Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text is the Holy Gospel reading which was just read.

Dear friends in Christ, today's Gospel reading was the sermon text for my first service as Pastor here at Grace Lutheran on Sexagesima Sunday in February 2010, so it will always have a special place in my heart. And it is the perfect reading for a pastor to keep in mind at all times in his ministry, because Jesus makes it clear that the success of His Kingdom in this world is not in my hands (or yours), but in God's hands as He scatters about His seed-His Word and Sacraments-far and wide, which the Holy Spirit uses to work faith when and where it pleases God (Augsburg Confession Article 5).

In this parable of Jesus we learn that there are four types of soil in the world that represent different types of people, and each soil responds to the sowing in different ways; three of the soils are ultimately fruitless, and one produces a miraculously large crop - a hundredfold yield, when in Christ's day a tenfold yield would have been a fine crop. Naturally now and on Judgment Day we want to be part of that good, fruitful soil, and so we need to ask, "What makes the soil good?"

Today's parable is very earthy and easy to relate to. Everyone has at least a bit of knowledge about dirt and seeds. In my case, a very little bit. I must confess that even though I grew up on my father's ranch with a garden, and my father had been a farmer before switching exclusively to ranching, I failed to acquire much of his considerable agricultural knowledge or skills. And if you want proof of this, just look at my back yard. I can't grow grass, much less plant a garden; I'm much better at translating Greek than I am at making things green.

But our pitiful back yard isn't all my fault. Just a few years ago, it was a pasture, and I'm sure that for many years before that, it had been farmed to death, so the soil is very poor. And it's not like it gets a lot of rain. So it would take some serious time and money to get it in shape, but with the right amount of fertilizer and watering and renovation to make the soil better. I'm sure it is possible, but I'm reluctant to expend the effort and expense. But the point I want to underscore here is that bad soil can be made good with the right methods, but bad soil doesn't make itself good. It is helpless unless someone works to improve it.

And there is a definite reason why it's difficult to make soil good, or keep it good. After God finished creating the universe out of nothing, He said, "It is very good," that is, perfect. But then Adam's sin turned everything bad, including the ground; God told him that for his rebellion, "cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you" (Genesis 3:17-18). But the ground wasn't the only thing affected, because God also would follow through on His threat to punish sin with the death of our bodies, so God said to Adam and all of us, "you [will] return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19).

We recently went to the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum and watched their film about extreme Texas weather, and they showed video footage of dust storms and pictures of the Dust Bowl from the 1930s in the Panhandle. Nothing could grow in that dust, and God tells us that's what we sinners all are: "you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Many churches have the tradition on Ash Wednesday of applying ashes to the foreheads of worshipers, and the pastor says to each: "Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return." This is a very good custom, because it is a tangible and visible reminder of our fruitless dustiness as sinners, and it points to where all of us are headed for our sins: the grave. "For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), St. Paul says. And as the Letter to the Hebrews says, right after death comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

So as we turn to the parable of Jesus about the three bad soils and the one good, we need to realize that by nature all of us humans start out as fruitless dust, bad soil; we are by nature sinful and unclean, and our sins have earned us temporal and eternal punishment, not the fruit of everlasting life. So the first thing we need to rule out in the parable is that there is something in us that makes us good soil versus bad, as if bad soil can make itself good. We were all born with original sin, and therefore as bad soil.

And if we're honest with ourselves, in the parable we find more in common with the three bad soils than the good, which produced a miraculous crop of faith, hope, love, patience, steadfastness, and every good work. We can all see elements of these bad soils in our own lives. Don't you ever hear the Word of God taught but then immediately forget what you have just heard; or you know what it says, you just choose to ignore it? Or do you find it easy to be confident in the Lord during good times, but then when hard times and suffering come, you begin to doubt God's goodness? And which of us fears, loves, and trusts in God above all other things without letting health problems and money and worldly pleasures get in the way of our worship and prayers? And how do you stack up next to the good soil, which listens to the Word of God faithfully and does it, rejoices in the Lord even in the midst of suffering, is glad to take up the cross and follow Jesus, and finds all its hope in the Kingdom of God rather than in health and money and pleasure? How do you compare to the Lord's description of the good soil?

We must confess that we bear a strong resemblance to the bad soils because of our sins, but this is no surprise because it is by original sin that we are all by nature bad soil, "no good," and we cannot become good soil by trying harder or by doing good works. And we really deserve to remain bad soil, like the soil that rejects God's Word, gives up under affliction, and is choked by cares, pleasure, and money. We have no hope of goodness on our own or from any other person, for as Jesus said, "No one is good except God alone" (Luke 18:19). Only God is good, so only He can make things good, and so this is the answer to the question: "What makes the soil good?" The answer is "God Himself." Just as at the creation of the world, when He declared everything very good, perfect, now it is only possible for God to overcome the badness of this fallen world and make good soil, good seed, and good fruits.

And the Good News for us is that we have a Savior who makes us good soil purely by grace. The way He accomplishes this goodness is by sending the Good Seed, not just generic seed, but "the Seed of the woman," God's only-begotten Son, the Word of God made flesh, Jesus the Christ. For immediately after Adam and Eve rebelled against God and brought sin and death into the world, God promised that He would overcome sin, death, and Satan. He said to the devil, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15). The Old Testament is the story of the Word, the Seed, becoming flesh, as God promised to Abraham "in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 22:18).

The Seed was the Messiah, the Christ, and the Seed "for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man." He "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. The third day He rose again from the dead." Throughout His life, He resisted the devil's efforts to snatch God's Word away from Him. He did not give up under afflictions but rather willingly took upon Himself God's punishment against the sin of the whole world. He lived by perfect faith in His Father so He was never choked by the cares of this life, never distracted from His path to the cross by love for money or pleasure. The only truly Good Man was Jesus Christ, God's promised Good Seed, the Savior of the world.

If someone invented a seed that could pack into itself all the water and fertilizer it needed to grow up, and if it could plow the ground for itself, and cull out the rocks from the soil, and kill all the weeds in the soil, well I suppose the inventor of that seed would be a billionaire. I'm not holding my breath for that sort of seed to be invented, but in the Kingdom of God, we do have such a Seed, Jesus Christ. For by His perfect life, innocent sufferings and death, victorious resurrection, and ascension to God's right hand, He has in Himself all the power to make the worst soil good, to save even the most hardened sinner.

And the wonder of God's grace is that He has chosen to send this Seed to you, to till and water and fertilize and pull weeds from you to make you good and fruitful. In the forgiveness of all your sins that God gives you in Jesus Christ, by your Baptism into Him and by Absolution and Holy Communion, God no longer looks at your sins, your rocks or shallowness or weeds. Instead, He looks at the perfect goodness of your Savior Jesus, who covers you with the righteousness of His own merits. It is by the good efforts of Jesus Christ that you have been chosen to be good soil.

Jesus says of the parable, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." You have been given ears to hear; you have been given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God; that is, you have been given faith to hear and believe God's Word. And so now learn the exhortation in Christ's parable: just as the good soil of the earth harmed by abuse and neglect, so also the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh are constantly trying to corrupt our soil and take the Good Seed from us. There are ever-present pitfalls for good soil like you, as the parable shows: the devil tempts us to be apathetic toward God's Word; the world tantalizes us with false expectations about earthly happiness; and our flesh tries to get us stuck worrying about the cares and pleasures and riches of this life rather than God's Kingdom. Jesus doesn't say that the good soil is somehow exempt from attacks by the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh-rather He says that we must endure these attacks patiently until the Last Day, when He comes to give us perfect, resurrected life.

Jesus says, "As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word in an honest and good heart, hold it fast and bear fruit with patient endurance" (author's translation). God has made you good soil, but now for you to endure and bear much fruit, the needed power can be found only in the Seed of God's Word. Jesus tells you to hear His Word in an honest and good heart, believing that His Word is true and right. When He speaks of condemnation for sins, be honest and acknowledge that you are a poor, miserable sinner. When He promises free forgiveness and eternal life for the sake of Christ, gladly receive God's goodness and mercy. When everything around you seems to be falling apart, don't hold fast to anything except God's gracious promises in His good Word and Sacraments. And when you are afflicted by trials without and troubles within, don't conclude that God is withholding His goodness from you, but realize that this is God's way of breaking up the remaining rockiness in your soil, as St. Paul says, "We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:3-5).

Jesus said that the good soil will bear much fruit with patient endurance, and He promised elsewhere that "the one who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 24:13). He promises to keep you good by nourishing your faith through His Word and Sacraments here in the Church, for the Gospel is God's Good Seed, rain (Isaiah 55), and fertilizer (Rev 12:6, 13). As Jesus said in another agricultural image in John 15-in fact, He said it right after the Last Supper, when He gave to us the Sacrament of His true body and blood-He said, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing… You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you" (John 15:4-5, 16). Good soil only stays good and only becomes fruitful by staying in Jesus through faith in Him, by continuing to receive His goodness in the Word and Sacraments. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.