TALK · 2024

Looking for seeds in Psalm 23

The parable of the sower turned inside out: going back to the places where the seed was sown — what has grown from the seeds of Psalm 23?

Luke 8:5–15 · Psalm 23 · 27 slides

Recording

Recording of the sermon — it starts at 29:41, where the talk begins.

Introduction

I'm Matyáš Hájek, a youth leader at the Church of the Brethren (CB) in Litomyšl. I make my living creating graphics, videos and websites. But I'm here with you because this fascinates me far more.

But I'm very much not a professional — so I'd rather lay my cards on the table right away: who influences me most and who I drew on most for today's sermon too: Dallas Willard, Martin Luther and Tim Mackie (BibleProject).

The sower

We've read the parable of the sower — and that's what sermons are usually about: the preacher sows the seeds of God's word. But today we'll try a little experiment. We'll go back to the places where the seed was sown and investigate what became of the seed sown earlier. We'll try to find it and see what has grown from it.

5 A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 Some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said this, he called out: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” … 11 This is the meaning of the parable: the seed is the word of God. 12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, but then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it; but they have no root — they believe for a while, and in a time of testing they fall away. 14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares, riches and pleasures of life, and they bring no fruit to maturity. 15 The seed on good soil stands for those who hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with perseverance.

Luke 8:5–15 (selection)

That doesn't apply to us

The most interesting thing about the parable of the sower is that it doesn't apply to us at all.

At least that's what I used to think. When someone proclaims God's word to me, there's no danger of it falling on rock, among thorns or on the path. After all, I'm a believer, so my heart is automatically that fertile, well-prepared soil into which any seed of God's word snuggles as if into a feather bed and sprouts right away.

Sounds lovely — except it's not true at all. Every time we sit down for a sermon or open Scripture, every single time it's a fresh battle for our hearts. There's always the danger that the devil will rob us of them, or the worries and pleasures of life, or temptation.

The three steps of studying theology

According to Luther, studying theology has three steps:

prayer: we enter God's word with prayer, and we respond to the word we've heard with prayer
meditation: we meditate on God's word
the experience of temptation and trials — this is our own experiment, where we get to know the power and validity of God's word. Does it really work? Then we can talk about it with others, and it carries its own authority and power.

Anyone who hasn't been through that, who has merely got acquainted with Scripture but hasn't responded personally and with their life, cannot know what God's word is saying — a bit like Job: “I had only heard of you from afar, but now I have seen you face to face.”

The reference to Job, though, hints that theology is not a painless activity but rather passio — more like suffering.

Tell me — who actually goes about a sermon or the word they read like this?

Another parable that has nothing to do with me is the one about the man who builds his house on sand. After all, we're believers, old church hands, so our life stands on a firm foundation — on Christ — on the rock. Except that's not what the parable is about, is it?

The house on the rock is about the person who hears the word and acts on it. But if the word never even landed on fertile soil in us, we can hardly act on it.

Both parables apply to us. There's a danger that even when someone speaks to us about God, it just runs off us church people like water and does nothing to us. And there's also the danger that if we don't get to know Scripture in its sharpness, our house ends up on sand and is then vulnerable.

Case study

Brothers

What we need is a concrete example of Scripture that was proclaimed to both you and me recently, so that together we can examine whether it did anything to us. So that we can go back and inspect the spot where that seed fell and see whether anything has grown from it.

Four years ago you went through a series of 9 sermons on Psalm 23. Around the same time the Father was schooling me in Psalm 23 too — so let's recall it and search together to see whether the seed has grown and what foundation our house stands on.

You could say we're like brothers whose father called them to him, gave them one piece of advice and sent them out into the world. And now, four years on, we're meeting here to tell each other what adventures we've been through and what we did with the advice.

Shall we go and read it?

Doubts

One indicator that will show whether Psalm 23 has taken root in you is certain doubts.

One brother with many years of church life behind him and an excellent Sunday attendance record 🙂 opened a discussion with me about whether prayer works — whether God actually responds to our requests. It's fine to have doubts, but one thing is certain: Psalm 23, which is about life in close tandem with God, definitely hasn't taken root in him, and he hasn't tested it in practice.

So you can ask yourselves too — do you think God responds? If you're not clear on the question, then here's my invitation: start testing Psalm 23 in practice.

Looking back

A second test of whether Psalm 23 has taken root could be looking back. Let's read Deuteronomy 8:2–5:

2 And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you.

Deuteronomy 8:2–5

If that isn't Psalm 23 in practice, I don't know what is… So let's look back: can we see the traces of Scripture shaping our decisions? Can we see, say, the traces of Psalm 23? Let's briefly remind ourselves of it.

The LORD is my shepherd

Let me recall Psalm 23 with two stories. The first is a kind of half-dream that played out in my head while I was praying over Psalm 23. The story is set at the court of King David, since he's the one named as the author:

An audience with the king

The king's statement “The LORD is my shepherd” spread through the kingdom and caused no small stir. An angry commander of the armies and one of the older, respected priests came striding into the audience hall.

Before the master of ceremonies had even given the signal, the army commander launched into his objections — he admired a strong king and didn't like that weak-sounding statement one bit: “That's terrible talk. What ruler ever spoke of himself like that? ‘The LORD is my shepherd.’ Are you a mere sheep? Aren't you the king? Your soldiers are your protection and your enemies fear you. You built a strong kingdom on your own wise decisions, and you've given us a successor too. You're surely no silly, defenceless sheep…”

(And more than one courtier in the hall was nodding along to that speech. The king does take his piety a bit far. They're no sheep either, after all, no fools. They manage sizeable estates and servants. And as far as God is concerned, they do their duties: bringing God the prescribed sacrifices is a good thing, but there are some matters they won't let God have a say in. It's for them to decide whether they'll come down to God to speak with him at some time other than the set hours of prayer and the festivals. That's what the priests are for, after all — prayers. In any case, they're no sheep — they run their own lives.)

But King David just shook his head… and before he could even reply, the opposite question came pouring at him, silencing the first questioner. The priest was provoked by the statement “The LORD is my shepherd” for a different reason. He was older — his beard reached down to his chest — and in a deep voice he pressed: “The LORD, who breathed life into every living thing, who filled the sky with stars — he is your shepherd? What makes you think the creator of heaven and earth would concern himself with your everyday worries?”

(And other courtiers stood a little way off, nodding along with their lives, because they did believe in God, but he was distant to them — just as the priest described.)

The king shook his head at them both and answered both with a single reply: “When I was still a young lad tending sheep, was it really I alone who defeated the lion and the bear? Do you think I would have stood up to Goliath, and then to thousands of enemies, in my own strength? Did I anoint myself king? I don't even carry the weight of the crown by myself. The LORD is my shepherd.”

That's how the king answered them both: the general, to whom God seemed unnecessary for everyday life, and the priest, to whom God seemed too great and too distant to bother with our concrete worries.

An audience with the king — my own story

Mini kings

We may not be King David, but each of us has a kingdom of our own.

Even children know it: one of their first words is “mine”, describing everything that falls within their kingdom and what they get to decide about. And they say “no, no, no”, putting everyone around them in their proper place, because in their kingdom they make the decisions themselves.

The borders of God's kingdom

In the same way, the border of God's kingdom reaches wherever his will is done — and we know from the Lord's Prayer that this is primarily in heaven, and we pray that it would be so on earth too.

Before the fall

Let's remember how things were arranged back before the fall:

Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26

Yes, in a way Adam was king over all creation — but at the same time he was under God's kingdom. It was God who set the rules, and his will was above everything. But then came the time of rebellion, and Adam and Eve said “we'll do it our way” and made their kingdom independent — and that was only the beginning of their fall.

Now in the Psalm we have a picture of reality as it was before the fall. The one who leads is God — and David submits his kingdom to God. It's life in the kingdom of God. In mutual, everyday cooperation with God.

Christ

A few centuries later Christ will be walking the earth — and his message is: the kingdom of God is within reach. And everyone could see it in his deeds. And Christ invites everyone once again: forget about your self-rule — you weren't made for it, you're only wearing yourselves out in it. The place where God dwells and reigns is called heaven — but even on earth, the kingdom of God is within reach for ordinary mortals.

Just like electricity is within reach — you don't have to struggle with candles and cooking over a fire…

Point-blank questions

And now the question is for us: are we holding on to our own kingdoms, or are we living in the reality of God's kingdom? Is the LORD our shepherd? Have we submitted our kingdoms to him?
Are your houses and possessions only yours, or are they his, and you're merely stewards?
Do we meditate on his word ourselves, so that we understand what the will of the king who stands above us is?
Do we get down on our knees before him daily in prayer, because we're under his authority and because we don't want to — and don't have to — deal with our worries alone in our own kingdom and in our own strength?
Can we see that we're gradually being changed into the likeness of Christ?
Have we made progress in this over the last four years?

I'm convinced the time is coming when many congregations, their pastors and leaders will say: “It's all about discipleship. It's all about the transformation of character and heart into the likeness of Christ.” If you've ever looked into the New Testament, you may have reached the same conclusion. It's hard to miss.

We've come through a really long period in which the prevailing theology had nothing to do with discipleship. It was only about believing the right things. If you believe the right things, God will see to it that you don't end up in the bad place but in the good place. And you could have an utterly disastrous character and the good place was still waiting for you. Just believe the right things. (…)

If the church lived in discipleship and resembled Christ, then it would be able to fulfil its mission, it would bring change, and nobody would laugh at the church. I say this with hope, not criticism, because I know who the true head of the church is.

Dallas Willard

C. S. Lewis speaks in a similar way — this is the main thing, what it's actually all about in the first place.

Invisibility complicates things

It's true that what complicates things is that our shepherd can't be seen.

If God could be seen and we had his glory before our eyes, that would be the end of sin — in the reality of his glory we could hardly sin. It would completely steamroll our will. That's why things are arranged differently — he has to be sought. He can't be seen or heard until we ourselves seek and want to hear. That means primarily looking at what is unseen, not at what is seen.

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the anger of Pharaoh, for he held firmly to the One who is invisible, as though he could see him.

Hebrews 11:27

I lack nothing

“I shall not want.” Or, as another translation puts it: “I lack nothing.” In other words, there is nothing I'm missing — now or in the future.

It's a shocking statement, so I went digging into it — what it means in practice. I looked in Scripture for where else this phrase appears, and in Deuteronomy 2:7 there's a statement that sums up the whole long odyssey of the Israelites wandering through the desert:

“For forty years now the LORD your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing.”

Deuteronomy 2:7 (B21)

Was there anything they lacked in the desert? What we'd need now is a few reporters — send them out among the Israelites wandering through the desert, and to Moses. What answers would we get? Depends on who you asked.

The Israelites did a looot of shouting: that they were hungry, thirsty, that they'd die out there in the desert. If you asked Moses, he'd say: when we were hungry, we were given food; we were thirsty and we were given drink; we were attacked and we were rescued.

So on one side we see Moses (and he's not alone), and on the other the grumbling people. Both camps are thirsty; the only difference is how they spend the time of waiting until God's rescue arrives:

the first fear for their lives, are under brutal stress, curse and grumble, suffer;
while Moses already has some experience of God from his life so far and trusts him — the people's grumbling weighs on him far more than his own hunger or thirst. He prays and waits. Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Ávila and many a monastic order would gladly have gone hungry with him a while longer, so that fasting might bring them closer to God and the hard time might show them what they're made of.

Moses and the people got water and food at the same time. Relief came to both groups at the same moment. But for one group it was merely a break before the next round of grumbling — the others could rejoice that God had heard their pleas and is faithful. Their trust in God grew. And they were ready, perhaps, even for further trials. Can you see the difference?

That's exactly why only those who confess “The Lord is my shepherd” — those who are God's disciples, who turned to him in prayer and then received the answers, because prayer works — only they can utter a statement that is true yet at first glance absurd: “I lack nothing.” Even though it wasn't always easy.

So let's look back — at all those hard times — and if we went through them with hope in God's help, let's admit that God was with us in them. That he was raising us.

Let me tell you about my own hard times, which humbled me badly but which I now look back on with great gratitude. After all, some of you were there!

The cottage

Normally I work with my head, shut away at a computer. But there came a time when I longed for the outdoors and wanted to work with my hands to clear my head.

And right on my birthday, a cottage fell into our lap — along with a commitment to the bank that we had to renovate it. And we went at it ourselves, DIY-style, so a mountain of manual work lay ahead of us. Yaaay 🙂

It was around this stage that my beard started going grey and the prayer of Psalm 23 took up permanent residence on my phone's home screen. If the sight of this doesn't make you feel physically sick, it's only because it isn't your responsibility to get it into shape and because you're not an IT guy with next to no experience in construction 🙂

In any case, a cottage like that gives your prayer life an absolutely fantastic boost. Theoretical questions of faith turn into purely practical ones: what can I pray for, what help can I expect from God. And help came to me from Olomouc. How did I get on? Another IT guy.

The cottage — my own story

Conclusion

Luther says: Forgetting is fine. Theology is about learning and forgetting and learning anew.

What matters, though, is that those encounters with Scripture must not leave us the same. They change us and equip us for trials, for gathering experience.

And this never-ending story isn't about climbing up to the heights to reach God, but about descending into the depths of trials with God.