I don’t think it a stretch to say that every one of us here today knows someone who does not believe that we wish would believe. A friend, a neighbor, a family member . . . We want them to know their Saviour. We want them to know how much Jesus loves them and that He died for them. We want them to know and have the assurance with us, as St. Paul said today, that if [or more probably when] the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We want them to be part of the family of faith, part of the Church, with us.
And it’s frustrating and sad when they’re not. If it were up to us, they would be. At least, that’s how we imagine it. We’d tell them about Jesus, they would rejoice in this message, and believe – right then and there, on the spot. Maybe sometimes that happens; but more often not. More often our words about Jesus and the Church are met with indifference, ridicule, hostility, or that we have some sort of mental defect for believing such a preposterous tale. That has been the opinion of some about Christians from the days of the twelve all the way down our day today. So maybe it is more accurate to say that if it were up to us, no one would believe! Or at least, far fewer.
But the good news we heard today is that it is not up to us. The Church is God’s and only He makes it grow. Only He can. Which is to say that it is a miracle. The Church is the creation of God, the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not scientific, not something we can control. That may be frustrating at times, but it is better. For what God does is always better than what we do. And His ways always better than ours.
Now that’s not an obvious statement to make, for as has been reported much in the news recently, and as it’s not hard to see, the Church seems to have been in decline for a while. There are less people in the pews every Sunday, less identifying themselves as Christians, and less believing and living by God’s Word. It seems as if God and His ways aren’t working . . . or aren’t working very well anymore.
But Jesus tells us today how it is. “That 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. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Think about that for a moment. How seeds grow. When I plant seeds, sometimes they grow and sometimes not. Sometimes they take a long time to come up and sometimes they come up fast. And sometimes in my zeal to help things along I actually mess everything up and kill the very seeds and plants I was trying to make grow. Truth is, they don’t need my help. Like the 50,000 little maple trees growing all over my yard this year because for some reason there was a bumper crop of those little helicopters descending from the trees this year! I didn’t plant them; in fact, I couldn’t stop them! Or to use Jesus’ words, I just slept and rose, night and day, and the seeds did the rest.
And so the Church scatters seed. The Church – and when I say the Church I mean pastors and people, in the church building and outside of here – the Church proclaims the Word of God. Ideally like all those little helicopters coming down, all over the place. And then we live by faith and not by sight. That just as God causes seeds to grow in nature, so He will cause the seed of His Word to grow in the hearts of those who hear. That you and I are here today are proof that He does. You’re not here because you got it all figured out, that you broke the code, that you somehow worked faith up in your heart – no. You’re here because the seed of God’s Word was planted in your heart and it grew through the power and work of the Holy Spirit. For some maybe it was quick, for others maybe it took a long time. We don’t know what is happening under the ground when seeds are planted; or how the Word is working in hearts that we cannot see. But we trust that it is, for Jesus said that it is. And that He is producing a harvest. A harvest that in the end, we just may be surprised by.
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