Sinner and Saint

Food for the Soul

Pentecost 11, 2011

Matthew 14:13-21

Isaiah 55:1-5

“Food for the Soul”

 

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

            From generation to generation important news was elaborately announced. From the Angels proclaiming the birth of the Savior (as we joyfully continue to proclaim with “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”) to the town criers of yesteryear ringing their hand bells shouting “hear ye, hear ye” to more modern announcements of “Ladies and gentleman, children of all ages: welcome to the greatest show on earth” by Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey circus or the famous catchphrase of Michael Buffer “Let’s get ready to rumble” we still use sight and sound to catch our attention to something special or important.

             Like all of these announcements our Old Testament lesson begins with the word “come.” It begins as if it were saying “come one, come all…”Hark! Hear ye, hear ye! Listen up! Pay attention to what the prophet Isaiah proclaims to us this day: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.” (Isaiah 55:1-3)

             What a wonderfully joyous announcement God gives to His people through the prophet Isaiah. What a way to get people’s attention…food and drink! But not just food and drink but FREE food and drink and not just free…but food and drink that is good and is satisfying; the “richest of fare”; the very best! Food and drink was just as important to the people in Israel that first heard this announcement as it is to us this day. One thing that man has known throughout the history of the world is that in order to survive and live you need food and water!

             Have you ever noticed that many times when an organization wants people to attend an event or stay for a meeting very often it uses food and drinks to do so. I have wondered if a study has ever been done to see if there is a connection with attendance and pot-luck dinners after a church service. Some of my friends have joked that I only became a Pastor because of the opportunity for pot-luck dinners.

             Before we get too carried away with all this talk about food lets go to the heart of Isaiah’s message: “Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.” (Isaiah 55:3) The announcement was indeed about food…but spiritual food. The announcement was about God’s love for His people. It was about God’s covenant of sending a Savior.

             It would be over 600 years until our Gospel lesson came to happen. Jesus would see a large crowd of over 5000 people who had gathered to see and listen to Him. Our Lord would have compassion on the people even as the Disciples grumbled asking Him to send the people away…for it was getting late, they were in a remote place, and their was no food to eat. There wasn’t enough for the people to eat and there wasn’t enough money to purchase food either. How fitting Isaiah’s words are “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” (Isaiah 55:1)

             You know the story. Jesus would take five loaves of bread and two fish and fed all the people as much as they wanted and have 12 baskets of food left over. While Jesus was feeding all these people with food for their bodies He was also feeding their souls. The promised Messiah had come. This miracle was awesome in that it fed so many people but even greater that it showed who Jesus really was…the Son of God; the Savior.

             People still hunger and thirst for both physical needs and spiritual. Yet often we eat the wrong things. We are prone to eat things that we think taste good but aren’t very healthy for us. Sometimes all that there is to eat has no nourishment at all. In WWII there were various accounts of families in bombed out, besieged, blockaded cities being so hungry that they mixed saw dust and paste from wall paper to make “bread.” How sad of a thought is that.

             Today many think that they have all that they need spiritually but are really eating a spiritual paste and sawdust as they try to convince themselves that it is the bread of life. As we rely in ourselves and give in to our sinfulness we blockade ourselves from the true source of life. It is like stories of the old West. In the arid parts of the western United States the early settlers made their homes along the streams. Anyone doing otherwise would have been thought very foolish. But there are individuals and families who establish themselves far away from their church or otherwise arrange their home affairs in a way that gives them no time or opportunity to draw water from the stream of life, thus inflicting on themselves the greatest possible harm.

             Sin blockades us from life. It lies and tells us that we have food to live. It tells us that we can feed ourselves. Whether sin convinces us that we are saved by our own deeds or that we don’t need to be saved at all…it kills us in the end. Sin tries to convince us that we just need a day to ourselves to refresh us by sleeping in or relaxing on Sunday instead of going to Church. Sin tells us that we can be spiritual at home or anywhere else we would rather be. Sin tells us that God will understand…its just this one time we’ll take off. Sin leads to eternal starvation and damnation.

             But God did something about this. God sent us a Savior to conquer sin, death, and the devil. Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave…the battle has been won. Hear the words of Isaiah one last time: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.” (Isaiah 55:1-3)

             God’s promise of eternal life is yours through Christ Jesus. Come, receive the proof of that promise; receive the bread of life this very day in the very body and blood of Christ. Here in this place Jesus comes to feed you. Here you receive strength and forgiveness. Hark! Hear ye, hear ye! Listen up! Pay attention. Jesus lives! Eternal life is yours! You are forgiven! Amen.

 

Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen. 

 

Good Soil

Pentecost 8, 2011

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Isaiah 55:10-11

“Good Soil”

 

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

            One of the first persons that I met back in college that grew up on a farm was Stacy Reetz. Stacy, who talked about all the jokes people would say about his name, was a “country strong” farm boy from Iowa. While he would often join in on jokes about Iowa he loved his home state and the fact that he indeed grew up on a farm. There was one thing that Stacy didn’t like about farming… “rock picking.” That was something that I could only shrug my shoulders about until he explained what it was. How many of you have ever been rock picking? Is it fun? Or is it a lot of hard work?

            What I wondered, after Stacy explained what rock picking was, was why on earth would you go through the trouble… the hard work… the sweat and struggle… to go out in the fields following the tractor picking up rocks. Was it really worth it? If the ground had that many rocks…why not farm somewhere else. Simply put…you have to work with what you got. If that’s the land you have…you have to work with it. While Stacy didn’t care for picking rocks…it did have a positive effect. Stacy got stronger and the crops also grew stronger.      

            Our Gospel lesson talks about a farmer that plants his crops in some very peculiar places. Our text says, “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:3-9)

            Now, as I have said on numerous occasions, I’m not that experienced with farming, but it seems to me that even I would know better than to plant on a path, in rocky soil, or in thorns. One might start to ask the question what kind of farmer is this? I doubt that many experienced farmers would waste their seed on ground that bad. The farmer in our text did plant some seed on good ground where the crops varied in production but at what cost? How could the farmer waste so much to gain so little? Maybe the real question should be…Who is this farmer and what is the seed that He sows?

            The farmer is God. It is God that is sowing the seed; which is His Word. It might be hard to believe that the farmer of our text, who doesn’t seem to know what he is doing, is actually God. God planted His Word in such horrible soil? Ah…yes, the soil. The soil is sinful people. Just look at the different types of people that God shares His Word with…and the results that follow. What doesn’t make sense is how the Gospel text that speaks about the Word being wasted on bad soil relates to our Old Testament text. Isaiah wrote, “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 that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 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.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

            God’s Word, the Gospel, is like a two edged sword. It creates faith and it convicts sin. While it looks like the farmer in our text is wasting good seed (God’s Word) he really is not. God is spreading the Word among all people…but not all people believe. Let’s take a look at how Jesus himself explains the parable of the sower.

            “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:18-23)

            What kind of soil are you? Maybe we need to start from the recognition that we’re not one of the soils, we’re all of them. We are indeed a reflection of this sinful world…for we are sinful. We are constantly showered by the grace of God's Word, but it has different results at different times. There are times when the word hits us and bounces off without effect. It almost seems like God’s Word is in one ear and out the other. We come to Church…we hear God’s Word…but we don’t act like Christians are supposed to act once we leave.

             Then there are times when we receive the word with joy but it takes no root. We get excited about what God has done for us and how joyful we are that God loves us so much…but we forget that joy as soon as there are troubles in our lives. There are times when the word starts to take root, but it is choked out by the pleasures and cares of the world. Far too often we know we aren’t supposed to do things…but we do them because we want to. Even when we know something is a sin in the eyes of God we ignore God’s Word and sin anyway. And there are times when the word takes root and bears fruit. Thanks be to God that He never gives up on us and leads us closer to Him. Thanks be to God that His Word “will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

            There is much in this text that warns us of hearing God’s Word and ignoring or rejecting it. We must look at our lives in the context of this warning. But do not get discouraged my brothers and sisters in Christ, for this text is truly about God’s radical grace. God keeps sowing the seed of His Word so that you and I; all people may hear the wonderful news that Christ died for us, took our sins upon himself, and rose for us that we would have eternal life. While you may look like soil that couldn’t possibly produce fruit…God’s Word produces…it produces faith…and it never returns to Him empty. You are His child. God’s Word has produced faith in you. That faith grows and shares. It shares God’s love. Amen.

 

Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen.