Are We Listening?
A sermon based on Luke 8:1-15 preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.
Introduction
Relationships depend on communication. That is a basic fact. Show me any relationship that is struggling, and you will find there is something wrong with communication. It is not that words are not being spoken, it is that the needed message is not getting from the one person to the other in the way it is supposed to do.
Obviously as a preacher, communication is very important to me. I have preached sermons where people have talked to me after and I discovered that they did not hear what I was trying to get across. Sometime it is my fault for not being clear and sometimes we just hear what we want to hear.
My best communication training has not been in a university or seminary but as a father. As you know, our two oldest children have autism and are nonverbal. Some people assume that there is no communication back and forth. That is not true. we have learned to communicate with each other in very meaningful ways. Sometimes it is with words. Sometimes it is with facial expressions. Sometimes it is with hugs. Sometimes it is with tears.
In some ways it is harder with our other children. I can repeat myself a number of times and they are so lost in what they are doing that they miss my message or at choose to miss my message. I have much more respect for my parents now with all I put them through.
If this is true with our human relationships, it is just a true for our relationship with God. Just because we cannot physically see God, does not mean that communication is any less important. If anything, it is more important. Part of this communication is how we speak to God. We are not going to focus on that here. Right now we will focus on how God speaks to us. God speaks to us through his Word. What is God’s Word? One theologian broke down the Word as being Jesus, the revelation of Scripture and the proclamation of the Word. Others would include times when God communicates to us through his Spirit, either with the still small voice or people and events in our life. For the sake of this message, I’m going to focus on the Bible as the Word of God, while acknowledging that is not the precise definition that Jesus is using in this passage.
Knowing this, we must admit that we have the same challenges that we have with our other relationships. As sometimes people do not listen to us, all too often we don’t listen to God’s Word. It may not be that we are deliberately trying to rebel, it is just that the Word of God does not always lead to the appropriate action on our part. Let us look to see what that looks like and how we can respond.
Sower and the Seed
Jesus was a master communicator. He did not just provide long and technical theological discourses. He spoke in parables, using images that the average person were familiar with. I’m sure that we all are thankful for that. But in this teaching, Jesus says something about parables that we might be confused by. Jesus seems to be saying that he speaks in parables so that certain people will not understand his teaching. It is almost like his speaking in code. But that doesn’t sound right. What is Jesus saying?
Parables are generally easy to understand because they use familiar images. We can picture a person sowing seed and it landing on different types of soil. This week, I mowed our lawn or as I like to call it, our dandelion crop. The lawnmower sent the seeds flying everywhere and it made me think of this parable. These are easy images.
But that is part of the challenge. Sometimes the parables are so easy to understand that we can be content with a surface reading of it. We acknowledge that we recognize the images and leave it there. When Jesus spoke in parables, the challenge was to take that first step but then to reflect deeply about what that means to us personally and then to apply it. Those who are sincerely seeking God will take these steps, and those who are content without Jesus will not make any more progress.
Let us look specifically at this parable. This was a familiar activity for Jesus’ audience. In that place and at that time, farmers would sow the seed before plowing. The seed would be scattered and it would land in different places. There was never any expectation that every seed was going to be a part of the harvest. Some would fall on the path, some on the rock, some in the thorns and others on good soil. Again, this is so easy for us picture in our minds.
But Jesus not giving an agricultural lecture. People already knew how sowing the seed worked. The point was the spiritual application. In this parable, Jesus gives us the interpretation. We are told that seed is something very specific, the seed is the word of God. The seed is the communication of God’s will to people, in whatever form that might be. Notice that in that in each case, there is hearing to some extent. There is no mistake on God’s part, as the word is penetrating at least in some way. The first are those who hear but who lose the word because of the devil. There is a spiritual component to our life and one that includes dark spiritual forces. I don’t look for demons under every rock, nor do I blame every sin on the devil made me do it. But the Bible does talk about powers that resist our efforts to be faithful to God. Instead of focusing on the nature of unclean spirits, we should notice that the key is not the presence of the devil but the lack of rootedness of the word.
There are also those who seem to grow quickly but share the same problem of the lack of depth. It is easy to get excited about Jesus and to want to praise God and tell people about Jesus. But that has to be accompanied with discipleship. We recently looked at cults and sects and discovered that many of these groups emerged in a time and place where revivalists had passed through, got people all excited about religion and then passed on. They called this the burnt over district. Excitement, as fun as it is, is never enough to carry through to a mature faith.
Excitement, as fun as it is, is never enough to carry through to a mature faith. Share on XThen there are those in the thorns. There is enough soil for the thorns to grow and so there is enough for the seeds. But the thorns do not want to share. There are other areas of life that do not want to share with relationship with Jesus. Notice it is both the difficult and the pleasant aspects of life that want to choke our faith.
Finally, there is the good soil where the word of God is planted and there we find the harvest. Luke describes for us a hundredfold increase but the amount is not the key. The point is not how are we doing compared to the next person, the point is what kind of soil we are. This is where we want to be.
Where Are We in the Soil?
In this parable, Jesus is telling us to be receptive to the word. Ironically, this parable is part of God’s word to us and so we are challenged with what we are going to do with it. We need more than just checking off another passage read in the Gospel of Luke. So what is Jesus saying to us?
In one way, Jesus is simply telling us the way it is. He is describing reality. The word of God is proclaimed and different people respond in different ways. We can read this and just not be surprised that not everyone is going to hear the word and act in an appropriate way.
But it is possible for us to take it deeper. Where are we in this parable? What soil are we? What is clear in this parable is that it is never the problem with the seed, it is always the soil. The same kind of seed is on the path as in the good soil. We want to be the good soil.
Of course in real life, a path or a rock cannot just choose to be good soil. But that is not the point of this parable. The point is that we want to be good soil and we want the seed of the word to grow into an abundant harvest.
This happens by listening. Not just hearing or reading the words, but truly listening. This requires a number of steps on our part. One is that we need to put ourselves in a position where we are encountering God’s word. This should include congregational worship as well as private Bible reading. It should also include small group study. Immerse yourself in God’s words, not just in quantity as the number of verses, but quality as in depth of reflection. Secondly, open yourself to internalizing God’s word. Push aside the other agendas that seek our loyalty and be willing to embrace what God has for us. Finally, we need to seek to obey God’s word. Let us admit that it is not easy. I have had many experience where I knew that God wanted me to do something and I was too scared or too proud to act on it. We need to learn from our mistakes and make better choices next time. Don’t worry about how you compare to the next person. The goal is to be the best soil that we can be and let God produce the harvest through his word.
Push aside the other agendas that seek our loyalty and be willing to embrace what God has for us. Share on X
I need to repeat what I have said before. I do not want to promote a spiritual culture where we are pushed to have a certain number of good works to please God. I don’t want a church where everyone feels guilty because no matter what we do, it is never enough. That is not my intent at all.
My heart is simply that you grow closer to Jesus. That you get to know him and be connected with them as closely as you can. I want you to have real communication with him, both in your prayers to him and the reading of his word. It is in this vibrant connection with Jesus that we are transformed into the good soil. And it is the good soil that seeds grow and expand into the abundant harvest. Our goal is to be the kind of Christian where spiritual growths happens naturally and not under legalistic self-condemnation.
I mention that we can look for ourselves as the different soil. We can also see ourselves as the sower as we share the word of God. We can get frustrated when we share with friends and family and there is either hostility or indifference. We need to remember that Jesus faced the same thing and so did the early church in Acts. When we share God’s word, we don’t know what happening under the surface. Over twenty years ago at a used car lot in this city, my employers shared God’s word with me daily with no indication on my part that I was receptive. To this day they have no idea that I became a Christian, much less a pastor. As one pastor mentioned to me, the only seed that we know won’t grow is the one that we don’t sow.
Conclusion
The sower and the seed. Such a familiar parable for many of us. But do we hear what Jesus is saying here? Are we really open to his word? Jesus taught about the kingdom of God, that is the reign of God. He used parables to explain what the kingdom was like so that we might experience God’s reign over our lives. This happens by listening. Not just hearing but listening. The word of God is being sown. It is being placed in our hearts. What will happen with it? What will it mean for us as individuals and as a church? Our prayer should be that there we would be the crop that yield the hundred times more than sown.
