Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

July 13, 2008 - Proper 10 (A)

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks

Matthew 13:1-23

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

My daughter and I each have our own tried and true method of getting the other’s attention.  For her part she exclaims, “Mommy – listening ears!” – a phrase she picked up from childcare.  And as for me I try and ensure she is looking right at me.  I’ll say, “Dorothea, look into my eyes.”  And when we are holding each other’s gaze, I’ll tell her what I need to say.  We both do this because both of us know that sometimes the other may hear us, but isn’t listening.  Even a 3-year old can tell that when I reply with a distracted “uh-huh,” I wasn’t paying attention.  And as she grows, I watch her becoming more and more aware of all that is taking place around her, and I see her difficulty.  As an infant she possessed a singular attention to whatever particular need she was trying to fulfill.  But now, her conceptual thinking is developing and present desire is coupled with the awareness of future wants, along with knowledge of previous experience, and a bombardment of in-the-moment sensory perceptions that make it pretty hard for her to focus.

This is the predicament of all of us.  On top of just our natural stream-of-consciousness thinking, there is so much more on our plates.  Telephones, cell phones, iPods, iPhones, Blackberries, beepers, the internet, blogs, Facebook, email, fax, snail mail, TV, radio, and I know the list goes on.  Just look at all the ways we continually add to our potential for distraction. And as a culture, the prevalence of all these gadgets implies that we love it! We are downright gleeful regarding any advancement that promises new and faster ways to give us even more information – always with the incentive that this will lead to more efficient use of our time. If just 3 or 4 of those devices or services I rattled off are a regular part of your life – and I’m sure for a good number of you, it’s closer to my entire list – then it is no wonder that paying attention, focusing in on one particular task, one particular person for a significant length of time, can be quite the cognitive challenge.

But, “Listen,” Jesus says this morning.  Put all the distractions aside, put on your listening ears and hear me.  Before Jesus sat down to begin this amazing string of parables he was traveling around, showing and telling people directly what following him would mean for their lives.  And all of that was met with hostility and defiance because what he was saying and doing made most people defensive and they wouldn’t listen, they didn’t want to understand.  But there was this select few.  For reasons unique to each of them the disciples were able to give Jesus their full attention and therefore perceived what others could not or did not want to – that the Son of God was in their midst and opening up to them a radically new way of living, of being.   And of course I know they did not have to deal with any of the technological distraction that I mentioned earlier, but I am confident, that because they were real flesh and blood human beings – those disciples had just as many cares and concerns, present desires and future wants cluttering their minds and vying for their attention as you and I do.  But when Jesus called, they made a conscious effort to put all of that stuff on the back burner and pay attention.  And it is that act of intentionality, I believe, that is at the heart of this parable. 

Jesus and the disciples are not having a private meeting.  He is sitting in a boat off the shore because such great crowds have gathered to hear him that he needs a platform.  So the disciples are naturally confused as to why, with this obviously interested and large group of people, Jesus appears to be masking his message in a little story about seeds.  Why do you speak in parables, they ask him, and he replies, because “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.”  Jesus has already thrown out to these multitudes many, many seeds.  At this point in Matthew we are already halfway through Jesus’ ministry.  There have been miracles, healings, sermons on mountains.  He has done and said a lot to try and get them to understand who he is and why he has come.  You’ve said to somebody in frustration – “how many times do I have to tell you this?”  That is the point Jesus is at in this passage.  The parable is not a secret code.  Jesus is not – never has – tried to keep any knowledge about the kingdom of God a secret from anyone.  

But what he has been saying and doing is not taking hold for many.  It is not that they are bad people.  It is not that they are incapable of understanding.  But the combination of their own distractions – and on some level, I think, an unwillingness to fully enter into the Word, to let go of some of those distractions – means the seeds Jesus throws at them cannot take root.  The listening that brings forth new understanding is not a passive act.  It is a mode of being that pulls forth something of us.  It takes at least some humility to put ourselves in the secondary position, to put aside our preoccupations, sometimes our feelings and grievances, to hear – without judgment – what another has to say and, with understanding, receive it.  I don’t know about you, but lots of times when I am listening to someone, if they say something I don’t agree with or if they tell me something I just don’t want to hear, I immediately start forming my rebuttal in my head.  Thinking what it is I’m going to say to defend myself, explain my course of action.  And with that I’ve stopped listening.  Instead of paying attention to them and their words, I am distracted by thoughts of me.

But when we are fully present to another person, when we listen with our whole heart, mind, and body, we honor Christ in the other.  True listening is a gift of grace that God shares with us and wants us to share.  And when we are blessed to enter into that mode of being we are cultivating the good soil that allows the love of Christ to take root.  Before Jesus explains this parable to his disciples he laments that everyone in the crowd is not able to understand what he is telling them, “For this people's heart has grown dull,” he says, “and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn – and I would heal them.”  When we put on the mind of Christ and listen with our heart – we understand with our heart and turn – turn to accept and turn to give the healing love of God. 

The summer I was a chaplain in a hospital, I started off with your clichéd seminarian concerns: what do I say to people, how do I know what answer to give them regarding God and faith.  Well, surprise, no one wanted my answers.  They wanted me to listen.  Doctors and nurses are busy – they don’t have time.  Family and friends mean well – but patients didn’t want to burden or get them upset.  The people I met that summer didn’t want my answers – they wanted me to be present for them, to hear and understand that their lives were meaningful, their suffering was real, and what happened to them mattered.  I think that was when I began to understand the listening Jesus calls us to.  I know not every conversation or every interaction requires this level of attentiveness.  But there are those sacred moments when we cross paths with someone who really needs for us to hear them.  And sometimes giving someone that attention is difficult – maybe you don’t like them, maybe you have a lot going on, maybe what they’re saying stirs up troubling feelings inside of you.  Yes, it can be difficult.  Cultivating our discipleship is hard work.

Just like Jesus did during his ministry on earth, God is always showering us with the seeds of Good News.  They pour down upon us in a constant rainstorm.  Those seeds are in the people in our lives, in the strangers we encounter, in the joyful, the challenging, the painful experiences we all live through.  And because we are all disciples, God trusts and enables us to hear and understand.  All we need to do is turn, make the time, make the choice sometimes to give up our distractions and simply be attentive to another.  It is the work of a disciple to listen with the ears of the heart – for that listening bears fruit and yields so much more than we can ask or imagine. Thanks be to God.  Amen. 

Sources Consulted:

Childress, Kyle, “Good work: learning about ministry from Wendell Berry,” Christian Century, March 8, 2005.

Johnson, Luke T., The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation. Ausberg Fortress Press, 2002.

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