Luke 8:16-18
Most times, people consider verse 15 the end of the passage dealing with the parable of “the Sower and the Seed.” But when I look at verse 18, I wonder if all of 8:1-18 isn’t to be considered in the same frame of reference.
The point of the main parable is: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus then concludes with verse 18: “Therefore consider how you listen.” Don’t just hear what I am saying, but make sure you are listening carefully to what I am saying. The point of the main parable is that wherever the seeds goes, what determines if the seed grows and produces is how receptive the soil is to the seed.
Jesus then continues on in this mindset with a parable that uses a very different example. Instead of seed, we are talking about lamps. For most of the past two millennia, this parable has made perfect sense. But Edison changed all that once and for all when he invented the electric light bulb and lamps became things the relative wealthy of this world only used on camping trips or when the power went out in a bad storm. Even then, such lamps are more and more electrical, like batteries, and not the oil lamps of old.
But the parable still makes sense. No one turns on an electrical lamp and then hides it in a closet or covers it with a blanket. I did that once when I was a kid. Was reading in bed way past “lights out” and so I hid the lamp under my blanket with the lampshade off (too cumbersome, I guess). Burned a hole in my sheet and the truth of my misadventure came to light after all.
We generally don’t turn on lights to hide them. During World War II, my mother and her parents were sailing back to America from China. Enemy submarines followed the ship all the way to the New York harbor and twice it was falsely reported sunk. At night, no lights were allowed on ship. Even a single lighted cigarette could be seen for miles on the darkened sea. Light penetrates darkness.
So what is the point of what we call the “Lamp on a Stand” parable? Is this about evangelism or letting our good works show? It might be taken that way, but the context is much more about hearing and responding to God’s will. Hearing the word of God requires an honesty and receptivity on the part of the hearer. Just because you have ears doesn’t mean you actually hear. And just because you hear what is being said doesn’t mean you are actively listening.
So, Jesus goes on in explaining about the lamp, ultimately you can’t hide anything. In the long run, you can’t get away with anything. You pretend to be listening when you really aren’t. You act like you are receptive when you really aren’t. You look like you have ears, but they are not serving their purpose.
Verse 16 is not about hiding lamps. It is about not allowing things in our lives to come to light, to be revealed, when God shines the light of truth on them. The Word of God comes to us. Some of it we like and we believe and take in and it changes us. Some of it we don’t like and we act like we are receiving it when we really are not. We think we are getting away with ignoring the verses we haven’t underlined. We think we are getting away with underlining other verses when we are selective with what we do about them. But in the end all such evasiveness will catch up with us.
So be very careful how you listen because, Jesus concludes, the more you listen, the better you are able to hear, and the less you listen, the harder it is for you to hear. When we start being selective with what we accept from God and God’s Word, we start shutting God out of our lives and someday even what we think we have from God is lost.
How do we learn to hear God’s voice? By applying whatever we do hear from Him – ASAP. The more receptive we are, the more we can receive. But keep listening, because Jesus isn’t yet finished with this train of thought…
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Sower and the Seed - Part III
Luke 8:11-15
For many of us who grew up in the Christian Faith, we know this passage so well we barely listen to it anymore. It has become a worn groove in our psyche that we warm up to out of impulse even as we no longer respond at a deeper level. At best, we are glad when it is taught. At worst, we are glad only so those newer or lesser saints around us can hear it.
Parables are not allegorical, a labyrinth of meanings. They have but one point. And Jesus doesn’t say much more about them other than to tell them. No explanation, they become point and illustration rolled into one. But in this case, when the disciples corner Jesus because they want to understand the story more clearly, Jesus willingly obliges them. He is, after all, looking for responsive listeners.
The seed itself is the word of God – spoken, written, Jesus himself, whatever form it comes in, it is God’s self-revelation to humankind. This seed, scattered in the farming fashion of the ancient times, falls on good soil and bad.
I love to garden. I’m not great at it, but I’ve learned that if you do it enough, a surprising amount turns out well and earns you applause from friends and neighbors. The life, you see, is in the DNA (or in the “seed”). A seed that is given the right environment (generally light, soil or nutrients, and water) in a healthy balance or mix is going to produce. It is the overarching law of nature. So if something doesn’t come up, it is generally not the seed’s fault.
In spiritual dimensions, the Word of God is always going to produce. The question is whether it comes to “fruition,” meaning whether it bears fruit. Actually “fruit” means the seed the plant produces for the next generation. The Word of God is always going to produce more seed.
The question, then, is whether the seed is in “soil” receptive to the seed. Hydroponics aside, the seed needs soil because there is life in that soil, meaning nutrients the seed can feed on. And the seed needs soil that is free of major hindrances like packed earth or rocks or other blocking vegetation.
It’s amazing where plants can crop up. I’ve been on hikes in the Cascades above the tree line and been surprised to see a flower blooming in something that would be a stretch to call “soil.” Yesterday I checked my son’s car (which we are car-sitting), only to discover something growing out of the space between the back trunk and the car’s main body. We’ve been keeping the car driven, but in the three weeks he’s been away, a seed had gotten in the crack and, in our unusually mild Northwest February, had sprouted.
So what kinds of things hinder the seed from growing and bearing more seed? What the listeners of that day heard and understood was that sometimes the seed doesn’t produce because the ground is too hard (not receptive, been trampled on too much, hardened by other things in life); because the soil has no depth, so that the sprout quickly withers (initial receptivity that, for whatever reason, gives way to waning interest); or because of thorns, which Jesus plainly relates to life’s worries, riches and pleasures – distractions all, that choke out the growing seed.
So the seed is good, but the soil can be less than responsive. Elsewhere, Scripture talks about preparing the soil (or the hearer), but in this case, the parable is a warning to the listeners themselves to “hear if you have ears.” And if you do heed or respond to the word with “a noble and good heart,” the seed will produce in your life. It doesn’t come without effort on the part of the listener, who as Jesus exhorts, must hear, retain, and then persevere – meaning continue to reflect on and apply to all areas of life. It is easy to assume because we have the word growing in some areas of our lives that it is growing in all areas of our lives. But, as this parable illustrates, we too can be a mixed garden.
For many of us who grew up in the Christian Faith, we know this passage so well we barely listen to it anymore. It has become a worn groove in our psyche that we warm up to out of impulse even as we no longer respond at a deeper level. At best, we are glad when it is taught. At worst, we are glad only so those newer or lesser saints around us can hear it.
Parables are not allegorical, a labyrinth of meanings. They have but one point. And Jesus doesn’t say much more about them other than to tell them. No explanation, they become point and illustration rolled into one. But in this case, when the disciples corner Jesus because they want to understand the story more clearly, Jesus willingly obliges them. He is, after all, looking for responsive listeners.
The seed itself is the word of God – spoken, written, Jesus himself, whatever form it comes in, it is God’s self-revelation to humankind. This seed, scattered in the farming fashion of the ancient times, falls on good soil and bad.
I love to garden. I’m not great at it, but I’ve learned that if you do it enough, a surprising amount turns out well and earns you applause from friends and neighbors. The life, you see, is in the DNA (or in the “seed”). A seed that is given the right environment (generally light, soil or nutrients, and water) in a healthy balance or mix is going to produce. It is the overarching law of nature. So if something doesn’t come up, it is generally not the seed’s fault.
In spiritual dimensions, the Word of God is always going to produce. The question is whether it comes to “fruition,” meaning whether it bears fruit. Actually “fruit” means the seed the plant produces for the next generation. The Word of God is always going to produce more seed.
The question, then, is whether the seed is in “soil” receptive to the seed. Hydroponics aside, the seed needs soil because there is life in that soil, meaning nutrients the seed can feed on. And the seed needs soil that is free of major hindrances like packed earth or rocks or other blocking vegetation.
It’s amazing where plants can crop up. I’ve been on hikes in the Cascades above the tree line and been surprised to see a flower blooming in something that would be a stretch to call “soil.” Yesterday I checked my son’s car (which we are car-sitting), only to discover something growing out of the space between the back trunk and the car’s main body. We’ve been keeping the car driven, but in the three weeks he’s been away, a seed had gotten in the crack and, in our unusually mild Northwest February, had sprouted.
So what kinds of things hinder the seed from growing and bearing more seed? What the listeners of that day heard and understood was that sometimes the seed doesn’t produce because the ground is too hard (not receptive, been trampled on too much, hardened by other things in life); because the soil has no depth, so that the sprout quickly withers (initial receptivity that, for whatever reason, gives way to waning interest); or because of thorns, which Jesus plainly relates to life’s worries, riches and pleasures – distractions all, that choke out the growing seed.
So the seed is good, but the soil can be less than responsive. Elsewhere, Scripture talks about preparing the soil (or the hearer), but in this case, the parable is a warning to the listeners themselves to “hear if you have ears.” And if you do heed or respond to the word with “a noble and good heart,” the seed will produce in your life. It doesn’t come without effort on the part of the listener, who as Jesus exhorts, must hear, retain, and then persevere – meaning continue to reflect on and apply to all areas of life. It is easy to assume because we have the word growing in some areas of our lives that it is growing in all areas of our lives. But, as this parable illustrates, we too can be a mixed garden.
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Sower and the Seed - Part II
Luke 8:9-10
“Eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear (or understand).”
When a phrase is repeated by so many biblical writers, it starts to carry special weight. This saying is expressed in Deuteronomy 29:4 by Moses, and by three prophets: Isaiah (6:9), Jeremiah (5:21), and Ezekiel (12:2). In the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as saying it in all four of the Gospels (Matthew 13:4, Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10, and John 12:40) and by Paul in Acts 28:26 and in his own writings in Romans 11:8. Whew! Sounds like we better listen up!
It is easy to get to the place where we think we understand when we really don’t comprehend at all. God’s voice to us becomes like so much water off a duck’s back. It doesn’t stick. We no longer listen, treating it as just familiar background noise.
In each of these passages, the message is being given to people who are used to hearing God’s voice. And the message, especially in Isaiah 6:9 from where Jesus is quoting, is that if you don’t heed God’s voice when you hear it, you will eventually stop noticing it. In fact it will become hard work to listen to God.
In this passage in Luke, Jesus has just told the parable of the Sower. As with a couple of his other parables, the disciples stop Jesus and ask him to explain. We get the picture from Mark that the disciples take Jesus aside to inquire privately. Even there that private hearing is not limited to the Twelve. But we get the idea that it is not the whole crowd.
The poor, who make up Jesus’ normal audience love hearing Jesus teach and they grab hold of his parables like they are manna from heaven. They “eat” willingly because they are starving for truth, even though they may not follow it all.
The usual followers of Jesus -- meaning the Twelve, the women and others -- probably catch on to much of what he is saying. But there are times when they don’t quite get his point. At those moments, they either just file it away among “obscure ideas to be explored after the Day of Pentecost” or they just come out with it right then and there: “Jesus, what on earth do you mean?” They aren’t fighting Jesus’ point, they really want to understand it.
This is one of those what-do-you-mean moments. So he careful explains that he is willing to speak clearly to them concerning what he calls “the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God,” but to others he speaks only in parables. It is not that Jesus is trying to hide truth from people. He is merely following his own principle of “not feeding pearls to pigs” (to quote Matthew 7:6) or, in plainer words, not dispensing truth to those who have no regard for the truth.
So does Jesus play favorites? Why does he speak plainly to some and not to others? The answer lies in the very parable he is now explaining. The seed goes freely everywhere, but some receive it more willingly than others. In a minute, they will hear Jesus tell them that to those who receive what is given to them, more will be given (verse 18). For now he is saying that understanding comes to those who are willing to listen, who do not shut their ears to God’s truth.
Jesus has many followers. Some eventually leave him, even one of the chosen Twelve. Why do they, who have seen and experienced Jesus up close and “unplugged,” to use a contemporary expression meaning “off-stage,” why do they later reject Jesus? How can you hear the truth, really hear it, and reject it? There are a zillion things that happen inside each one of us, so there is no way to say it is always this thing or that. But Jesus is explaining that when we continue to hear God’s word and reject it, we stop listening. The best way to keep receiving more from God is to accept what He’s already given to us. To those who refuse to eat, food eventually becomes toxic.
“Eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear (or understand).”
When a phrase is repeated by so many biblical writers, it starts to carry special weight. This saying is expressed in Deuteronomy 29:4 by Moses, and by three prophets: Isaiah (6:9), Jeremiah (5:21), and Ezekiel (12:2). In the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as saying it in all four of the Gospels (Matthew 13:4, Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10, and John 12:40) and by Paul in Acts 28:26 and in his own writings in Romans 11:8. Whew! Sounds like we better listen up!
It is easy to get to the place where we think we understand when we really don’t comprehend at all. God’s voice to us becomes like so much water off a duck’s back. It doesn’t stick. We no longer listen, treating it as just familiar background noise.
In each of these passages, the message is being given to people who are used to hearing God’s voice. And the message, especially in Isaiah 6:9 from where Jesus is quoting, is that if you don’t heed God’s voice when you hear it, you will eventually stop noticing it. In fact it will become hard work to listen to God.
In this passage in Luke, Jesus has just told the parable of the Sower. As with a couple of his other parables, the disciples stop Jesus and ask him to explain. We get the picture from Mark that the disciples take Jesus aside to inquire privately. Even there that private hearing is not limited to the Twelve. But we get the idea that it is not the whole crowd.
The poor, who make up Jesus’ normal audience love hearing Jesus teach and they grab hold of his parables like they are manna from heaven. They “eat” willingly because they are starving for truth, even though they may not follow it all.
The usual followers of Jesus -- meaning the Twelve, the women and others -- probably catch on to much of what he is saying. But there are times when they don’t quite get his point. At those moments, they either just file it away among “obscure ideas to be explored after the Day of Pentecost” or they just come out with it right then and there: “Jesus, what on earth do you mean?” They aren’t fighting Jesus’ point, they really want to understand it.
This is one of those what-do-you-mean moments. So he careful explains that he is willing to speak clearly to them concerning what he calls “the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God,” but to others he speaks only in parables. It is not that Jesus is trying to hide truth from people. He is merely following his own principle of “not feeding pearls to pigs” (to quote Matthew 7:6) or, in plainer words, not dispensing truth to those who have no regard for the truth.
So does Jesus play favorites? Why does he speak plainly to some and not to others? The answer lies in the very parable he is now explaining. The seed goes freely everywhere, but some receive it more willingly than others. In a minute, they will hear Jesus tell them that to those who receive what is given to them, more will be given (verse 18). For now he is saying that understanding comes to those who are willing to listen, who do not shut their ears to God’s truth.
Jesus has many followers. Some eventually leave him, even one of the chosen Twelve. Why do they, who have seen and experienced Jesus up close and “unplugged,” to use a contemporary expression meaning “off-stage,” why do they later reject Jesus? How can you hear the truth, really hear it, and reject it? There are a zillion things that happen inside each one of us, so there is no way to say it is always this thing or that. But Jesus is explaining that when we continue to hear God’s word and reject it, we stop listening. The best way to keep receiving more from God is to accept what He’s already given to us. To those who refuse to eat, food eventually becomes toxic.
Monday, February 1, 2010
The Sower and the Seed - Part I
Luke 8:5-8
When I was a little tyke, I visited the Abbott farm during planting season. They let me work right along with Mr. Abbott as he planted his Jersey corn. He went down each row, poking holes, I crouching along beyond, dropping three seeds in each hole. I guess I must have covered the seeds with dirt as I went along or else Mr. Abbott went back behind me to finish up. I don't really remember. All I know is, that day I learned how to plant.
Years later, I traveled to a remote area in Northwest China, up into the deeply eroded hills of Gansu. Much of China's uneven terrain has been tamed into terraced hills, but in this arid, windswept wilderness, the hills were too rough even for terracing. And yet I saw fields of grain growing on land so steep it seemed impossible for a person to climb up let alone cultivate it.
How did they sow those fields, I asked my local guide? He said, "They call those plots 'leaving-it-up-to-the-gods' fields." The farmers, desperate to plant any land they could, simply tossed extra seed onto nearly vertical slopes in the hope that even in that scrappy soil, they could reap a harvest. I have no idea how they gleaned those fields, but I have no doubt that whatever came up was indeed harvested.
That Gansu sort of farming is very much like the kind of farming we find spoken of in this parable. No digging holes and dropping in three seeds here. You simply scattered the seed and waited to see what the harvest would bring.
The agricultural revolution was still many centuries in the future. Yet the laws of the harvest instilled at the beginnings of the earth applied as much back then as they do now. What you plant is what you harvest, as Jesus says elsewhere. Then as now all farmers acknowledged a multiplication effect in farming, that any farmer anticipated to reap much more than he sowed. It is the sowing technique, as much as anything, that has changed.
In the planting style of that ancient day, Jesus explained spiritual principles to his listeners. They all knew that at planting time, the person who sowed went out and scattered seed wherever he could. Hopefully most of that seed was going to fall on good soil, places where the ground had been cultivated, either by hand or with oxen.
"A farmer went to sow his seed," Jesus told his listeners all equally hungry for a good story and starving for something more than what life had offered so far. Jesus gestured with his arm like he himself was scattering seed and they watched his hand move through the air, as he said, "That farmer simply tossed that seed into the wind. And as he did, some of that seed fell on his own pathway, where he and others stepped on it and the birds flew down to snatch it up. Some fell among the rocks where it had no chance to take root, and so it quickly withered and died. Other seed fell among thorns where the seeds could grow, but where the little plants were later chocked by the thorns.
"And then there was the seed that landed on the good soil, soil that was freshly dug up, loose and cleared of thorns and weeds. When this seed came up, it produced a huge crop, as many as one hundred seeds of grain for every seed planted."
That was his story. Like most parables, this one was short and to point, something even the simplest of folks could remember long after. The point of the story was something Jesus generally left up to his listeners to sort out. That was the thing about parables. They stuck with you like a thick noodle-mutton-and-bread soup, stirring around inside you for days until, like the seed itself, they started to sprout into new thoughts and ideas. And you came up with the point yourself.
So it was that Jesus left them with this challenge, "If you can hear, then listen to what I am saying." In other words, think about it.
When I was a little tyke, I visited the Abbott farm during planting season. They let me work right along with Mr. Abbott as he planted his Jersey corn. He went down each row, poking holes, I crouching along beyond, dropping three seeds in each hole. I guess I must have covered the seeds with dirt as I went along or else Mr. Abbott went back behind me to finish up. I don't really remember. All I know is, that day I learned how to plant.
Years later, I traveled to a remote area in Northwest China, up into the deeply eroded hills of Gansu. Much of China's uneven terrain has been tamed into terraced hills, but in this arid, windswept wilderness, the hills were too rough even for terracing. And yet I saw fields of grain growing on land so steep it seemed impossible for a person to climb up let alone cultivate it.
How did they sow those fields, I asked my local guide? He said, "They call those plots 'leaving-it-up-to-the-gods' fields." The farmers, desperate to plant any land they could, simply tossed extra seed onto nearly vertical slopes in the hope that even in that scrappy soil, they could reap a harvest. I have no idea how they gleaned those fields, but I have no doubt that whatever came up was indeed harvested.
That Gansu sort of farming is very much like the kind of farming we find spoken of in this parable. No digging holes and dropping in three seeds here. You simply scattered the seed and waited to see what the harvest would bring.
The agricultural revolution was still many centuries in the future. Yet the laws of the harvest instilled at the beginnings of the earth applied as much back then as they do now. What you plant is what you harvest, as Jesus says elsewhere. Then as now all farmers acknowledged a multiplication effect in farming, that any farmer anticipated to reap much more than he sowed. It is the sowing technique, as much as anything, that has changed.
In the planting style of that ancient day, Jesus explained spiritual principles to his listeners. They all knew that at planting time, the person who sowed went out and scattered seed wherever he could. Hopefully most of that seed was going to fall on good soil, places where the ground had been cultivated, either by hand or with oxen.
"A farmer went to sow his seed," Jesus told his listeners all equally hungry for a good story and starving for something more than what life had offered so far. Jesus gestured with his arm like he himself was scattering seed and they watched his hand move through the air, as he said, "That farmer simply tossed that seed into the wind. And as he did, some of that seed fell on his own pathway, where he and others stepped on it and the birds flew down to snatch it up. Some fell among the rocks where it had no chance to take root, and so it quickly withered and died. Other seed fell among thorns where the seeds could grow, but where the little plants were later chocked by the thorns.
"And then there was the seed that landed on the good soil, soil that was freshly dug up, loose and cleared of thorns and weeds. When this seed came up, it produced a huge crop, as many as one hundred seeds of grain for every seed planted."
That was his story. Like most parables, this one was short and to point, something even the simplest of folks could remember long after. The point of the story was something Jesus generally left up to his listeners to sort out. That was the thing about parables. They stuck with you like a thick noodle-mutton-and-bread soup, stirring around inside you for days until, like the seed itself, they started to sprout into new thoughts and ideas. And you came up with the point yourself.
So it was that Jesus left them with this challenge, "If you can hear, then listen to what I am saying." In other words, think about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)