"Have Ears to Listen!"

A Sermon Based Upon Mark 4: 23-33

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.    

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Third Sunday of Advent C, December 20th,  2015

“Whoever has ears to listen should pay attention!”  ----Mark 4: 23, CEB

“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”

                                                                                                  ― Zeno of Citium  (334-262 BC)    

A famous text outside of today’s Scripture says “to whom much is given, much will be required” (Lk. 12:48).  There is certainly something that should be recognized about the requirement placed upon you, who Sunday after Sunday, listen to preachers and their sermons.  Much is required of you, I only hope as much is given.  

In regard to listening, Jesus had an interesting phrase in Mark’s gospel.  A more recent version of the Bible translates: “Whoever has ears to listen, should pay attention” (Mark 4:23, CEB). The King James version sounds a little redundant, but is more concise: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!“   When I was a kid at church, like most children, there were times I didn’t care to listen.  For my punishment, since my mother was most often sitting behind me, she would use her finger to thump my ear to remind me that I should straighten up and listen. 

In this fourth chapter of Mark, if you’ll excuse my expression, Jesus is about to ‘thump’ our ears to get us to pay close attention.   Mark’s Jesus is about to speak in parables.  Not everyone is going to understand, so he asks his disciples to pay close attention.  Truth is now under construction in your ears ; are you listening?   While Mark doesn’t take the time to share as many ‘parables’ as Matthew and Luke, he does expect us to ‘listen’ very intently to these he gives.   Mark’s Jesus even tells us why Jesus came to speak in parables in the first place.  

Most of us should already know the answer.  As we’ve already seen in Mark’s gospel, people are already out ‘gunning’ for Jesus (3.2; 22).   Because of those opposing him, Jesus explains to his own disciples that most will not understand what he is about.  “The secret of God’s kingdom has been given to you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables” (4:11), he says.    Jesus then continues to tell them why this is happening?  It’s a bit shocking, are you ready?  ”This is so they can look and see but have no insight, and they can hear but not understand.  Otherwise, they might turn their lives around and be forgiven (4:12).”   Did we just hear, what it sounds like we heard?  How could this saving, full of compassion Jesus, aka, the prince of peace, who said, “Father forgive”, ever say something like this?   

EVERYBODY WON’T UNDERSTAND

It sounds hard and harsh, but sometimes, reality can be that way.  Everybody who hears the truth, or even knows the truth, will not actually live out the truth they know to be true.   The seeds of the word of truth, which Jesus tells us about in his very familiar parable of the sower, are being broadcasted all around, but who is really listening?  Who is getting it?  Who will rightly respond?

Here, I’m reminded of the Donald Trump phenomenon late last summer.  Most every republican and democratic knows that Donald Trump is a Billionaire; neither a statesman nor a politician.  He really shouldn’t be up there, they said.  He insults people.  He tries to bully, divide conquer and hurt.  He seldom gives real answers.  He mostly recognizes the problems.  But what was so crude and rude about him is also what many liked about him.  He’s not the average person running for office, who must say what others want him to say.  The Donald only says what he wants to say. 

Donald Trump is someone much like Jessie Ventura.  Don’t you remember Jessie “the body” Ventura, the championship wrestler (or fake wrestler, that is) who once became the governor of Minnesota?  Everyone seemed to know that electing Jessie ‘the body” was a joke, but at the time, people in Minnesota had rather elect a ‘joke’, than have their elected leaders play jokes on them.   Perhaps Donald Trump is like the once electable “Jessie the body Ventura”.  Perhaps are tired of the same ole’ same ole’ in the political arena.  People would rather elect a clear ‘joke’ than be fooled by one.  If this is what’s going, things may be worse than we thought.   

For what it’s worth, what has always fascinated me about moments like this in politics is that political pundits and experts are seldom able to predict just how crazy and unlikely everything will turn be.  Democracy is unpredictable.  Even as “The Donald” still kept going up in the polls, everyone was predicting his popularity would not last as long as it did.  But it did.  The ‘rude’ and ‘crude’ Trump was not being serious or sane about the issues, the other candidates protested, but it still ‘trumped” what all the other candidates were saying.  Even when Fox News did not take “The Donald” seriously enough, Donald Trump trumped their version of the “truth” too, even though they too were saying that his version of the truth wasn’t true.  But no matter what ‘truth’ anyone else was saying, it seemed that it was only “The Donald’s” version of the truth that was getting through, and it didn’t matter whether it was all true or not.

Interestingly, that whole situation was not unlike what Jesus is saying in this text.   The ‘word’ of truth was being broadcasted like seeds are thrown around, but most are not taking root in any real way.  The ‘seed’ of truth falls on hardened ground.  The birds come and take the truth away before it can germinate.   The ground is not only hard, it’s also rocky, and the good soil is too shallow.  There’s just not much of the truth can do to take root.  Even when it does take root, it only gets burned up in the ‘heat’ of the moment.  Thorns and weeds are everywhere.  Jesus wants us to know just how hard it can be to get the real truth across.  Unless his disciples make some extra effort to understand exactly what’s going on, they will not get to the truth either.  There is always much more working against truth to keep it from bearing any real fruit than is working for it.   In a world of hard ground, shallow talk, all kinds of weeds, and heated arguments, how in the world could the truth ever hope to get into our lives?

When I lived in Europe, the official churches were, for the most part, empty.   There are all kinds of reasons the church is ‘officially’ dead in Europe.  In Germany, much of the church died at the hands of Adolf Hitler, who killed it by mixing religion and politics, convincing the church to follow him in his own lies and deceptions.   In Europe today, it could be claimed that since “enlightenment’ has finally trickled down to the people,  science, materialism and social welfare advancements have put the church and ‘the truth’ out of business.   Perhaps, the church may still have something nice to say to children, to the aged, for the oppressed or for the downtrodden, but now that science has finally given us a whole new set of answers about life, who needs religion or the church?  Besides, aren’t most of the world’s violence and problems due to religion?  

A while back I read a very interesting article at the British paper’s website called The Guardian posing this exact question: “Doesn’t religion cause most of the conflict in the world.”   What made the article interesting was that the answers it gave did not come from experts but from people, some religious, some not.   One answer came from a Muslim, another from a secular Jewish, one from an atheist, and finally, they let a Christian have the last word.  I guess they figured that, in the west at least, the Christian has the most to prove and the most to lose.   You should go online and read the article for yourself, but the overwhelming message was it is ‘careless’ ‘exaggeration’ to say that religion causes the major conflicts in the world.   While it is true that people have used religion to fuel hate, commit murder, or to fight wars, people have found just as many ways to fuel hate, stir violence, commit murder, or fight wars, without the help of religion.

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In this “Guardian” article it was the ‘secular’ Jewish fellow who told the most interesting, distrubing story.  He referred to a discussion that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins had at a dinner in London back in 2012.  It was not long before Hitchens’s died of cancer, when they were both known as two of the most eloquent atheists and anti-Christian thinkers in the world.  It was at that party, that Dawkins asked Hitchens: "Do you ever worry that if we win and Christianity is destroyed, that the religious vacuum this creates will be filled by Islam?"   Their point sounded a dangerous truth loud and clear: If people stop believing one thing, they will only start believing something else or they may be forced too.   The real question in life is not “will we believe” but “what”, “who” or “how” will we believe?  We WILL believe  something (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/02/religion-wars-conflict).

Interestingly, the wholescale questioning of all religious belief by some does not prove Jesus wrong, as much as it proves Jesus right.   Truth seldom bears the ‘fruit’ it should, not because it isn’t spoken, but because it isn’t wanted.   This is why Jesus feels he must speak in in parables---stories that require effort for the listener.  Jesus doesn’t speak in ‘parables’ because he wants to confuse people, but he speaks in parables because people sometimes don’t want to understand.   Quoting the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 6: 9-13), Jesus recalls another time prophets spoke the truth to people who didn’t want to hear it---and who would not listen until it was too late.   But even if most don’t want to understand, Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to become discouraged.  Though it has always been this way, it doesn’t have to be this way with them.

THOSE WHO LISTEN WILL BE FEW

Jesus says that for those who ‘listen’ and ‘pay attention’, it will make a world of difference in their hearts and in their lives.   He says that those who ‘hear the word (of truth) and embrace it’ will ‘bear fruit’ that gives great yields, sometimes even up to one hundred times above their own original investment of listening (4:20).  Wouldn’t getting higher dividend off of your investment make you also want to ‘pay attention’? 

When I went to college I made better grades than I did when I was in High School.  I made better grades in College because my father was now more obviously paying for my education.  It was part of the promise he made to me, when I worked in the family business for a small weekly allowance that came with a promise that he’d send me through college. 

After I graduate college, I got married and went to back to Seminary, not once but twice; once for a master’s degree, and then later for a doctorate.  It’s interesting to see that the more of my own money I had to invent,  how even better my grades became.  In high school I had a B+ average without much effort, but in college, with Dad footing the bill,  I  got an A minus average, graduating with honors, putting in more effort.  Then, when I got to Seminary, when I had to foot the entire bill, even though I was also working as a pastor, I got an “A” average. 

Finally, when I completed my doctorate, we only had eight classes, with a final doctoral project.   I made “A’s” in all those classes, except for one.  It was the very first class, which was the most difficult and most subjective, where we had to share our life stories and literally ‘pour out hearts and souls’.   When I got my grade, I expected an “A”, but got my only “B” of those three years.  I was very disappointed until later, when I discovered that all the other nine students also got “B’s”.  We got together to asked the two professors why they gave us all B’s.  They answered, “We knew you will work hard and make A’s the rest of the time, so we had to give you a “B” now, when the class is very subjective.  Besides, in a class where have to tell us who you are, only Jesus could make an ‘A’.  You can’t be Jesus, so all get a ‘B’.   If you think about it, this might even help you in your ministry more than anything else you’ll ever learn.

While we can’t certainly can’t know, in our right mind, the truth like Jesus declared saying, “I am the truth”, we can know the truth Jesus gave us in these parables.  Jesus even went on to say if his disciples would receive this truth, they would even receive more of it: “Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given to you.  (4: 24-25).   Isn’t Jesus right?   This is how the truth works, isn’t it?   If you learn the basics of math, the basics of science, the basics of language, or even the basics of theology, you can more easily learn more of it.  It’s the same in all of work and life too.   But if you don’t’ master the most basic ideas, formulas or skills, then you will eventually run into a roadblock that is very hard to overcome.  Isn’t this why Jesus also added a severe warning to those who would reject the most obvious truth being broadcasted around them:  “To those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing (of the truth he means), even what they have will be taken away” (Mark 4: 25). Is this any way to talk, especially here at Christmas? 

Well, isn’t the ‘truth’ what Christmas is finally all about?   “The Word of truth has been made alive in flesh and blood and is right in front of us” (my own translation and interpretation of John 1:14).   If we accept this word as truth, not simply as an idea, but as Jesus himself,  who is the truth,  we’ll keep getting more ‘truth’ into other areas of our lives also.  But if we reject this truth, which God intended for us, not against us, then soon enough, all the rest of the light will fade too, until life becomes very dark.  

When the communist overtook Europe, they had developed their own version of truth that went to the truth of about Jesus Christ.  Part of this was easily detected in what the communist government did to Christmas and Christmas songs.   Since they knew that they would not easily eradicate Christmas from the social customs and psyche of the people, they decided to leave the tunes and the traditions, but would only change the words of the songs and the religious meanings of the Christmas traditions.   In short, they took Christ out of Christmas, but left the mention of goodwill, the gifts, and the good wishes  for health and happiness.   It went fairly well, at least at first, until the reality began to set it, the money ran out, and then, the darkness came upon them with a vengeance.   The deep ‘darkness’ of that communism was not only what Communism believed, as it was this belief about reality that was forced upon them through fear and intimidation.  (Check out the East German book or movie, “The Lives of Others” and you’ll see how dark life can be, when any kind of ‘truth’ is forced on people). 

One thing we can say for sure, when Jesus says he is making it hard for people to understand what they already don’t want to understand, Jesus is not forcing his truth on anyone.   Today, as has always been,  Christians are a minority people.  Even though there are still 2.4 Billion Christians from a world population of 7.2 Billion, Christians are only 1/3 of the world’s people may be even less of a majority here in the United States. Christianity has been on the decline in Europe for years, and now there is almost no Christianity left in the Middle East.  Just about all the churches mentioned in the Bible, do not exist anymore.   Several years ago, I visited Turkey, where there is not one single church left that is mentioned in the book of Revelation.  As church importance and church attendance falls among us, what will this mean for the few who are left?   Recently, someone asked me, “Pastor, do you think the rapture is about to take place?”  My answer was not as much about the rapture, as it is about us, “At the rate we’re going, there won’t be anyone left to rapture!”  Do we still have ‘ears to listen and pay attention?”

TRUTH WILL BE KNOWN BY ALL

What does it mean when we Christians become a minority in the world around us?   What does it mean when people don’t want to hear or understand what we believe about Jesus Christ?   Before I tell you what Jesus said in this text, let conclude by telling you about something that recently happened to me, when I was trying to tell someone a very important truth, but they weren’t believing a single thing I said.

It happened last year, when we heart breakingly had to turn our two precious twin granddaughters over to Child Protective Services.  As many of you know, our adopted daughter has a very serious mental illness, and she was unwilling to stay with us and take care of the children, so we decided it was best for them to go into foster care. 

When the social worker came to interview us, we told her everything we could about our daughter’s struggles.   We poured our hearts out to her, but do you what happened next?   She acted as if she didn’t believe us.  She claimed that my daughter would do better if we just left her alone.  She said that she could get the children back.  We did not agree with the Social worker, but we said, “OK, if that’s what you think, then it’s in your hands.”  What else could we say?

Do you know what happened?  Our daughter has gotten worse.  Nothing that the Social workers said came true.  Everything we told them, all the truth we told, all the things we predicted, has turned out exactly, if not worse than we said it would.  We are not happy about being right.  We would have loved to have been proven wrong.  The problem was, however, that the professionals, who were supposed to know what they were doing, would not listen to the truth we were telling them.   I can’t really say why they didn’t believe us, but I can tell you that now ‘the truth has come out’. 

They haven’t apologized for the negative things they said about us, but who apologizes anymore? 

All this that has happened to us reminds me this final message about ‘truth’ that Jesus talks about in Mark.   Right before our text, Jesus has a message, I’ve been saving for the very end.  Jesus says, that even if right now the truth is not being widely received  or is not taking root and not bearing fruit, don’t be fooled.   Some day,  “Everything hidden will be revealed, and everything secret will come out into the open.

Whoever has ears to listen should pay attention!" (Mk. 4:22-23 CEB)

The truth is worth listening for and paying attention to, even when it seems no one is listening.  Do you know why?  One day, Jesus says, everything “will come out in the open.”    You don’t have to force the truth on anyone, nor do you have to prove the truth to anyone, but you should try to find and live the truth, because one day, some day, some way, the truth will be fully known.  Those who want to know the truth can figure it this out.  Those who don’t want to know this truth, don’t figure it out only because they don’t want to.   Jesus is not being cruel here, Jesus is just being realistic.  He’s realistic not so some won’t get it, but in hope that we all someday will. 

The apostle Paul not only agreed that Jesus tells the truth, but Paul agreed that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life: “One day every head will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord”  (Phil 2:10).  But if this is all so true, why doesn’t God just tell us everything and give us the kingdom (v. 30) right now?  Why doesn’t God just reveal himself so clearly, that no one will mistake him, no one will miss him, and everyone can know everything about him so there won’t be one single chance having any doubt?    Well, if this is how God would work, wouldn’t this sound an awful lot like what I just said about the evil of communism?  The evil powers would never give you any choice in the matter.  They only force their own evil ways of ‘truths’ upon you.   

In Mark, however, we can see that Jesus is different, very different.   Jesus speaks in parables because he would never force truth, even his own.   Jesus always leaves us to freely choose or reject what, why, and who we will believe.   You can also be sure that Jesus will never force God’s truth upon you because this truth is not an idea, not a position, nor an argument, and not even a religious belief, but the truth is something everyone can and should believe in.  You know what that is, don’t you?

Let me answer it clearly, with this single question: would you want to force someone to say that they love you, when in reality you know that they really don’t?   God is not out to prove a point, but God is out to ‘prove his love for us’, that ‘even while we are still sinners  (Romans 5:8).  Even when we don’t know all the truth, and even when we don’t want to believe any truth, God is not out to prove his point by pouring down judgment on us, but God is out ‘to prove his love for us’ because this is the  ‘judgment’ that came down at the cross.   God wants us somehow, some way, and some day, to freely know this ‘truth’ which waits to be fully reveal in us right now. 

But you can’t force love, can you?  God waits on you because the ultimate truth is not about ideas, not religion, not about politics, nor is it about anything else in life, except that God wants to prove his love for us, for now and for eternity.   This is why Jesus lived.  This is what Jesus taught.  This is of course, why Jesus died, so that even while we are still sinners, God can ‘prove his love for us’. 

This ‘kingdom’ of love and grace has come ‘near’ (Mk 1:15) in Jesus Christ, but it still remains ‘hidden’ because God still waits for the kingdom to be received by and in us, just as it has been revealed to us and for us, in Jesus Christ.  If this kingdom of God is finally about God’s love, then it must be just as freely received as it has been freely given.  Only when this love has grown and matured in us and in this world, will the kingdom come once and for all: “Whenever the crop is ready,” Jesus says, “the farmer goes out to cut the grain because it's harvesttime.” (Mk. 4:29 CEB).

God’s readiness to ‘harvest’ His kingdom, is just as much based upon our readiness to receive it, as it is upon God’s readiness to give it.  Can we speed it up?  Can we slow it down?   Do you want to know the truth?   Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, except through me? (Jn. 14:6).  When God, in his perfect love, decides that we are ready for the fullness of the kingdom, then the kingdom will come and the truth will be fully known, just as we are already known in God’s great love.  Isn’t it the full knowledge of this ‘love’ that makes everything ready to be fully revealed?   But God will only give us, as much as we are able to hear  (4:33).  Are you still listening?  ‘Whoever has ears, should pay attention!”  AMEN.