Sexagesima

Luke 8:4-15 - Sexagesima - February 3, 2013 

What Do You Want to Hear?

God’s word is powerful.  The reason it is powerful is because it is God’s word.  He speaks it.  It goes forth from His mouth to accomplish what He pleases.  It isn’t powerful because of what we see it do.  No.  Rather, it has the power to save because of who says it.  It is God’s word.  God says it.  God saves.  He is almighty, and so His word accomplishes what He purposes to accomplish, and it succeeds in the thing for which He sends it … because it is His word.  And He is God.  We should listen to God’s word – not insofar as it saves us, or insofar as it otherwise appears to benefit us, but because God says it.  That settles it.

By God’s word the heavens and the earth were made.  This is the written record of Genesis 1.  As Psalm 33 attests: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.”   Think of all that stuff described by evolutionists on the Discovery Channel.  They display in such marvelous detail the amazing and beautiful wonders of creation.  And of course they give all the credit to random chance just to avoid reckoning with God … but still! — You can really learn a lot about the created world by listening to them, can’t you?  And yet, it wasn’t made by them.  Their scientific descriptions didn’t cause anything to be.  It was all made and it is all upheld still by the power of God’s almighty word alone.  I think this helps put things into perspective.  When you look at the natural world, it isn’t just God who made it; it is God who made it by speaking.  And He speaks to us.  Here; this morning.  God’s word is powerful. 

Our word, on the other hand, is not.  It is weak.  It is often false.  We say things and nothing happens.  We exaggerate things, but reality doesn’t change.  We promise things and vow to do things, and then we fail.  And so our words fail with us. 

God’s word accomplishes what He pleases.  But our words return to us void, empty, all the time.  Our words, however, do oftentimes retain for themselves a certain peculiar power—like the power of a seed… hmm.  A hidden power – a power perhaps unintended by the one who speaks it but powerful nonetheless – it is a power like the power of a seed, cast into the fertile soil of itching ears that love to hear gossip.   Yes, that’s right; our words have power.  They have power to root themselves deep into the hearts of those who listen to what we say.  What we say matters.  What we listen to matters.  And I can hardly think of a better occasion in a sermon to address the danger and harm of gossip and loose talking than in the context of discussing the power of words.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  What utter nonsense.  And at a young age we learn how untrue this is.  Words hurt deeply. 

Our words can cause damage in different ways.  The most obvious way is when someone tells a lie about someone else and ruins his reputation.  But of course, as we learn from the Small Catechism’s explanation of the 8^th Commandment, it is not only the lies that hurt our neighbor.  It can be the truth too.  It’s not always just a question of what we say.  It’s a matter also of who we say it to.  Talking about your neighbor to your friend not only hurts your neighbor, who can’t defend himself.  But it hurts your friend too, who must be tempted with information that she should not have had. 

And there are things about others that we might happen to know.  What do we do with this information?  Well, I’ll tell you what not to do.  Don’t tell people about it.  That’s a sin.  It hurts your neighbor.  It is your duty to defend him and speak well of him.  Now certainly if someone has done something to upset you, or has acted in such a way that confuses you, you may go to that person and ask him why and how come and what for and so forth.  In fact it is your duty to do so.  Go to your brother alone, Jesus says.  But it is also your duty not to complain about someone when that someone is not there to defend or explain himself.  To do so is a sin. 

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 
        What does this mean? 
We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, or defame our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything. 

Do we do this?  Do we use our words to help make things clear when a friend is complaining about another?  Do we ask our friends to stop venting about others when we know that it is their duty to go to the one they’re complaining about?  Do we seek to be at peace with someone who has annoyed us in some way?  Or do we kind of like hearing people complain about him?  Does it feel better to complain about him as well?  Yeah.  It feels better.  You know it as well as I do. 

Our hearts would naturally hear the lie.  Our hearts naturally prefer to hear something uncharitable about the one with whom we disagree – or about the one who has offended us in some way.  It’s true.  And the reason is simple.  By comparing ourselves to others – even if their faults are only imaginary, or unverified at best – still it makes us feel like we are better than they.  We say: “He did that!?  She said this?!  Well, I wouldn’t have gone that far.  Sure, I did this and said that, but boy, that crosses the line, doesn’t it?”  It is this type of self-justification that we are all by nature experts at.  We compare ourselves to others instead of measuring ourselves by God’s holy law.  But you know how God measures you.  “We know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.” 

The reason we speak uncharitably about other people – even our friends, even our brothers and sisters in Christ gathered here, and maybe even about our pastor – is because we like to hear what is uncharitably spoken.  Our tongues are corrupt, because our ears are corrupt, because our hearts are corrupt.   We are sinners.  The seed of sin was first sown and planted in the Garden of Eden when the devil spoke the first lie to our first parents: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  The devil first spoke uncharitably – or rather – inaccurately about God.  And Adam and Eve delighted in the lie, because they wanted to be righteous and wise on their own terms, not on God’s.  The devil’s temptation is like a seed that has taken deep root even in our hearts.  And so the heart of man is transformed from a fertile ground, eager to hear God’s word, to a stony and trampled and thorny ground that runs away from the voice of our Maker. 

But the word of God still speaks to you today.  Hear Him.  Because in His words is the power to save you.  God does not speak what we naturally want to hear.   But He speaks what we need to hear.  He doesn’t craft His message individually for different people or groups the way that we do when we want folks to listen to us.  No, God indiscriminately scatters the seed of His holy word throughout all the world.  The seed is always the same.  It is His law that exposes sin, and His Gospel that forgives sin for the sake of His Son’s obedient suffering and death.  The seed is good.  But the ground, on the other hand, that is, the response to God’s word, varies. 

Sometimes people ignore it out of hand.  The word is heard and rejected like seed that lands on the trodden path and that the birds eat up.  The devil snatches the word out of the heart so that no faith is ever engendered.  Sometimes the word is received with joy at first.  But like a dandelion that grows up between the cracks of a sidewalk, when the hot sun comes out it withers and dies because it has no root.  So also the preaching of the Gospel invites the assaults and trials of the devil and the world.  Jesus warns us.  And when this happens the faith that does not root itself deeply in the word that Jesus speaks wilts and dies. 

Sometimes the word is received and takes root.  True faith is engendered.  The Christian life begins to flourish in the shade of God’s grace.  But the cares of the world – money, fame, beauty, pleasure, cushy retirement, earthly loyalties – these grow up as well and keep the Christian from bearing the fruits that God desires.  What looks like Christian faith ceases to be saving faith, because the promises of forgiveness cease to be as important as the distracting cares of this fleeting life. 

But sometimes the word bears fruit.  Sometimes the seed falls on good soil and bears a hundredfold.  This is by God’s grace.  The word is no different than at other times.  It is the same saving message of Christ crucified for sinners, but by God’s grace He creates new life in us who hear it and keep it so that we might reap eternal life. 

Now this is the seed that falls on the good soil – it is “those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”  But what is good soil?  What makes a heart honest and good?  We examine our own hearts, and acknowledge and confess that they are anything but.  We know that we are sinful and unclean.  We know that from our hearts, as Jesus tells us, “come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.”  We know that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.  And what have we treasured?  What have we wanted to hear?  What words have we spoken?  What opportunities have we neglected to correct and rebuke gossip that hurts our neighbor and dishonors our God?   

But we do not look to our hearts to find the goodness and honesty we need to receive the word of God in true faith.  No. We look to the word of God itself.  Soil does not make itself good.  Rather, it is good because the seed is good.  “He who has ears to hear,” Jesus says, “let him hear.”   So let us hear.  The heart that is good and noble is the heart that is justified by faith in what Jesus has done.  Soil can’t produce anything on its own.  It needs the constant care of the Creator who blesses the earth with abundant life.  And so our hearts also produce nothing apart from the care and blessing of God’s almighty word: both law and gospel. 

Like all seeds that have great power hidden within them, God’s word also has a hidden power.  We can’t see it.  They sound like normal words.  They are often difficult to understand, and apart from Jesus we can’t understand.  Jesus calls them the mysteries of the kingdom of God.  “But to you it has been given to know them,” Jesus said.  To others it remains hidden.  But to us who hear God justify the sinner by speaking His word of absolution, what is hidden to the world is made perfectly clear to us. 

Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”  God sent forth His eternal Word, the Seed of the woman promised to our first parents who first believed the lie.  God sent His Son to die.  But in His death He silenced the devil forever.  He sent His Word to accomplish what pleased Him to accomplish.  And He succeeded.  He took our sins of thought, word, and deed, and the very corruption of our hearts, and He bore in His own earthen body the punishment of God’s wrath in our place.  He died.  But in His death He produces much fruit.  Because in His resurrection, and through the Gospel that we hear today, He makes us Christians.  He forgives us – He forgives you – all sins.  He speaks what He gave us ears to hear, and so gives us hearts that cherish what He says and does. 

And God produces fruit in our lives.  A hundredfold.  Because we have peace with God, we strive for peace with one another.  Because God is patient with us, we are patient in all our afflictions – especially as we bear with the sinful weaknesses of our brothers and sisters in Christ – especially the ones right here.  Because God speaks the truth to us and saves us, so we speak the truth to one another, defend one another, and seek to be at peace with one another in our minds and hearts.  Because God so loved us, we love one another.  As St. Peter admonishes us: “Love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” 

And so God accomplishes in us and in our lives what pleases Him.  He does so with His word.  It is powerful.  He makes our hearts pure.  In your weakness you will struggle.  The devil looms.  The sun blazes.  Thorns and thistles rise up to claim your affections.  But God still speaks to you.  He doesn’t stop.  And He gives to you by faith the everlasting fruit that our Savior’s suffering and death have borne. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.