Today I’m going to share a topic with you that is both common and eternally important. And while I’ve titled the sermon, About that Bloke Blake, you’ll soon discover that the message actually has little to do with your pastor Paul Blake.
Most of my career has been spent in one form or another in the advertising industry. As a result, I probably pay more attention than the average person to the creative message of ads. One of my favorite recent campaigns were the early commercials by Sprint PCS where the sprint man tried to resolve confusion in family’s lives that were caused by bad phone connections. Remember these?
How about this one? The football coach is on the field being showered with the singing of Captain and Tennille when what he asked for was a back up for O’Neill, his quarterback.
Or this one, the rancher thinks he’s ordered 200 oxen but receives 200 dachshunds and we got to see the world’s first weiner dog stampede! Because the message didn’t get through.
Today, I want to retell three very familiar stories from the Bible that are about messages – and how they did or didn’t get through.
The first is found very early in the Bible Genesis chapter six verse five.
“The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only on evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth – men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air – for I am grieved that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
Noah must have been a special person. He obviously stood up for God and out in the crowd. In an era when it would have been easy to compromise away principles or beliefs, he held fast. And God rewards him.
The story continues on … you know it well. God provides plans to Noah for building an ark. And by faith he moves forward. More than 100 years pass between the time he receives the plans for the ark from God and when the first raindrops fall. Think about this for a while. Now whether Noah stood in front of the ark and preached as we’ve seen in artists’ renderings or whether he simply answered questions about his project one on one, for 120 years he's been telling about the coming judgment, preaching, if you will, about the ark as a means to salvation. That’s 43,800 days, not counting leap years. Six thousand two hundred and fifty seven Sabbaths. Let’s speculate the sermon of the upcoming flood was only told verbally twice a day. And that the sermon in shoes was only given nine to 10 times a day. Any guess where we’re at? Somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million sermons. That’s a lot of preaching. More than Billy Graham, Dwight L. Moody, Charles Wesley, Joan of Arc, St. Francis of Asisi, William Miller, or any other great preacher in recent times could ever have hoped for. Yet aside from his wife, his three sons and their wives, the sum results of all of Noah’s sermons was zip … nada ... nothing. No one heeded the call to salvation from the flood.
How could that happen to a man handpicked by God? How could that be the response to a message straight from God? Here we have what must be the most committed, most persistent, most faithful example ever of a preacher's commitment to his task. How could the results be that bad?
Let’s move forward many years now to another favorite Bible story … involving another boat … the story of Jonah.
The stories have a real similar start. In Jonah chapter one beginning in verse one we read: The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai. Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Like with Noah, there was no mistake in the calling. God spoke to both men, told them his plan and provided instructions. But here, the stories part. Noah, of course, moved forward with building the ark. Jonah headed as far and as fast as he could from his calling. Again you know the story. Jonah ends up on a boat headed for Tarshish … the storm comes up … at his suggestion he’s thrown overboard … gets swallowed by a great fish the Lord has prepared for him … spends three days inside this fish … cries to the Lord … and the Lord commands the fish to vomit out Jonah onto dry land.
The Lord tells Jonah a second time to go to Nineveh. After the experience he’s just been through, there’s no running this time. We learn from the Bible that Nineveh is a large enough city that it required a three-day visit to get through. There’s a lot of preaching to do so on the first day into town Jonah starts right in. I have a message from the Lord, Jonah proclaims to the Nenevites, forty more days and your city will be destroyed. He doesn’t give his testimonial … he doesn’t preach a long sermon … he simply delivers God’s message. And the Nenvites respond. They believed God. They declared a fast. They put on sackcloth. And at the urging of the king, the entire city called urgently upon God. God heard them and had compassion and did not destroy them. And Jonah was irritated. Now that has to be the worst example of a preacher ever.
First, the guy goes to great lengths to avoid his pastoral call.
Next he comes into town and delivers his message.
Third, when the people seek God and God listens, he’s irritated.
How would you like a pastor like that? Jonah has to be the worst example of a preacher ever. Yet an entire city – as long as from here in West Lenexa to Arrowhead Stadium near Blue Springs – repents. How could the results be that good? From a man who just wants to deliver a message of doom and watch it come true?
When we read these stories we have to stop and ponder how on earth the most committed preacher ever could have the worst results ever and the least committed preacher ever have the best results ever. Both messages were from God. Both men were hand chosen by God. Both did as they were told. But such different results. How could this be?
I believe the third very familiar story I want to share with you today holds the answer to that question. Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 8 verses 5 through 8.
Luke tells us that a large crowd was gathering with people coming to Jesus from many towns. As they gather, he tells this story: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among the thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
How many of you call this story the Parable of the Sower? You’re not alone. In fact the chapter heading in my NIV Bible calls it exactly that. But I would suggest to you that it is misnamed. This parable is not about the sower, it's about the soils. It’s the Parable of the Soils. And it answers for us exactly how the world’s most dedicated preacher could be completely ineffective while the world’s worst preacher could be absolutely effective. For in this parable Jesus is telling us it’s not the preacher that determines what happens to the seeds – the word of God – it’s the people.
The disciples ask Jesus what the parable means and, beginning in Luke 6:11 he replies:
“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”
Doesn’t sound like things have changed much in the last 2000 years, does it? It’s easy today to identify all the things that compete for our attention and time. We think things are different for us … the distraction of cell phones, the Internet, television, radio, X-box, GameBoy and on and on and on. And they are distracting. So many noises that we hear. So many sound and data waves bouncing around us constantly. Just waiting for us to tune in and tune out more important things. It reminds me of a scene from the classic film The Gods Must Be Crazy where one stranger sitting next to another at a diner asks, “Are the noises in my head bothering you?” Yes. They are. We’re all bothered. We’re all blasted with distractions. We’re all on overload.
Yet, as you listen to what Jesus says, nothing has fundamentally changed. Maybe the people gathering on that hillside we’re talking about a big layoff at the fishery. Maybe there was a new romance in town. Maybe the Romans had enacted a new law. Whatever the discussion, whatever the distraction it caused Jesus to pause and note the simplistic fact that much focus was on the periphery of daily life … not on the spiritual core. And to warn what the result would be.
And so the people would leave that day, some untouched by the Master’s words, some soon to forget them and some to change and bear a great harvest for God.
It would be nice to think that none of us here share the same problem. Surely we’d be smart enough to know if our lives were hardened, beaten down into an unbreakable pathway. Surely, we’d know if we were a rocky place … if our Christian walk was shallow like the rocky soil. Surely we’d know if thorns were around us. If distractions were crowding out the more important things. Surely we’d listen, absorb and change. But would we? Do we? Do we mirror Noah’s parishioners or Jonahs?
There are three distinct messages from these well-known, well-loved Bible stories that I want to focus on today.
First, about that bloke, Blake. It is clear that God sends messengers and that God sends messages. For you the sower is Paul Blake. For us at Chapel Oaks it’s Fritz Krieger. And when they are preaching from the Bible, they are delivering the message of God. As Jesus points out in the parable, the sower is responsible for throwing the seed, not for what happens when it lands.
If there’s one thing we’re good at in our current generation it’s finding something other than oneself to blame. If it’s a business failure, it must have been caused by Wal-mart, Microsoft or the economy, not a bad decision or two along the way. If there’s a broken marriage, there’s a bad spouse. If it’s getting canned at work, it’s a boss’ politics, a coworker’s conspiracy … but never one’s own doings. If our spiritual life isn’t what it used to be, the pastor’s lost his edge. Got a problem? Find a therapist. A few minutes on the couch and most anything can be tied to something.
But Jesus states very clearly in this parable, the sower’s sole task is to sow the seed. To deliver the message that God has for us today.
Second, the effectiveness of the message has little to do with Paul and Fritz and a whole lot to do with you and me. The stories of Noah and Jonah bear this out. Remember, the world’s worst preacher turned a sizable city upside down while the world’s most committed completely struck out. A message from God is a message from God no matter how effective or interesting the delivery. Whether it falls on thorny, rocky or good soil is our choice and ours alone.
How many of you, like me, struggle to find time to study God’s word in solitude? How many of us with a family to get up and ready for church are able to arrive at the front doors with our spirits settled and our hearts focused? How many of you can honestly say you’ve listened to a sermon from beginning to end without a thought of a task from work or home entering your mind? How many times have you just absorbed the words without a judgmental filter in your mind, without picking and choosing what you want to hear? How many times have you made it through a sermon without looking around at everyone else … only to find everyone else looking around too! How many times have you really listened and absorbed what your pastor said?
The call to be good soil is very challenging. But it is infinitely important and totally in our hands.
Remember the feedback loop from high school speech class. I know that goes back a ways for many of us. On the left side of the diagram is the encoder … the one talking. On the right side is the decoder … the one receiving. If the decoder is not totally focused on the messages coming from the encoder, true communication cannot take place.
Jesus might state it a bit differently – if there are thorns in the soil, if the ground is rocky or a worn path then there won’t be a harvest.
The effectiveness of the word of God on our lives depends solely on you and me.
The third and final intertwined message that I find in these stories is the urgency of becoming good soil. There is no alternative.
For several years after we were married, I watched Joelyn’s father farm fertile soils in North Central Nebraska. Being a city kid, I was fascinated at the way he would systematically rotate his crops and monitor his yields. Some grounds produced better oat crops. Other ground soybeans or field corn. For Normen, every crop every year produced some yield. But that wasn’t the case in Jesus’ story. In his story only one soil produces a yield. The seed on the path never sprouted. The seed in the rocks died. The seed in the thorns was choked out. No yield. Total crop loss. If you’re not good soil … if distractions plague your Christian walk … if your faith is shallow … there’s not a reduced yield … there’s no yield.
Jesus is warning us in this parable that there is no alternative. He’s saying, “Stephen, Dana, Tammi, Pedro, Susan … be good soil. Prepare yourself. Remove the rocks. Hoe out the thorns. Break up the pathway. Stop looking at the messenger. And start looking at yourself.
Jesus ends the parable by calling out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
In so many words, Noah and Jonah gave the very same message. Pastor Blake today too.
How will we respond?
God has picked a messenger. God has sent a message. And as we’ve learned from our stories today, what happens next is totally up to me and up to you.
My prayer for us today is that we will choose to be Ninevites. To listen to the word of God, to fully absorb it into our lives and to allow God to create in each and every one of us a hundredfold harvest.