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Grace, mercy and peace to you from God.

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Our father in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Amen.

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Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

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Take, for example, the food lover, who loves his mother's coffee cake.

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He admits two eating larger quantities than he should have

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as a child. Years later though, he became a much picky eater.

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So he wanted to watch his mother make the coffee cake.

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He saw her put in the usual ingredients of flour, eggs, sugar,

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cinnamon.

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But then he was put off by another ingredient.

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He watched his mother put sour cream in the coffee cake

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mix.

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Sour cream,

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why?

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Well it makes the coffee cake

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moist and delicious.

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Now he admits to hating sour cream when he was a younger child and not

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being too wild about it as he grew older.

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In his mind, it made no sense.

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Sour and sweet

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just do not go together,

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he thought.

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Once the cake was baked, would he still like it?

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Would

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he taste the sour cream instead?

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As it turns out he did enjoy it just as much as he had all those years

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before.

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And he concluded then that he did not need to know how his mother made

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the coffee cake.

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And he decided this was a case of ignorance is bliss.

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The same goes for the first Parable before us today.

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Sometimes not knowing what makes something great, only enhances, its

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beauty.

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Our Lord compares, his kingdom, his gracious reign to a man's

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scattering seed on the ground.

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He made a similar comparison earlier in Mark chapter 4. In that case,

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the sower scattered, his seed, on four different, kinds of soils.

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And Jesus earlier point was that people, hear were his word in

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different ways

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and with different results. Not all of them, fruitful for faith.

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In the parable

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parable

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before us today,

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Jesus is making a different point. This time the man simple

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scatters his seed

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and then he goes about other activities in his God-given vocation.

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Sleeping and rising night and day.

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Ask any farmer or even today?

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Once the seed is in the ground, there is only so much they can do.

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They can till the soil to prepare the ground, they can plant the seed.

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They can irrigate and apply proper solutions for fertilizing and pest

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control, but beyond that

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they cannot control how well or not, the crop will grow.

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They cannot ensure the proper balance between sunshine and heat and

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rain.

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They really must rely on divine intervention for the crops to grow.

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And the seed sprouts and grows.

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He knows not how first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in

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the ear.

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So it is in the church.

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We often wrestle and struggle both inwardly in soul and outwardly in

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life and Ministry with how successfully the seed is growing.

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Does that church seem to be dying?

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How should we revitalize it?

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Has that loved one strayed from the Lord and his gospel?

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How do we bring her back?

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Does your spiritual life seem stagnant

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or unable to grow, as you would like, how can you fix that?

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We so want to fix the problem.

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Save the dying Church.

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Bring back the lost soul. Improve our own sanctified life.

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And we assume that something must be missing that we can supply or

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improve.

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But the truth is this.

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We may very well be inserting ourselves into a process that is not

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ours to know.

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Like the seed in the ground.

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How God's word does it work

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is beyond our comprehension.

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You see the growth of God's Kingdom

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is up to him,

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not us.

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The Earth produces by itself

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first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

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God has planted the seed of his son Jesus

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the Christ in the Earth.

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Christ's death on the cross has redeemed, the whole world.

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His resurrection has brought life and immortality to light for all.  His

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gospel is proclaimed for you

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for your unbelieving loved one

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and for struggling congregations.

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Our gracious God has established his gracious reign and he alone

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grants it growth.

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You,

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for your loved ones and friends, and for all congregations.

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So, instead of stressing and wringing, our hands.

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We have confidence and trust in our savior, God.

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Ignorance really is bliss

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when a gracious God promises to ripen the grain and bring a fruitful

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harvest though

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we know not how.

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Is it like the man in the parable

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we go about our given vocations as baptized children of God, fed, and

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sustained by our Lord's body and blood.

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Pray, of course.

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Have conversations, definitely.

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Continue planting the seeds of the Gospel of Jesus,

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absolutely.

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And all the while

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trusting that God alone gives the growth in his time and in his way.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer proclaimed this point, very well in 1933.

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He uses the language not of planting and harvesting

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but of building the point though, remains the same.

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It is not we who build. Christ builds the church. No man builds the

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church

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but Christ Alone. Whoever is minded to build

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the church is surely well on the way to destroying it. For he will

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build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it.

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We must confess, he builds, we must proclaim, he builds, we must pray

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to him that he may build.

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We do not know his plan.

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We cannot see whether he is building or pulling down.

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It may be that the times, which by human standards are times of

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collapse are for him, the great times of construction.

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It may be that the times which from a human point of view are great

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times for the church are times when it is pulled down.

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It is a great comfort which Christ gives to his church.

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You confess, preach, bear witness to me, and I alone will build where it

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pleases me.

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Do not meddle in

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what is my province.

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Do what is given to you to do well and you have done enough.

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But do it well.

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Pay, no heed to views and opinions, don't ask for judgments.

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Don't always be calculating what will happen.

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Don't always be on the lookout for another refuge. Church

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stay a church.

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But Church

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confess, confess, confess

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Christ alone is your Lord.

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From his grace alone can you live as you are.

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Christ builds.

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So, so far for Bonhoeffer that is going back to the language of

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our parable.

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Christ himself gives the growth.

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Amen.  And the peace of God which goes beyond all understanding will

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guard your hearts and minds in Christ

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Jesus, our Lord.

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Amen.