Mark 4:26-32 * January 24-25, 2009 * World Mission Festival * Senior Vicar Gawel

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Mark 4:26-32

He also said, “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. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. 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.”

At certain times in our lives, we are asked to believe something without seeing, touching, or observing it ourselves. Think of a visit to a doctor’s office, for example. You may go to the doctor feeling deathly ill, head pounding, fever through the roof, chest-splitting cough. But the doctor’s solution for you . . . a tiny little pill. You might wonder, “How can this little capsule, the size of a pea, possibly overcome all the pain inside my body?” It certainly doesn’t look like much, and most of us probably don’t understand exactly how it works. Yet you trust that the doctor knows his stuff and that this little pill is actually a medicine powerful enough to cure you.

This picture is similar to the one in our reading. The message of the gospel may at times seem quite small and insignificant, yet through Jesus’ words in these two parables, we see that

The gospel works powerfully

1. Growing on its own and

2. Producing amazing results.

Let’s consider the first parable of our reading: Jesus said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground.” He scatters the seed; tosses it out with his hand. He doesn’t toil or sweat; doesn’t till the ground to prepare it to receive the seed. He doesn’t even stoop down to plant the seed carefully in the ground. Instead he scatters the seed. Then what does he do after finishing this simple task? Does he do anything to make the seed grow? No. He goes about his normal routine, sleeping and getting up day after day, doing whatever other business it is that he does.

Yet all the while, the seed is producing a tender young plant—new life, where once there was nothing! Perhaps the man notices the growth of the new plant; but even if he does notice, he can’t explain how it happened. He cannot understand how that seed produced a new, living plant. He knows that he himself had nothing to do with it; neither did the cold lifeless ground from which the new living plant sprang forth. It was simply the power of the seed working on its own.

And the growth doesn’t stop there. The seed continues to spur the plant on as it grows from a new shoot to the full maturity of a ripe head of grain—“first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.” When the power of the seed has brought the plant to maturity, the grain is ripe and ready, and it presents itself for harvest. Then the sickle goes out immediately to harvest the grain.

“What does it all mean?” you may wonder. “What is the seed, and who is the man scattering it? What is the grain in the plant, and why does he put the sickle to it?” We see that Jesus’ words contain more than just a literal meaning. The seed in the parable is the gospel—the life-giving message of a merciful God who sent his Son to die for the sins of all people. The ground on which that seed is cast is the heart of anyone who hears the gospel message.

The man who scatters the seed represents anyone who shares this good news about forgiveness in Jesus. Man, woman, or child; pastor, teacher, or layperson; young and old alike—the Holy Spirit uses us all to spread the gospel.

But what exactly does he use us for? To get into a person’s heart and make him believe? No, the Holy Spirit simply uses us to scatter the seed; to tell the gospel of Jesus wherever and whenever we have the chance. It is not our job to create the new life of faith in a person’s heart or to make that faith grow. Faith is created by the power of the gospel itself, not by anything we do. Like the man in the parable, we can’t even understand how it happens. It truly is a mystery of the Holy Spirit.

And it is not as if the unbeliever who hears the gospel can make a choice for Jesus. The soil of the unbelieving heart is dead and lifeless—but the gospel causes new life to spring forth from it.

Then, once the new life is created, the gospel message of forgiveness continues to work in the heart, building and strengthening faith in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What a wonderful blessing it is to know that God’s power is working through the Word to create faith. We don’t have to worry about doing it ourselves! So naturally we always trust fully in God to do the work, right? We never worry or try to take matters into our own hands, do we? Unfortunately, this is not the case. Despite the wonderful assurance that God is working through his all-powerful word, don’t we often doubt its power?

Sometimes in our interactions with non-Christians, we display a lack of confidence in the power of the gospel. We know that God has told us to share the gospel with all people because he wants everyone to be saved, but sometimes we just don’t think the simple message of Christ, crucified for sinners, will be enough. We may feel like we need to change something to give the message better appeal. The unbelieving world doesn’t like to hear about its sins. It takes offense at the violent story of a man who was beaten and put to death on a cross. We may find ourselves skipping some of these details that people don’t want to hear, so that the message we end up sharing is really no life-giving gospel at all, but just a feel-good message that never addresses our deepest need. Then there are times when we don’t even share the gospel with someone at all, because we think that we can tell who might accept it and who probably won’t. For me, this was something I often struggled with during my time in China. But how dare we think in this way?! Who are we to tell the Holy Spirit where the Word can and cannot work?

Sometimes we display a lack of confidence in God’s Word even as we deal with each other, our fellow Christians. Have you ever failed to rebuke your brother in Christ when he sinned, because that would just make things between you too awkward? Or have you ever failed to encourage your sister in Christ with the gospel when she was penitent and needed the assurance that her sins are forgiven? instead, excusing her with the empty phrases we so often hear: “Oh, that’s OK. Don’t worry about it.”

Times like these are too many for us to count. And if we examine ourselves honestly, we must admit that our lack of confidence in the gospel goes to a deeper level: Sometimes we even doubt the power of God’s Word for our own lives. Though Jesus has fully forgiven us, the devil tempts us to think that we still have to do something to contribute to our salvation. And sadly we often believe him.. Instead of relying on the Word, we start to rely on ourselves. We may look at our good works and think that we don’t need God’s Word and Sacraments anymore, because we’re already doing pretty good on our own. Or we fall into the opposite trap: We feel really guilty for our sins, but instead of trusting in God, we despair and lose hope. We doubt the power of God’s Word and Sacraments. We doubt that God really means it when he says: “I have forgiven you. You are my own dear child.”

But thanks be to God that the answer to our sinful condition is not found within ourselves, or in any work that we could do! The answer is found only in God’s powerful Word, that life-giving seed. The power of the gospel is this: the forgiveness of sins through Christ Jesus. St. Paul says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Like the soil of the parable, we were by nature lifeless, dead in our sins. There was nothing special about us that God should look on us with favor. Yet Jesus came to earth as one of us, and did everything that was demanded by God’s holy law to make satisfaction for us. He bore the weight of our sins to death upon the cross. All of our sins, including all the times we fail to trust in his Word for ourselves or for others—all these have been completely washed away in Jesus’ blood.

And what an amazing thing the Holy Spirit has done for us! Through the good news of forgiveness in the washing of baptism, he created faith in our hearts—like a new plant springing up from the soil! No longer are we dead in sin!

And the Holy Spirit continues to strengthen us, and causes our faith to grow throughout our lives. Whenever we hear the gospel, remember the washing of our baptism, and receive Jesus’ body and blood at the altar, the Holy Spirit is at work, forgiving our sins and causing our faith to grow and mature. The gospel drives away any doubt from our minds about whether God has truly forgiven us. It assures us that all our sin and guilt has been completely removed by Jesus. It gives us hope of a time beyond time when we will be forever with the Lord.

As the gospel has worked new life in me, apart from my own effort, so also will it work new life in others. Whether we see the result or not, we have God’s own promise that his Word will work according to his good purpose: “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 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.” So we confidently scatter the seed of the gospel and trust that God will grow faith in the hearts of many who hear it. We trust that the gospel works powerfully, growing on its own.

Yet, even with this comfort in our hearts, we may still look at the world around us and wonder how the Word of Christ can possibly survive in such an unbelieving and perverse generation. But in the midst of these doubts, Jesus speaks words of great assurance to us in the second parable of our reading. Here we see that the gospel works powerfully, producing amazing results.

“Again he said, ‘What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground.” Picture it: a seed so small that you could hold dozens, perhaps even hundreds of them in your hand. You would think that such a tiny seed would produce a relatively small plant, maybe a little flower or something. But actually, when the mustard seed is planted, it grows exponentially, becoming eight, ten, even fifteen feet tall! In fact, Jesus says, it grows and becomes the largest of all the garden plants—so large that it has big branches, which are strong enough for the birds to nest on. All this from one tiny seed, which looked so small and powerless in the palm of your hand!

So it is with the gospel. As the gospel goes out into the world, it will seem insignificant to many. People will scorn and reject it, and place their trust in other things that have a greater outward appearance. Nevertheless, God works through the gospel to accomplish great things. The message of forgiveness in Jesus, which the world values little, will grow and produce a great church—so great that it spreads throughout the entire world—and people of all nations will be a part of it.

Can you believe the amazing growth of the church?! Like the mustard seed, it too had very small beginnings. After Jesus’ ascension, the Holy Spirit used twelve insignificant apostles and the testimony of a few thousand believers to spread the good news of Jesus. And the church grew: first hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of believers. Within decades of Jesus’ ascension, the gospel had traveled to many lands and peoples throughout the known world. God preserved the church through the centuries that followed, guarding her at every turn against false teachers and dangerous errors. All the while the thing that sustained the church was the gospel of forgiveness in Christ, at work in the hearts of men and women like you and me.

And so it is today as the gospel works among us and throughout the world. Look at what God has done here among you. God brought you to faith in him, and now you are one body, building each other up with Word and Sacrament and reaching out to the lost around you.

And look at the growth of the gospel throughout the world. Even our relatively small synod of 400,000 souls has missionaries and sister church bodies in such places as Zambia, Cameroon, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Japan, Indonesia, Russia, Ukraine, Latin America, and the Caribbean, just to name a few. And there are millions of Christians throughout the world in other church bodies and in other countries.

God is working through the gospel even in places where we are not able to preach and teach publicly. God is growing and nurturing a vast crop of believers in China. Some estimate that there are more than 100 million Christians in China, and that number is growing by the thousands every day!

Think about how all this growth of the church began after Pentecost: a dozen missionaries and a few thousand believers sharing the love of God with everyone they met. All this growth came about not by their efforts, but by the power of the simple message of Christ, crucified for sinners.

So don’t be timid! Jesus told us these parables to let us know the power of his Word. Jesus told us these parables so we have confidence that he himself will do the work through us! The message of forgiveness that worked so powerfully in our hearts will work saving faith in the hearts of many people with whom we share it. That is God’s promise, and he will fulfill it!

Let the knowledge of this powerfully working gospel dispel whatever doubts or fears you have about sharing the good news of Jesus with others around you. God truly is working powerfully through the gospel as it grows on its own in our hearts and produces amazing results in the world. Amen.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus! Amen.