A couple of years ago I spoke to you about a convertible vicar. Most of you drive hard tops and did not know that much about convertibles. I was not speaking of a convertible fresh off the dealer’s lot but a vintage model. But, of course, I was talking about a vicar and not a car. You looked at me skeptically. You watched online as a name was read and you saw that this vicar was not exactly the brand new model you had imagined. But he came and became your vicar, your friend, and, more importantly, your pastor.
On March 22, as your state and indeed the nation was shutting down in fear of a pandemic, your pastor began his ministry among you. He was the right man at the right time. I thought it was the case when you applied for a vicar and when the seminary assigned him here in April 2019. I believed it even more when in March of 2020 he was ordained and installed as your pastor. Your skepticism turned into the same confidence. Neely Owen was the right man at the right time. That is how God works.
Now we are here celebrating his ministry as he will soon resign his call and tend to health concerns that may threaten his very life. None of us wants to be doing this. Not Neely, not Martha, not me, and not you. Yet we are here with the confidence that the Lord is at work in His Church and that no matter how upset our plans and fragile our lives, we live them out in His hand, confident that His will is good and gracious and He will not abandon any of us in our time of uncertainty and fear.
I could spend my time here talking about all that Neely has accomplished in his time here. And there would be much to talk about. From attendance in the 20s to 70s on Easter Sunday. From financial uncertainty to a solid financial position. From complaint to deep and abiding affection for your pastor and your congregation. From playing CDs to a real organ and organist. From a focus on how little you have to how much the Lord has given you. But I want to focus you on the Gospel for today.
Jesus is speaking to a dozen disciples who were nobodies in a large and complex world. And Jesus says to those disciples: The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. What a strange thing to say. Surely the disciples were looking for more than a seed or a man scattering that seed. Like us, they knew the world – they knew the challenges they faced and the uncertainty of their future. They wanted to believe that Jesus was a powerful God who would magically transform them and their lives. It’s what we want, isn’t it? We think the power of the Church is in people, programs, and organization. But what we get from Jesus is a man scattering seed.
You got a man scattering seed. You did not get a powerful man or a man schooled in great programs or an organizational guru. You got a man. Just a man. And a mortal man who is no more immune from disease and death than you are. In the eyes of the world, it was not enough. It is not enough in our minds, either. But in the heart of Jesus, it is exactly enough. Because the power was never in the man or in the pews but in the seed. And the programs, no matter how helpful they are, are always secondary to the gathering of God’s people together around His Word and Table right here, every Sunday. And though the church organization may not be efficient or particularly effective, it is the way God has established His Church, sent forth His Church, and still maintains His Church – and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.
The seed Neely planted will endure. Not because Neely was a good planter – though I believe he was and is. No, the seed will endure and bear its appointed fruit because God is good, because the seed is not of our invention but it is the Gospel, and because the Holy Spirit is at work when and where the seed is scattered. Note that word scattered. We want to think of it as an organized planting complete with our machinery and a plan – the way a farmer works. But from our perspective, we see no rhyme or reason to it all. Scattered seed. A Pastor you did not expect becomes your beloved pastor whose future is cut short for him and for you. It appears random to us or even worse, like a conspiracy against what we want and desire. But not to Jesus. Listen to Him.
“For the saying holds true,” says Jesus: “‘One sows and another reaps.’” And from St. Paul. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” St. Paul gets it. He may not like it anymore than you or me or Pastor Owen likes it, but our hope and confidence lie with Jesus and not with us. It is only God. Only God who makes is grow. We do what we are called to do and God has promised us the privilege of a reward better than our labor. This is our hope and our confidence.
It has always been this way. Recall how Isaiah the prophet sent forth this Word from the Lord: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” It was always God’s seed, God’s field, and God’s fruit.
That is a great Lutheran verse and one that should be the comfort of a Pastor leaving too soon and a people wishing he could stay. But it is also the hope of those who believe that God is not finished with Pastor Owen or Faith Lutheran Church. Jesus says “The earth produces by itself.” At least that is how it seems. Great efforts and energies given toward a goal only to see it wither and die. Little planning or labor and the surprise of success. That is how the Kingdom comes – at least how it appears to us. But not to Jesus. He sees and knows. He directs and blesses. He gives fruit and makes the harvest. YOU are that fruit and harvest of the small little mustard seed of the Gospel planted in you and the Spirit bringing that seed to fruition. You do not even know how many seeds scattered by Pastor Owen or by you nor how those seeds will grow and bear the unexpected fruit you do not now see or expect. But God is at work. It is His kingdom, not yours. It is His Church, not yours. It is His future unfolding among you, and you get the privilege of being part of it all for a while.
And then what? What do you do when your little while comes to an end or shifts to another part of God’s Kingdom and His Church? What does a pastor do who leaves his flock before he is ready? What does a congregation do who must bid farewell and godspeed to a beloved pastor before they are ready? What do both of you do as you face an uncertain future? Perhaps the prophet Isaiah has a clue: “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”
The seed is small and seems so weak in the face of great fears, big worries, high anxieties, unpredictable futures, and weary hearts. But hidden in the small seed of the Gospel is God at work. God at work. God at work in you, Neely and you, Martha. God at work in you, the people of God and the family of faith we call Faith Lutheran Church. And though you think that the Gospel is under fire and the world gone crazy and the Church wavering in the face of it all, Jesus says the small seed will produce the largest tree of all. You do not see it. I do not see it. We believe it. It is the truth we confess by faith. It will not be disclosed to us until that day when Jesus returns in His glory and reveals to us what now is hidden. Then we shall see face to face. But not now.
My friends, today is our day to celebrate. To rejoice in what God has done through this man and in this community. Pastor Neely Owen, God has worked in you and through you. Faith Lutheran Church, God has worked in you and through you. What will be is for now left unseen to us but we know that for the people of God there are no final goodbyes. There is hope. Seeds planted with the expectation of a future. God is with you. What He has done among you shall endure. And the ties that bind you as one people under the one Lord in the one baptism, they will endure. The seed will bear the fruit God has appointed. And on the day of harvest, what is not clear now, you will see clearly and your joy will be full.
May God give us ears to hear and hearts to believe this. In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
2 comments:
God be with Pastor Neely, and you, Pastor Peters.
God bless you, Larry -- my dear and precious friend. Your words are very humbling to me, calling me to a closer friendship to you and to thanksgiving for a gracious God who undergirds us both. May the gifts He has given us all be made more apparent by His love shared through us to others. Praying for Our Heavenly Father's continued richest blessings upon you and Amy.
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