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A Great Crop

Speaker: Jason Clarke Bible Passage: Mark 4:1-20 Date: 23.9.07. Event: Sermon

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Some things you want to listen to, some things you don’t.   I loved the news story this week about the extraordinary sentence passed in Fort Lupton, Colorado by Judge Paul Sacco.  The case was a successful prosecution against a number of individuals guilty of noise violation – that is that they were guilty of playing their rap music too loudly.   Their punishment – well it was a wonderfully imaginative example of a punishment fitting a crime.   Judge Sacco sentenced those guilty of noise violation, to sit through a solid hour of Barry Manilow, Barney the dinosaur, Dolly Parton, and Karen Carpenter songs played at high volume.  They weren’t allowed to sleep, eat, chew gum, or do anything but sit and listen. Some things you want to listen to, some things you don’t.  

Wandering around supermarkets and shopping malls, most of us are forced to listen to so much bland background mood music that we barely notice it.   We don’t want to listen to it, so whilst we hear it, we pay very little attention to it.  Of course the danger is that in so doing we might miss the performance of a genius.  Earlier this year the Washington Post carried out an experiment: they asked one of the world’s leading violin virtuosos to play in a Washington subway during the rush hour.  So on January 12^th this year, Joshua Bell, dressed in jeans and casual shirt, lifted his priceless Stradivari violin, and began to play what he himself described as one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, Chaconne by Bach. In the 45 minutes that this internationally-acclaimed musician played, 1,097 people passed by, and only seven stopped briefly to take in the performance.   People heard, but they didn’t really listen, and so they missed the performance of lifetime, the work of a musical genius. 

All of which has what exactly to do with harvest? Well, more than you might imagine.  I often think that harvest is part of what you might call the ‘mood music of the seasons’.   Of course in the mood music charts, it’s Christmas that holds the number one spot – after all, who can resist a good carol? Easter comes in at a poor number two, and harvest, well it’s barely clinging to the number three slot.  It’s hard to feel thankful to God for the harvest when Tesco seems to have muscled in on his monopoly.  Harvest feels like the ultimate in seasonal lift music, we’re vaguely aware of it but we don’t really listen. 

And then you read Mark 4, the words of an unsettling genius, the words of the most extraordinarily gifted preacher, the words of Jesus, who warns us that there is more to harvest than nostalgic childhood memories of fruit-laden hay bales in a dusty church hall: for you can hear, but not listen, and in doing so miss the warnings and promises of God’s Eternal King.    

That Jesus came above all to preach is something he makes clear right at the outset of his ministry. Of course it wasn’t really what people in the first century wanted, any more than it’s what people in the 21^st century want. We don’t want a preacher telling us what to do, we want a Paul McKenna telling us how to become rich – I don’t know if you saw that free CD in last Saturday’s Times: ‘Paul McKenna – Hot to be Rich’; the interesting thing about the CD is that it says you shouldn’t play it whilst driving a car or operating machinery – not quite sure how the two things go together!   But we don’t want a preacher telling us what to do, we want the likes of a guru to give us some comforting advice.   So although Jesus’ healing ministry was pulling an interested crowd, Jesus insists on moving on to other places.   Just turn back to Mark 1:38: Jesus is drawing a great crowd through his healing ministry, but in verse 38 he says this: “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so that I can preach there also…” Why? Because as Jesus puts, “That is why I have come.”   Read on in Mark, and Jesus is still drawing large crowds. So, in chapter 4:1 we read this: “The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge.”   And yet although Jesus is still drawing a large crowd, there is something curious, even troubling in people’s response.  Jesus’ words seem to divide people, and astonishingly whilst some seem intrigued, drawn in, captivated by Jesus’ words, the reaction of the majority is quite different.   So in chapter 3:6, the religious establishment want to do what? They want to kill him.   His family, in chapter 3:21, think he’s out of his mind.   And the teachers of the law, chapter 3:22?  Well they think he’s possessed by the devil.  And so Jesus tells a harvest parable – and the key point comes in chapter 4:3: “Listen!”

The parable is simple enough isn’t it?  A farmer sows seed, and as you might imagine, seed sown liberally falls on path, on rocks, amongst thorns, and on good soil.   Seed sown on the path is snatched. Seed sown on rocks has shallow roots.  Seed sown amongst thorns, suffocated.  Only seed sown in the good soil produces a harvest, indeed quite an astonishing harvest, verse 8: a crop multiplying thirty, sixty or even a hundred times.   Well again, we need to ask the question, “So what?    What, if anything, does a 2,000-year-old parable about harvest have to do with me?”  Well, before we answer that question, we need to ask another one.   And the questions is, “Why was it that Jesus taught in parables?”  You see, the common assumption is that Jesus taught in parables because these short stories help people to understand his teaching.  They are, if you like, simple pictures for simple people.   And yet, if you actually read Mark 4, that doesn’t seem to fit with Jesus’ own explanation of why he taught in parables.  You see, whether this is the first time you’ve read Mark 4, or the thousandth time, the parable that Jesus tells in verses 3-9 doesn’t really seem simple, but intriguing, doesn’t it?  Jesus begins verse 3 with a command: “Listen!”  And he ends with the most curious of phrases in verse 9: “He who has ears to ear, let him hear.”  How strange!   He who has ears – well we all have ears, don’t we? It’s not like an optional part of your body!   Maybe we don’t all hear then?   What a curious way to end a parable!   Jesus, the one who came above all to preach, Jesus says, “Listen”, and forced to read, really read this intriguing harvest parable; all sorts of questions come crowding into our minds, don’t they?

·          Is it possible to hear Jesus, but not really listen to him?

·          Is it possible for his teaching to be little more than spiritual mood music? So we come to a harvest service and hear a bit of sacred muzak, but miss the warnings and promises of God’s Eternal King? And once you start asking that kind of question, then other questions start to follow.

·          What does it mean to listen to Jesus?

·          How is it possible to listen to Jesus?

·          And what’s the connection with this harvest parable?

·          The bottom line is, ‘Is this harvest parable clear or confusing?’

Well Jesus assumes that the parable is crystal clear, that it is both possible and important to understand this harvest parable, verse 13: “Don’t you understand this parable?” Jesus assumes it’s clear and understandable; not only is it clear, but it’s so important, for he says, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?”  Whatever else this parable is about, it’s also a parable about parables, a parable about the whole of Jesus’ teaching ministry, a parable, as we shall see, about the word of God, and why people respond to it in the way they do. 

And if all of that leaves you somewhat bewildered and confused, well you’re in good company, verse 10.   When Jesus was alone, the twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.   Now we’ll come back to verses 11-12 in a minute, but for now just cast your eye down Jesus’ explanation. The disciples ask the question, “What is this all about?” and Jesus explains.  The farmer, verse 14, sows the word, just as Jesus has been preaching, and placing a priority on preaching, right from the outset of his ministry. And there are, it seems, four typical responses to what Jesus says. Now the really interesting thing to note, is that EVERYBODY hears the word, even though their response is very different.  So Jesus draws a parallel amongst his listeners with the seed that falls on the path, in the rocks, and amongst the thorns, and whatever the differences in people’s response, they ALL hear the word:

·          Verse 15b: “As soon as they HEAR it…” – they hear the word;

·          Verse 16: “Others, like seed sown on rocky places, HEAR THE WORD…”;

·           Verse 18: “Still others, like see sown among the thorns, HEAR THE WORD…”

So it seems people can hear Jesus’ teaching, but not really listen to Jesus’ teaching.  Why? Why is that the case?  Well again, Jesus explains: the word is either snatched, superficial or suffocated.   So you come to church on a Harvest Sunday, or indeed any Sunday, and you hear the challenging words of Jesus in the Bible, and the supernatural battle that wages within your soul means that the word heard is snatched and forgotten as soon as you’ve left the building: it’s lost in the noise of the world’s activity and spiritual denial. So what you hear about Jesus intrigues you, draws you in, and troubles you, and captivates you; but tomorrow there’s the tyranny of the urgent and trivial, and it’s forgotten: you have to get the car fixed, sort out your pension, visit the doctor, arrange lifts for the kids, check your email, watch the TV.  And before you know it, the word that intrigued and captivated you and troubled you and challenged you is gone, snatched, lost in the busyness and triviality of the week.  Snatched from a heart that was moved on Sunday, full of good intention, but produces nothing.   How can you hear and not really listen? – when the word is snatched away.

But then for others Jesus says, the word is not so much snatched as superficially responded to. Like, verse 16, seed sown on rocky places: you hear the word, and even receive at once with joy, but the roots of acceptance don’t go down deep, and with the trouble and opposition of the world, listening to Jesus becomes little more than a slightly embarrassing ‘religious phase’ that you went through once. It happened with a friend of mine at school, Graham.  We used to sit next to each other in physics, both of us lost in a sea of mathematical proofs.   He received Jesus’ words with joy, but with the pressure of A levels and the scorn of our peers, he quickly fell away.   You can hear, but not really listen to Jesus.

And again for others, Jesus says that his words are not snatched, or superficially received, they are rather suffocated, verse 19.   The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke the word.   It’s strange, isn’t it: it doesn’t matter how old we are, there’s always something more attractive, more important than taking Jesus’ words seriously: it doesn’t matter how old you are, there’s always something – something that persuades you that taking Jesus’ words seriously is not what it’s about:

·          for teenagers perhaps the boy or girl thing, the longing for a relationship;

·          for students, perhaps the James Dean philosophy of life: "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today";

·          for parents, it’s the ‘giving my kids the best start in life’ sort of thing;

·          for home owners the property ladder and the holy grail of home improvement;

·          and for the retired – well now at the last there’s a bit of time for me and what I want to do.

There’s always something more important that taking Jesus’ words seriously.  In Steve Turner’s poem ‘The Fact’, he reflects on the inescapable questions of our mortality: “In the end is the beginning/and in the beginning was the end./In between are houses, holidays,/wars, wives, diversions./In the end/it is like it has always been/yet activity obscured the fact.”   The word, snatched, superficial or suffocated produces in the end, nothing that will last.  Strange to think that the end of our lives might be like a harvest festival with no display of produce.  Imagine a harvest festival with the front of church completely empty, nothing, not an apple, marrow, or even a tin of value baked beans. Yet Jesus seems to say in this parable that it’s possible to come to the end of your life, and that’s it – nothing.  It is sobering to think that you can hear, but not really listen to Jesus, isn’t it?   Troubling to think that even this morning as we read Mark 4, troubling to think that we might hear a bit of religious mood music, but miss the warnings and encouragements of God’s ruling King.

So what makes the difference?   What turns hearing into listening? What produces a harvest of spiritual life that lasts forever?   Well the seed sown on the good soil is what, verse 20?  It is those who hear the word and ACCEPT IT.  That is what it means to be a Christian.  To be a Christian is to hear what Jesus says, and to acknowledge that what he says is true and trustworthy, and must be accepted.  It’s all too easy to pay lip service to the truth of Jesus teaching, like apple pie and motherhood: who’s going to question that Jesus’ teaching is a good thing? But it’s much more difficult to accept that it’s a good thing for me, in my life, in my situation, that I need as Jesus puts it to repent and believe the good news that he brings, and to go on repenting and believing the good news he brings.  That’s much more difficult to accept, because there are always other things that seem more important.   But the truth is, you can miss a work of a genius on the subway, and you can reject the word of God’s King in a Harvest service.  And of course the astonishing thing that Jesus says in this passage is that to hear Jesus’ words and not to accept them leaves you in a worse state than you were before you even heard them. You see, as we finish, let’s just look at the warning and encouragement in this passage.  

What is the warning? Well you see, we can find Jesus’ teaching curious, intriguing, moving, powerful, challenging, and yet at the end of the day still imagine that we can sit in judgement on Jesus’ teaching; when the reality is that Jesus’ teaching sits in judgment on us.  Read Mark’s gospel, and it’s clear that there were plenty of people who sat in judgment on Jesus – the religious, the authorities, the man in the street.  So today, some academics pour scorn on Jesus’ words, some religious leaders happily explain away Jesus words, and the rest of us? – well, we pick and choose from Jesus' words like a child captivated in Woolworth’s before the pack-and-mix.  And yet Jesus says that the word that we hear but don’t really accept – that very word will judge and actually harden our hearts, verses 11-12.  Stand in judgment on the outside, hearing but not accepting Jesus’ words, and his parables will do what exactly?  Jesus says they will increasingly harden your heart so that you will not see, and you will not understand, verse 11b: “…to those on the outside everything is said in parables SO THAT, they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!”  Stand on the outside, hearing but not really accepting Jesus’ words, and his parables will do what? – they will increasingly harden your heart so that you will not see, and you will not understand.  Who’d have thought that coming to a Harvest Festival could have been one of the most dangerous things you’ve ever done in your life? Jesus says it is eternally dangerous to hear but not accept his words, which is why Jesus says what he does right at the beginning, verse 3: “Listen!”

Of course, any of us who have moved from the outside to the inside, any of us who call ourselves Christians, and who say we have heard and accepted Jesus’ words, well don’t imagine yours is the smug boast of self achievement, as if you’re somehow better than everyone else.   You see, verse 11, the secret of the kingdom of God is a gift, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.”   Jesus say’s don’t be smug, but submit: the only response is to go on listening to and accepting Jesus’ words.   Each time any of us hear Jesus’ words there is still a spiritual battle that rages within our soul, for the word can still be snatched, received superficially, and suffocated. Only when we hear and accept, and go on hearing and accepting Jesus’ words – for me, in my situation, in my life, now – it is only as we hear and accept Jesus’ teaching that we can be sure there will be anything by way of harvest on the last day.

The danger always in a place like Fulwood, with its great tradition, is that we want to master the word rather than to be mastered by the word.   There are keen students who want guidance on the best Bible commentaries, home group leaders that set themselves up as Bible experts, and Sunday service critics that would quite like to hold up a scorecard at the end of every sermon.  How easy for speaker and listener alike to prize ourselves on our understanding of the word, but miss the most important point which is acceptance of the word.   You can miss a work of genius on the subway, you can reject the word of God’s King in a Harvest service. And so if this Harvest is to be more than seasonal mood music, Jesus says to you and me, “Listen!” – hear what Jesus says, and accept it. And the amazing encouragement here, is that in hearing and accepting Jesus’ words, it will make the most astonishing, miraculous difference in our lives, verse 20: “Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”