Ezek 17:22–24 2 Cor 5:1–17 Mark 4:26–32
Tapani Simojoki, St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Ruislip
14 June 2009

In the holy name of † Jesus.

Today, we leave behind the festival season of the church year and enter into the ordinary time of the church by focusing in our hymns, prayers and readings on the sowing of the seed of God’s word.

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

In this parable, our Lord is teaching us about the kingdom of God. More specifically, he is teaching us about the birth and growth of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is one of the most prominent themes in all of Jesus’ teaching throughout the Gospels. One reason for this prominence is that the world inhabited by Jesus and His disciples was one where many people were thinking and teaching about the kingdom of God, but almost all of them were getting it terribly wrong. Against the many false ideas about the kingdom then and now, Jesus tells us about a kingdom produced by the sowing of the seed of His word. However, false ideas about God’s kingdom have not gone away. Each generation must return again to God’s word to learn what the kingdom of God is and how it comes to us, and hold God’s word against the false teachings of this world.

Two hundred years ago, the English painter and poet William Blake wrote a brief poem we now know as Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, Blake drew a sharp contrast between the reality of England at the start of the 19th century and the holy land trodden by Christ. He concluded with this pledge:

I will not cease from mental fight,
nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
till we have built Jerusalem
in England’s green and pleasant land.

Sadly, since it was set to music magnificently by Hubert Parry, this poem has become a popular hymn, sung in countless church services in this country and beyond. I say ‘sadly’, because Blake completely misunderstands what the true Jerusalem, the kingdom of God is.

Blake’s mistake is revealed in his use of personal pronouns: “I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem.” Like any honest man would, Blake rightly recognised the terrible effects of sin on human society. Turn on your television, read the newspaper, look out of the window—look in the mirror! —and you will see human sin staring at you relentlessly with its terrible consequences. Ever since Adam and Eve decided to take matters into their own hands and improve on what God had graciously provided for them, to do some building of their own, death and decay rather than progress have been the order of the day.

Yet we are so easily tempted in the church to take up Blake’s rallying cry, to engage in the mental fight, to wield our sword to do our own Jerusalem-building. This is the temptation of the small church trying to boost numbers by engaging the PR men or pandering to contemporary tastes to look more appealing. This is the temptation of the “successful” church, trying to maintain growth or improve its profile by adjusting its image or its message for maximum effectiveness. Millions of books have been sold with this simple formula: the twelve steps, or seven principles, for you to follow to make happen, to build Jerusalem in your own life or in your community.

Contrast this with Jesus’ words: “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.” The kingdom of God is not built by anything we do, but by God’s word alone. We cannot pull ourselves up from the mire of sin by our own boot straps. The church cannot establish itself in the world by its own efforts, by clever marketing or other tricks. She is called simply to scatter the seed of God’s word, and to sleep and to rise night and day, and let the word do what it will.

The earth will produce by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear—without us, even despite us. To human eyes, this seems such a futile task. The word of God is often the last thing people want to hear, and it makes little sense to modern people. The liturgy of the church, her hymns, sermons, Bible studies—none of these hold any immediate appeal to the world. A lot of people would claim that they are irrelevant to modern people. Amid the wars, the poverty, the natural disasters, the turmoil, surely people need something more practical, not just words. And so the temptation is to improve the church’s prospects by adding to, subtracting from, or changing the seed with which God has entrusted the church, to make it more immediately appealing, more relevant.

But this kind of thinking has a fundamental flaw. It forgets whose word it is, who it is that is speaking, and what promises are attached to it. This is the Word through which the universe was created. This is the Word that destroyed the world by the Flood, parted the Red Sea to lead God’s people to the promised land. And this is the Word that became flesh, full of grace and truth. When we hear God’s word, we hear Christ speaking to us. When we speak God’s word, Christ is speaking by us. What could possibly be more powerful, more effective, more appropriate?

Of course, this is not to say that it doesn’t matter how we present the Gospel or that we should ignore the culture around us. God’s word is not a magic spell that zaps people however hard they try to resist. He comes to us through words that can be understood, in an intelligible message. His Son became a man like us, a person that can be known and with whom one can converse. It matters that God’s word is presented in a way that is intelligible, clear, well presented. But it is the Word alone that is able to create saving faith; it is in the word alone that Christ comes to us.

This is at the heart of the Christian faith. Our chief confession, the Augsburg Confession, puts it like this:

Our churches teach that people cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works. People are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favour and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. 3] God counts this faith for righteousness in His sight.

So that we may obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. Through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given. He works faith, where and when it pleases God, in those who hear the Gospel that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake. This happens not through our own merits, but for Christ’s sake.

One day, we will appear before God’s judgement throne, to give an account of our lives. He will put out the sickle to gather in the harvest of what He has sown, the harvest of His word. The Jerusalems built by our hands, the products of our mental fight or our wielding of our swords will be burnt up like chaff by His righteous judgement. But all who have heard Christ’s gracious word in faith will be able to stand confident in Christ’s promise: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

In the holy name of † Jesus.