Generosity

Mark 4:1-20

Today’s parable is one familiar to us, the Parable of the Sower, found in Mark 4:1-20. This is a parable about generosity. Let me explain:

“Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. 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.  2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said:”

Jesus has been healing people, confronting the religious establishment, calling the twelve to be his closest disciples. He has started his public ministry with a bang and the crowds are responding. People are there for many reasons and so many have come that Jesus has to get into a fishing boat and push off from shore to address this crowd. There is a lot of commotion and Jesus starts off by saying, “Listen!” “Listen!”

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed.  4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.  7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain.  8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”

9 Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The first thing to notice in this parable is that the sower sows the seed generously. The seed is not sown one by one, carefully placed in just the right spot.

We had a garden when I was growing up. Before we planted the seeds, we prepared the ground. We placed horse manure from our horses on the ground and allowed that to sit for a couple months.  Then we went through the ground with a roto-tiller, digging up the ground. We worked that soil and only after doing that did we carefully plant our seeds. When we planted vegetables, we had little packets of seed, not to be wasted. For carrots, we took the hoe and made a straight line and then placed the seed along the trough we had made with the hoe and covered up the seed, lightly tamped it down and watered it gently.

For squash or cucumbers, we made a little mound and placed two or three seeds in the mound. For beans, we made a row with the hoe and placed the seeds one by one, about six inches apart.

This is not the image of the sower in this parable. The sower takes a handful of seed and tosses it out in an arc, the seed falls almost indiscriminately. In the middle of the patch of ground where seed was being sown, there was a path where people walked through this plot of land. The ground was hard pressed down because of the repeated weight of people and animals walking over it. Some of the seed falls on this ground.

There were sections in the land where there was a layer of limestone just under the surface of the soil. The seed would sprout but quickly wither because the soil was not deep enough to allow the roots of the plant to develop. Some of the seed falls on this ground.

There were sections where the soil also contained roots of weeds and thorns. While the plant grew, so did the weeds and thorns and they would choke out the growth of the seed and it would not develop fruit.

In this parable, the seed is all the same. There is not good seed and bad seed. All the seed is good and capable of growing and bearing fruit. What makes the difference is not the seed, but the soil. The seed is sown and it is the response of the soil that makes it beaten down, rocky, weed infested or good soil.

The sower is not working the soil, carefully planting seeds in a neat row, three to a mound, six inches apart, making sure no seed is wasted. The sower casts his seed to one and all in the hope that some will respond.

God is generous in sowing his seed.

My family was on the island of Zanzibar last March. The old town of Zanzibar has narrow twisting streets, open to the sky but a bewildering maze that makes it easy to get lost, as I did several times. We were out walking, I turned a corner and looked up and there it was, a good photo opportunity. About 20 feet, 6 or 7 meters, above the ground there was a mango tree growing out of the wall. It was a most unlikely place to see a mango tree, and yet this mango tree was growing out of this crack in the wall and it was bearing fruit.

Some of the most unlikely people become Christians after hearing the Gospel – and some of those unlikely people are us. God is a generous sower and he can even sow seed in a concrete wall.

God is generous in sowing. God is shameless in his pursuit of us in sowing his seed. We say no, we ignore him, we pursue pleasure, we pursue other gods and God continually, relentlessly pursues us until we finally respond to the seed and say, “Yes.”

In retrospect, I see that God spoke to me many times in my life before I decided to follow his way. In particular I remember thoughts of God because of what I saw in nature. I remember two different Sunday School teachers who shared the Gospel with me. I remember a trip to Florida when I was 13 years old where God spoke to me in a church one night. Over and over, God spoke to me. In Pennsylvania, in Florida, in New Jersey, in Massachusetts, in Germany. But it was not until I was 21 years old that I finally responded to his pursuit of me.

If you have not yet decided to follow Jesus, if you have not yet given your life to God, there is no escape. This may be the first time you have heard God’s word, but maybe it is the 100th – you can be sure this won’t be the last time – God will keep sowing his seed, God will pursue you to the end of your life, sowing seed in the hope that you will respond and accept his gift of salvation. There is nowhere you can go where God will not cast a seed in the hope you will be good soil and respond.

The Parable of the Sower teaches us about God’s generosity in sowing seed. Secondly, it teaches us to be generous in hearing.

This is a parable about listening, hearing. Jesus begins teaching this parable by saying to the crowd, “Listen!” Pay attention. And then after he tells them the parable, he says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The seed is all good. Each seed is capable of developing into a plant that will bear fruit. Why do some bear fruit and others not? What makes the difference is the response of the person to the seed. The person who listens generously is the one who is good soil and bears much fruit.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

There have been varying responses to Jesus’ ministry thus far. In the preceding chapter of Mark there are three accounts and three responses to the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus goes into a synagogue and is tested by the Pharisees. There is a man there with a shriveled hand and they want to see if Jesus will heal him on the Sabbath and thereby break the law which prohibits working on the Sabbath. Jesus, in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, heals the man’s arm. The Pharisees then begin to plot with the Herodians to see how they might kill Jesus.

That is one response to the ministry of Jesus.

The crowds swarm around Jesus, those with diseases pushing forward to be healed. Feed me, heal me, touch me. Feed me, heal me, touch me. Show me a miracle. There is no indication that these people were eager to hear Jesus’ teaching.

That is a second response to the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus’ own family had a third response to Jesus. The crowds pressed in on Jesus and his disciples so that the Scripture says they could not even eat. His own family said that he was out of his mind and came to rescue him. If they could get him home, perhaps they could talk some sense to him.

That is a third response to the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus has not been saying different things to different groups. He has been consistent in his teaching and healing ministry. But there are three different responses thus far in his ministry. Anger and plotting to kill him, “Hey Jesus, give us another miracle. Take care of my need.” and “He’s out of his mind, let’s take him home and nurse him back to health.”

Why such different responses to Jesus? Jesus teaches this parable to answer that question. It is how people hear what Jesus says that determines their response.

When Jesus is alone with his disciples, he helps them to understand what he is saying in this parable.

Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?  14 The farmer sows the word.  15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

The hearts of the Pharisees were so hardened that they could not hear the teachings of Jesus. Their minds were fixed on what they believed to be true. There was no possibility they could be wrong, no openness to Jesus. And so they plotted to kill Jesus.

Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy.  17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

The crowds came to Jesus to see a miracle. They had tremendous excitement and enthusiasm. People being healed of disease, withered arms being restored, the blind being given sight. Why this was better than a circus. Think about it. There was not a lot of entertainment in the Palestine of Jesus’ time. Not TV, no MTV, no cds or tapes. So when Jesus came around and started healing people, this was the most exciting thing to have happened in a long time. So much excitement, but did these people stay with Jesus? The crowds came to Jesus, but in the end, he was followed by just a few. The crowds deserted him.

Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word;  19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Jesus’ family is clearly struggling with how to view Jesus. They know him better than anyone and yet are clearly confused by his ministry.

All three groups heard the words of Jesus. It was the same word to each of these groups and yet such different responses.

What was the difference? It was how these people heard the words of Jesus.

How are you hearing the words of Jesus?

If your heart was hardened and you were like the hard ground of the path, you would probably not be here this morning. People like this have a mind that is preset. When they hear the words of Jesus, they hear them through a filter that screens out the truth. They have a number of presuppositions that prevent them from hearing the truth.

The hardened heart says, “There is no supernatural world. All we know and experience is what exists in this world.”

The hardened heart says, “Jesus was a good teacher but his teachings have been distorted and twisted and people have made him into someone he never thought himself to be.”

The hardened heart says, “Belief in God, religion, is for those who are not enlightened. Just as primitive people worshiped the sun because they did not understand astronomy and physics, so do people today worship God because they do not understand the origins of the universe.”

These and other presuppositions screen out the truth of Jesus so his teachings cannot be heard.

If you were like the thin layer of soil that lies on a layer of rock, you might be here today. This is, after all, the Easter season. It is the more exciting period of church life. We have waving palm branches this morning with lots of singing.

Some churches with more resources than we have generate even more excitement. Imagine a church with a ten-piece band with guitars and keyboard and saxophone and trumpets or perhaps a 100 person choir with a mini-orchestra accompanying it. And maybe a drama group that puts on Easter and Christmas pageants. In churches like this, it is easy to come because of the excitement, the entertainment.

Following Jesus can be exciting, until you hear words of Jesus like these from Luke 14

25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:  26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.  27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

When following Jesus is no longer exciting and begins to be demanding, well, maybe it’s time to do something other than follow Jesus. When following Jesus means you have to worship with people that do not worship like you like to worship, then it’s time to do something else. This is the seed sown on the rocky soil.

Perhaps you are like the soil that has the roots of weeds and thorns that grow up with the seed and choke out the life of the plant so it bears no fruit. You hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

This is where most of us struggle. Being a Christian is not easy and faith does not come without struggle.

There are many worries that keep us from bearing fruit: pressure of schedules, financial worries, fears about our health or the health of those we love, and on and on. We look at those around us and see what they have and want it for ourselves. It is easy to spend your life in pursuit of wealth and possessions.

We may fear being ridiculed for our faith and so decide it is not worth it. My father’s brother was in the US Army in WWII. He drove a truck in New Guinea. He was very religious during the war and he and his Christian friends talked about coming back to New Guinea after the war to share their faith. He was with the occupying forces in Japan after the war and he befriended many of the Japanese there. He was gifted in building relationships.

But after the war, he returned to his wife and she told him it was either Christianity or her and by the time I knew him, he didn’t go to church. He left his Christian faith because of the weeds and thorns that grew up around him.

In all these things, it is a matter of listening generously to the Word of God. It is not listening to any and every thing. There are many messages in the world, tempting us, urging us, seducing us to move away from our faith. It is not indiscriminate listening. It is selective listening. Listening to those things that will encourage us in our faith. When we listen to God generously, we become good soil that will bear fruit.

This parable teaches us to be generous in sowing, generous in listening, but the emphasis of this parable is God’s generosity in blessing.

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.”

The parables of Jesus always contain a twist, something that made the listeners to his parables sit up and be surprised. This is where the twist in this parable comes.

A normal Palestinian harvest was seven and a half times what was sown. For each seed sowed, a farmer could expect to get back seven and a half seeds. A spectacular harvest would be ten times the seed sown.

Jesus says in this parable, that the seed sown in good soil, soil that listens and obeys the word of God, will yield a harvest of thirty (wow!), sixty (incredible!) Or even a hundred times what was sown (unbelievable!)

A  harvest of 100 times what was sown is humanly impossible. Only God can possibly bring that kind of yield. In fact, you can listen as well as you want and a harvest like that will not result. Only God’s work in your life will bring that blessing.

But this is how God works. God can take five loaves and two fish and feed 5,000 men plus their families and have twelve baskets of leftovers.

God can take 12 country boys from Galilee and turn the world around.

What is it Paul says to the Corinthians?
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are.

Throughout church history, God has taken simple people and accomplished great things.

This is the good news of this parable. When you listen to Jesus and seek to obey you will bear fruit. As you are living a life that is obedient to God, you are bearing fruit. God can take your life and make it abundantly fruitful.

I want to tell you this morning, as strongly as I can, that the harvest God is bringing from your life, if you have given yourself to him and are attempting to live an obedient life, is far greater than you can imagine. When you get to heaven, you will be stunned by the vast store of treasure you have built up in heaven.

You may be sitting here in Rabat and wondering what on earth you are doing. Your bank account is not getting bigger. Your classmates and friends seem to be accomplishing more than you. It doesn’t seem to you that you are making much progress. But I tell you again, you are becoming rich beyond your wildest dreams.

If you have 1,000,000 dirham in your account in Rabat, you are a rich person in Morocco. But take those dirham to Europe or the United States and you will have to beg for money on the streets. Dirham, outside of Morocco have no value.

Christians are in this position. We are accumulating  millions of heaven’s dollars in our account, but we will not see them until we get to heaven where they will be the coin of the realm.

God is blessing you. His seed was sown and you listened generously. And now he is blessing you. God is using you in the life of others. You may not see it here. You may not know it in this life, but God is blessing you abundantly, generously.

You have no conception now of how God is using you in the lives of others. Part of the wonder and awe of heaven will be to see the incredible and creative ways God used your listening to his word, your obedient life.

On this Palm Sunday, we celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Crowds welcomed him, singing Hosannas and Hallelujahs. They spread their cloaks and palm branches on the road before him.

Less than a week later, Jesus was deserted, left alone to face his trial and crucifixion.

What kind of soil are you? Are you soil that will stay with Jesus and receive God’s generous-beyond-your-wildest-dreams blessing?

Use this week between Palm Sunday and the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and Easter and his crucifixion and resurrection to prepare your soil.

If you have not responded to the seed God has been planting in your life, then this is a good week to take time to reflect and respond. It’s time to say, Yes.”

If you are distracted by the worries and anxieties of life, then this is a good week to listen generously to the right message.

This is a good week to take hope in the abundant, generous blessing of God in your life.

Listen well this week. Listen generously this week. Listen generously and know that you are building up treasure in heaven, a yield from the seed sown in you of thirty, sixty, even 100 times.