https://app.dropwave.io/episode/07c66f85-091a-4518-9bdb-ac0ffd554765/sexagesima-ad-2026.mp3

++ JESU JUVA ++

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Seed is the Word of God. So wherever the Word of God is taught, preached, heard, read, or meditated upon, this Parable applies. The Parable is about God’s Word. More precisely, it’s about the importance of hearing the Word of God. So Jesus says: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 8:8). “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). Understanding of God’s Word comes only by the Holy Spirit. The believer cooperates with the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that those who believe pay attention to Him. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And that’s what’s Jesus is doing for you right now. He is casting God’s Word into the soil of your heart.

Of the four soils Jesus sets before us, only one has fruit that matures in the end. All the others depict those who fall away. Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matthew 7:13-14). So this parable of the sower plainly warns against the false doctrine of ‘once saved, always saved.’ It is possible to fall away from the faith.

Beware of this danger. For no matter how strong your faith is — no matter how long you’ve been a Christian — this parable is a warning for you. Remember St. Peter? Remember how Jesus warned him that he would deny the Lord — how did Peter respond? I will never deny you! But Peter was wrong and Jesus was right. So don’t be so proud as to say that you could never fall into this sin or that one — especially if your Lord is warning you against it. We read in Hebrews: Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience (Hebrews 4:11).

The danger is real, but your Lord Jesus wishes to preserve you from it. He wants you to stay in the faith. He loves, so He warns. By this parable, He explains exactly how faith is destroyed. But before we jump into the parable, I want to make something very clear. Jesus wants you to endure to the end, and to be saved. This is His most fervent desire for you. God is the one who gave you faith. It’s His gift. He sustains it. And He doesn’t want anyone to be lost.

This is why He scatters His seed as He does. God is interested in covering all the ground, everywhere, with the seed. The path, the rocks, the weeds, the good soil. They all hear the Word of God. So don’t think of the seed of God’s Word just being stingily passed around here and there. Think of your Lord Jesus driving along in a dump truck and pouring out His seed so that it covers the entire ground.

Hear how freely He gives! Hear what the Lord says in Isaiah 55, before our Old Testament reading: Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live (Isaiah 55:1-3).

That’s how free this gift truly is. Hear what God says, and, in your hearing, the gift is made yours. The Seed is the Word of God. It is a peaceful word. The word of God's peace and goodwill. In this life, you have enemies who don’t want you to have peace. God is jealous for you. He wants to be certain that you receive His peace. So He warns you of the ways you can lose this salvation.

[On the path]

Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved (Luke 8:12). The way it reads, it sounds like the situation is that the devil comes and steals the word before they believe. That he gets between the hearer and the Word of God. And certainly the devil can do this.

But here, the Greek says something more like “the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they, having believed, would be saved.” And consider where the devil takes the word from. He takes it “out of their hearts.” That is, they possessed the Word in their hearts. They believed it. And the devil came and stole it away from them. So this first scene is an image of someone who had faith for a very, very short time. That means this warning applies to believers, to Christians.

Matthew’s account of this parable provides more detail. There, Jesus says that these are the ones who hear the Word of God but do not understand it. They receive the Word; they believe it. But they don’t seek to hold onto the Word with their mind. It’s not about not being smart enough or having a high enough IQ. The Gospel is a promise. It’s received apart from one’s intelligence.

So the failure here is a lack of attention. This can happen even in church. Luther says it this way in the Large Catechism: It is not only the people who greatly misuse and desecrate the holy day who sin against this commandment (those who neglect to hear God’s Word because of their greed or frivolity or lie in taverns and are dead drunk like swine). But even that other crowd sins. They listen to God’s Word like it was any other trifle and only come to preaching because of custom. They go away again, and at the end of the year they know as little of God’s Word as at the beginning (LC I:96). That is, these are those who hear the Word of God, and even agree that it’s true, but they don’t pay attention to it.

It’s easy to do this. God’s Word is familiar to us — and readily available. So it’s treated as ordinary and unimportant. Instead of hearing it as the living voice of God, it’s dismissed as common speech. Perhaps we think that because we have it now, we will always have it — as though we have a right to deserve God’s Word. The seed on the path is a person who once paid attention — because he received it and believed it, but now he simply doesn’t anymore. That means, if you’re sitting in church, but not paying any attention to what is said, whatever faith you might have is going to die very soon.

So here’s the scene. You have God’s Word in your heart, but you’re ignoring it. You’re not paying any attention. The devilish bird stands nearby, seeking to attack and devour. His role here isn’t tempting you with scandalous sins, but simply to remove the Word. All it takes is distraction. While you’re inattentive, he reaches in and takes God’s Word out of your heart. So it’s not that the devil gets all the blame for stealing away the Word. But when you disregard the preached Word and fail to pay attention to it, you are giving the devil a foothold.

How often do you listen to the sermon — even doing so with great joy — but then you walk out those doors and find you can’t seem to remember anything that was said? Do you find that it’s hard to shoo the birds away? Do you sit idly by and watch them work — thinking it’s someone else’s duty to remove them?

Or, perhaps the path is the image of one who just lets everything into his heart without any discernment. All sorts of thoughts run through his heart, trampling down the path. The seed, too, is trampled down, perhaps even in the Divine Service itself, by all the thoughts that wander their way into the heart. Some might say, I know what the Bible means, so why memorize? So the Word is heard, but not memorized, not learned by heart, not returned to again and again. Memory is a funny thing. Memory is alive when it’s repeated, not when you just think about it. What is not revisited soon dies. Beware! Inattention to the Word is an enemy of faith.

[In the rocky ground]