and those are all kind of true, but I also say that these can be dangerous times for followers of Christ. And I don’t mean the virus. There are times today when things will try to snatch your faith and take it away. There are times when there’s going to be thorns or rocky ground that will test the roots of your faith, and one of the most dangerous things a Christian can do today in these uncertain and unprecedented times is to neglect the reading or hearing of God’s Word. There are so many distractions today and so many things that are vying for our thoughts and our energy and our attention as we live in these weird, unprecedented, uncertain times.
There are so many things that are like voices attempting to convince you of how to think and how to respond to the situation today. Well, make sure that you’re certain that you’re hearing God’s word. These are times we need more scripture and less social media. These are times when God’s people, we need more Bible and less books. These are times when we need more prayer and less blog posts. Luther said this, he said, “Listen to God’s word while you have it, because the time may come when you’d like to hear it, but it may not be there for you. Therefore, give ear to it diligently while you have it. For he who despises God’s word is overcome by darkness. Because the Lord says, walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you.”
There may come a time, brothers and sisters, when God’s word is not there. What I mean is it’s not in a book, it’s not on a screen, it’s not on a social media post, or preached or taught to you. Those times may come when doing that may be even illegal and impossible. So today here, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest God’s Word now so that God can work your soil and so that when the tough times come, you’ve got roots and you’ve got healthy fruit to eat on in difficult times.
Hearing and reading God’s Word helps you to focus on the sower. That’s the real point of this parable, is not to focus on the soil so much, of which one are you, but focus on the sower. The one who gives you His Word, focus on His work of His Word in your soil to make it fruitful.
The third commandment, perhaps you know it but I’ll remind you, it’s remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. What does this mean? Luther asks, we should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching in his word but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Isn’t that really what we think of God’s word? It’s sacred and holy; we should gladly hear and learn it for the goodness of our soil.
So in these times and in all times, may God give you good soil to grow the seeds of His Word planted in you to be rooted in the faith in Christ. Amen.
