“[A]nd taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” With these words, Jesus began the feeding of the 5000, as the men are numbered. And they are very poignant words, indeed, and certainly lead one to think of the times in which he feeds many more than 5000. St. John wrote in his account, “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand,” and, “Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated…” Those words sound so similar to what is very often heard here, in this place. Then, the fact that it was near Passover only adds to what is being taught in today’s Gospel: Jesus is fulfilling the sign of Moses and pointing to His own Supper.

Now, to be perfectly clear, Jesus is not celebrating the Lord’s Supper in these texts, but He is pointing to it; that is to say, He is pointing to Himself—pointing to His work on the cross and His gift in the Supper. As Rev. Peter Bender once wrote, “This feeding was a sign intended to point us to the realities and benefits of the Supper, but it was not the Supper. In the same way, the healing miracles of Jesus were signs of the resurrection of the body, intended to point us to the realities of the resurrection”—bodies made whole by Him—“but they were not the resurrection” (emphasis added).

But, before getting to the realities and benefits of the Supper, what is the sign of Moses?

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field…”

The Sower is at work again. As you heard last week, He casts His seed lavishly everywhere He can, seeking His harvest from everywhere. His seed is good; it is His Word, and it accomplishes the task for which it is cast, in some 100-fold, in others 60-, and in others 30-; in today’s parable, the seed is the sons of the kingdom—the Church.

But, according to today’s parable, the Sower is not the only one at work. The evil one is always at work, too.

Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower. The Sower casts His seed, and it falls on various types of soil—hard, clay-like soil along a path where the birds eat it, soil that is full of rocks, soil that is full of thorny plants, and soil that is fertile and fully receptive of the seed. In most cases, the seed takes root and begins to grow, but then things happen.

Jesus explained the parable:

From this you learn at the outset that as the seed is cast—as the Word of God is proclaimed—many will hear, but not all will believe. And, of those who believe, many will, for myriad reasons, fall away.

“At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children…’”

Jesus spoke of these things and the wise and understanding and little children. Understanding what Jesus meant when He said these things will help to explain today’s Gospel.

In the study of philosophy, there are a couple of concepts called formal principle and material principle. The formal principle refers to the ultimate source or rule used to define a belief or philosophical system. The material principle refers to the core teaching or governing doctrine of a belief or philosophical system. The terms and concepts not only apply to philosophy, but also to linguistics and theology.

In Lutheran theology, the formal principle is most simply put as Scripture alone. The implication there is that other theologies use other or additional sources to define their doctrine. For instance, in Roman Catholic theology, the formal principle is Scripture and tradition. This can cause difficulty in debating finer points of doctrine with theologians of different confessions if they don’t or can’t agree on a formal principle.

Lutheran theologians tend to balk at the idea of having a material principle. Some will like to point out that Scripture serves as both the formal and material principles in Lutheran theology. I like the idea, but I also acknowledge that doing so runs the risk of having too vague a material principle. To that end, you may have heard the statement that Article IV is the article on which the church stands or falls; this is referring to Article IV of the Augsburg Confession: “Also [our churches] teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight.”