Sermon "How Do You Hear It?"
Rev. Lonnie Richardson
Sunday, July 11, 1999
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
How Do You Hear It?
It is very likely that when our Lord was telling this story the whole scene was being enacted right before the eyes of these people. This was springtime and probably from where they stood on the beach they could look out on the hillside and see a sower going forth to sow. This was the way Jesus taught. He often picked up that which was happening right around his hearers and used it as an illustration of the great truth he wanted to convey. They could see a path which had been beaten across the field and the birds picking up the seeds right behind the sower. They could see the rocky ground, and the thorns and thistles growing up, and the good soil of the field.
Each of the elements of the story has an explanation and a corresponding truth connected with it. Our Lord begins with the seed. You notice that he does not say anything specific about who the sower is, though in the next parable he does. But here it can be anyone who sows the seed. The important thing to notice is what the seed is. Jesus says it is "the word of the kingdom." You may ask, "What's that?" The word about the existence of an invisible spiritual kingdom all around us which is very essential to us, and from which all our lives are governed, and to which they all must relate.
That is the great truth which God wants us to know -- that all of life is not contained in what you can see and touch and taste and hear and smell. Those senses open up a certain degree of life to you but there is more to it than that. There is an invisible kingdom beyond what you can comprehend with your five senses. It is very real, as real as anything you can see or touch. But more than that, the word of the kingdom is that in this kingdom, from this source, invisible and unseen, comes all that one desperately needs and is searching for in life. That is the good news of the gospel. The word of the kingdom, is the gospel.
When the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans he told them that he was so eager to come to Rome because that city was the center of the empire, with influence throughout the empire. He hungered to come and declare the gospel to them because, as he put it, "I am not ashamed of the gospel," {Rom 1:16a RSV}. And well he might not have been ashamed, for in it, as he says, are the two things we need most desperately: "The power of God" {Rom 1:16b RSV}, and "The righteousness of God," {Rom 1:17b RSV}.
Power is the ability to do, to accomplish. Every person in the world today is seeking that kind of power -- the secret of adequacy, the ability to be and do what you would like to be and do, the ability to cope with life, to handle whatever life throws at you. The most fundamental, urgent cry of any human heart, anywhere, is to find somehow the secret of the power to act correctly and effectively and to handle life adequately.
Righteousness is the freedom to do. It means that the individual has his inner world resolved. He is released, no longer hung up with problems and inhibitions, limitations and barriers within. These are solved and removed. He is no longer under the burden of guilt, nor defeated by self loathing. He is free to be and to accomplish what God wants. That is what is in the gospel.
That is the seed being sown throughout the whole course of this age. This is the age of sowing the seed of the word of promise of the power and the righteousness of God. And that wonderful, attractive, powerful seed is being dropped into human hearts everywhere. The sowing started with Jesus. He was the first great sower who went out with this word. Millions have followed him since, sowing this seed wherever they go. It may be in the form of a simple Christian testimony. It may be in an elaborate sermon, or in a book that someone reads. It may be just a word, a single phrase dropped into a conversation, that is like a seed dropped into a human heart. It takes root and changes that whole life. Some of you can testify that the thing which arrested you and turned you around and changed you was just a phrase which somebody uttered. This seed is powerful.
The crux of the parable is the condition of the soils into which this seed is dropped. Wherever the word is sown, four kinds of soil are usually present, four conditions of the human heart to which this word speaks and begs to be heard. They are all here this morning. In this congregation, I am sure, are representatives of each of these four kinds of soil. Our Lord wants us to see what they are.
The first kind of heart Jesus describes as, "When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes (the birds are a symbol of the evil one) and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path."
This first kind of individual has a heart which is hard and narrow like a path beaten across a field. A path is trodden down and hardened and narrowed by the traffic of human feet as they cross the field. The problem with this heart is that it has grown hard and narrow.
Jesus focuses upon that which causes it. The word comes, he says, but they do not understand it. The idea is not that they could not understand, but that they do not try. They don't take the time to do that which is important. Here is a person who has been rendered momentarily thoughtful by the word of the kingdom. Something has challenged him for the moment to think about God, and about life. And for a moment he wonders, "Maybe there is something to this." He has received a passing impression -- but it requires more thought, more self-evaluation -- and he does not want to be bothered. So he shrugs it off. And, immediately, our Lord says, the thought is snatched out of his heart, and it never comes back again. So he goes on untroubled, thinking that the world remains the way he has conceived it to be.
There are many people like this, who live on these terms. C. S. Lewis, in his book the Screwtape Letters, describes a man who goes into the British Museum and sits down to read certain books that are there. Something he reads suggests to him a thought about God and he is inspired to think of him. For a moment it looks as though he is really going on to think this idea through. But then Screwtape manages to divert him with the thought that it is time for lunch and that he would be in much better shape to tackle this important subject after he has eaten. Screwtape goes on to say,
Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a no. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of 'real life' (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all 'that sort of thing' just couldn't be true.
That is the kind of soil Jesus is talking about. The thought is snatched away if it is not dealt with then -- and it never returns again.
There are many like that, they have settled for a world bounded on the north by their work, on the south by their family, on the east by taxes, and on the west by death. That is the whole of life to them. And that's it. That's all. That's life. When the word of the kingdom falls upon that kind of heart it causes a momentary impression. But it is immediately shrugged off because it is different, it is challenging, it awakens the possibility of an entire world he has never thought of. So he divests himself of it and the enemy comes and takes it away and it is gone.
And yet do you know that, remarkably enough, this very verse was used to reach John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim Progress and lead him to Christ? Bunyan was known as the most godless man in his village and was regarded as so hardhearted that no Christian had any hope for him at all. But he heard this story of the sower and these very words seized upon his heart. And he said to himself, "Even the devil knows that if a man believes the word he'll be saved!" So he believed it, and he became connected to God. He authored Pilgrim's Progress and a tremendous testimony for God in this age.
Let's look now at the second soil:
"As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away." {Matt 13:20-21 RSV}
What is the matter with this heart? It is rocky. But don't think of it as soil containing a lot of rocks. It doesn't mean that. The idea here is that there are a few inches of earth on top of a broad shelf of bedrock. In other words this is shallow, thin soil underlain by a ledge of bedrock. The key our Lord gives us here is that "He has no root in himself." This is what we would call a shallow life, one that flirts from this to that, from one experience to another, never content with anything for very long. This heart is always on the prowl, restless, searching, groping. You have met people like that -- faddists, enthusiasts for the gospel this week and next week it is Geritol, or vitamin z, or whatever. The word our Lord uses to describe this kind of person is, literally, "seasonal." When the season is on to believe the gospel they believe it.
Jesus illustrates the terrible danger of a shallow heart, a heart that does not want to evaluate and go deeper but is always living on the surface, always relating to the event of the moment and concerned only with that. The emotional seasons of life will make it very difficult for him to receive the word of God which changes his heart.
Then there is the third type of soil:
"As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful." {Matt 13:22 RSV}
Here is typical person running the busy-ness cycle. It is not that he is uninterested; he is interested in the gospel. It is not that he is shallow; he isn't. He is very capable of thinking in depth, of analysis of issues and long meditation. He does it in business and social life. The trouble is that this person wants it all. He wants the fruitfulness of life that comes from the gospel, but with it he also wants everything else. He wants the so-called "finer things" of life. We describe him as trying to keep up with the Joneses. (That means buying things you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't even like.) The result is that there is no time to think about the word, no time to receive it, no time to heal and listen to it.
Finally, the fourth soil is the good soil:
"As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it, he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundred fold, in another sixty, and in another thirty." {Matt 13:23 RSV}
Notice the qualities of this soil. Here is a heart that is neither hard and narrow nor flippant. He understands the word, i.e., he thinks about it, ponders over it. He receives it gladly but his life is not shallow. He bears fruit. The seed remains long enough to sprout and grow and to come to fruition. Finally, his fruit is not lost in a jumble of things, the thorns and thistles of life, but he brings forth varying amounts -- thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold.
My friends, as the word of God falls upon us, how do you hear it? How is your life affected by listening? The question each of us must ask is, "What is my heart like now?" And with that our Lord leaves this parable with us, for us to answer that question in the depths of our hearts. How do you hear it?
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, we ask that you will take our hearts, whatever
they are like right at this moment, and make them good soil,
responsive, ready to listen, ready to think, ready to pay
attention. Please don't let us get up from this gathering and go
home and allow the effects of it merely to dissipate. But rather,
let the word remain in our hearts. Let us ponder what we have
heard, think more deeply than we ever have before, and ask
ourselves, "What does this word mean? How does it affect
me?" Perhaps there are some right here this morning who are
ready -- the good soil upon which the word has fallen -- to
receive you. Lord, take our hearts and make them into good soil
for the word. We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.
