“Broken and Scattered Signs”

Matthew 13:1-9

“In our time we see only broken and scattered signs that the renewal of all things is under way… But we see Jesus as Lord.” This is a line from the “Declaration of Faith” we affirmed earlier.

“We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree, and wither and perish – but naught changeth Thee.” So we sang in this morning’s first hymn.

“Change and decay in all around I see I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.” So we will sing in our closing hymn.

“Remind us [O God] that, as we struggle in our failures and disappointments, we struggle in the palm of your hand.” A slightly edited line from our Prayer of Confession.

“I am severely afflicted; give me life, O Lord, according to your word.” Words of that long ago psalmist that are still applicable today.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus… Christ Jesus has set [us] free from the law of sin and death.” Paul’s words to the Romans.

“A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.” Eugene Peterson’s rendering of part of today’s Gospel text.

“[God’s Word] shall accomplish that which [God purposes], and succeed in the thing for which [God] sent it.” God’s word as conveyed to captive Israel by Isaiah.

The signs of God’s Kingdom are few and far between. Jesus is still Lord. The Kingdom is coming in all its fullness. We wither and perish. We are surrounded by death and decay. God is eternal. Christians do struggle, we do fail, but we are always safe and secure in the loving grasp of God.

Even in our worst afflictions, when God may seem absent, he is with us. We can call on him with faith and confidence. Sin, death, and evil may abound, but Jesus Christ has delivered us from them. We scatter abroad the Gospel message, but not every seed finds a ready and waiting heart in which to grow. The good news is that some seeds do. In God’s own time there will be a harvest beyond even our wildest dreams. God’s successes will outweigh our failures.

Why? Think about the truth that Isaiah proclaimed. God’s Word is never sent forth in futility. Never. God’s Word goes forth to accomplish God’s intentions. Always. Sin is real. Death is real. Evil runs amok. In our humanity we are feeble and frail, dogged every day by frustration and failure. We see only what is, sometimes forgetting that God will bring history to the conclusion that he has chosen and ordained. By faith, we are to scatter the good seed of the Gospel and then trust God to bring in the promised harvest.

When we look at the earthly ministry of Jesus through the pragmatic eyes of the world we don’t see a lot of success. He was not on the fast track to success. Nor was he upwardly mobile. Some followed him. Most didn’t. His style rubbed many the wrong way. His honesty made a lot of people mad. He got himself arrested. His closest followers couldn’t distance themselves from him fast enough. He was mocked, beaten, and spit on. The mob that gathered to watch his humiliation was more than willing to trade his life for that of a scoundrel named Barabbas. He died a humiliating death between two thieves. He was buried in a borrowed tomb.

Jesus knew how things were going. He was very aware of his ministry’s seeming lack of success. He also knew what his disciples were thinking. Even though they were theologically naïve and misdirected, totally misunderstanding Jesus’ mission and believing that they had hooked their wagon to his bright and ascending star, they were beginning to have their moments of doubt. The road to an earthly kingdom that they thought they were walking was beginning to feel more and more like a detour. The roadmap Jesus was following sure was different from theirs. There was no bumper crop on the near horizon.

Look at what they were experiencing. The religious establishment was increasingly unhappy with Jesus. Their unhappiness was morphing into hostility. The political establishment wasn’t jumping on the Jesus bandwagon. The rich and famous were staying away in droves, neither endorsing nor financing the work of Jesus. Jesus was not winning a whole lot of friends or positively influencing many people. On the surface it appeared as if this would be a time when God’s word would return to him empty.

There would be resurrection and Pentecost. The church would grow like wildfire. But the disciples didn’t have even the tiniest glimpse of what was to come. By worldly standards, there wasn’t a whole lot of success. More seed seemed to be landing on the road, in the gravel, or among the weeds than it did on fertile soil.

What Jesus was using the parable to tell them was that, yes, some of the seeds would never take root. In the short run failures would outnumber successes. But Jesus’ ministry wasn’t about the short-term. His was an eternity-based agenda. The seeds were going to grow. The crop was going to come in. The harvest would be amazing.

To make that point Jesus used some startling numbers. In that day and age a seven-fold yield was considered very good. Thirty-, sixty-, and hundred-fold yields were unheard of. Such agricultural success would have been astounding. Jesus was assuring them that not only was God’s harvest sure to come, when it did it was going to be mind-blowing. The fully realized Kingdom was going to be wondrous to behold. God’s word would not come back empty. God’s intentions would be accomplished.

That’s a word they needed to hear. It’s also a word we need to hear. It’s a truth about which we need to be reminded as we face our spiritual failures and ecclesiastical disappointments. It’s a matter of faith that we need to affirm, reaffirm, and then affirm again. In our time we can only see, and not always clearly when we do, broken and scattered signs of the Kingdom, but we must look beyond the supposedly obvious and see that Jesus is still King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

As the modern American church is pushed more and more to the fringes of our society – as secularism and consumerism replace Christian truth – as false prophets spout false gospels, it’s easy to believe that we are sowing Gospel seeds on nothing but hard pavement, gravel pits, and weed patches. At this particular moment in American church history the expectation of any harvest seems absurd.

But what did Jesus say? What is Jesus, through Scripture, still saying? “[Some] seeds [fall] on good soil, and [bring] forth grain, some a hundred-fold, some sixty-, some thirty-… [producing] a harvest beyond [our] wildest dreams.”

In the eyes of the world, believing that goes beyond foolishness. It borders on insanity. But isn’t that what the Apostle Paul tells us to do? “For the message of the cross is foolishness… God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom…” It’s not God who’s crazy. It’s his sinfully perverted creation. It’s not the Gospel that’s foolish. It’s the so-called conventional wisdom of a world that wants us to blindly accept its flawed vision of reality.

This may not seem to be the greatest time in American history to be a Christian. It is definitely not a golden era for mainline Presbyterianism. The cultural environment is mostly one of benign tolerance, but there are some clear and disturbing signs of a growing hostility. Our denominational membership statistics are discouraging, if not depressing. There are more folks jumping off the Jesus bandwagon than there are folks jumping on it.

But hear this. Jesus is still Lord. God is still in charge. In his own time and in his own way the Kingdom’s bumper crop will come in. Meanwhile, even though the soil in which we’re called to sow the Gospel seed doesn’t look to be all that promising, by faith and hope we are to obediently keep scattering God’s seed on it. And in time, it will grow. Ultimately it will produce a harvest beyond our wildest dreams. Amen.