Pentecost 6A

Are you distracted?

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: I decide to wash my car.  As I start toward to the garage, I notice that there is mail on the hall table.  I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the trash can under the table, and notice that the trash can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the trash first, but then I think that since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the trash anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my checkbook off the table and see that there is only one check left.  My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go to my desk where I find  the can of Coke that I had been drinking. I’m going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over.

I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye–they need to be watered.

I set the Coke down on the counter and I discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning.

I decide I’d better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water, and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight, when we go to watch TV, we will be looking for the remote, but nobody will remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.

I splash some water on the flowers, but most of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day; the car isn’t washed, the bills aren’t paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers aren’t watered, there is still only one check in my checkbook, I can’t find the remote, I can’t find my glasses, and I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day long and I’m really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I’ll try to get some help for it, but first I’ll check my e-mail.

Sound familiar? How easily do we get distracted from our goal! If you’re anything like me, while I was reading that list, you were thinking about your own list of things you “need” to do…or maybe even of things you’ve already done. And as you thought about that, your mind wandered off to tangents…how many of you have I lost already? Have you been distracted yet, since the start of the lessons?

I’m not so arrogant as to think that I keep your attention every week for 20 straight minutes. I know better. So my goal in preaching is to bring the Word of God to you in a way that almost everyone can understand. After all, if you don’t understand what God’s Word says, how on earth can you possibly hope to live it? That’s my goal; it’s a work in progress.

The Gospel lesson today tells us exactly why understanding is important. Now certainly just HEARING God’s Word is important. Getting into the Word, hearing it read and preached *is* important. But understanding is another step beyond just hearing, and there are some obstacles - including being distracted - that must be overcome before we can go from hearing to understanding.

Before we go any farther, there’s a way to read this passage that is wrong, and that could be harmful…and I want to clear that up. Maybe you’ve heard this or thought this before: it would be easy to think that as Jesus describes the different kinds of bad soil: the hard path, the rocky ground, the thorns… we might think that Jesus is telling us, “don’t be like that; be good soil.” It kind of sounds like that’s what Jesus is commanding us. As though we have a choice of whether those obstacles will be there or not.

The first is the evil one, the devil himself. Do we have any say in whether the devil is going to come and try to interfere with God’s Word? Not likely. The second obstacle is the person who willingly listens to God’s Word, but doesn’t really take time to study it and gain a deep understanding of it, so it can’t “take root” in that person. Is that something we have control over? Maybe…but that obstacle is always going to be present - do we take the time to study the Word? The third obstacle is the distraction - the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. This is a tough one. We don’t live our whole lives 24/7 studying God’s Word. Even God doesn’t expect that. But when those other things going on in our lives creep into our thoughts when we’re studying God’s Word, it’s a distraction…an obstacle. It makes it hard to gain an understanding when we’re distracted. And those distractions are always going to be there. Wealth and riches are also distracting. How? Well, when we’re “comfortable” it’s easy to think that we don’t actually *need* God. We pray in times of need, we turn to God in times of need…just like the Old Testament Hebrews. And, just like them, when life is good and comfortable, we can convince ourselves that we don’t need God, and so we give Him less of our attention. Again, this is a distraction, and in Jesus’ own words, it is deceitful. We need God in good times and in bad; in times of plenty and in times of scarcity.

The point is this: these obstacles are always going to be present in one form or another. Jesus is *not* saying “be good soil”. What he’s saying is “be aware of these obstacles to what I’m trying to do. When Satan tries to get in the way of you reading or hearing the Word of God, don’t let him; read your Bible. When you feel tempted to just let the Scriptures you hear go in one ear and out the other, see if you can’t listen more closely, make a note of something you heard that’s interesting. When your wealth or comfort tries to deceive you, instead get deeper into God’s Word, study it, think deeply about it, so that it can take root in you.” Yes, Jesus is warning us. But remember, it’s Jesus who is planting the seed. All he’s asking us to do is not resist what he’s doing.

And that’s really what we need to focus on here - Jesus is the one sowing the seed. The seed is, of course, God’s Word. And Jesus is the one who makes it grow. Just like faith is not something we can generate ourselves, it is Jesus who plants the seed and causes it to grow, not us. By nature, all of us are actually bad soil. That’s the sinful nature of our humanity - to resist the Gospel and to work against what Jesus is trying to do. At some point, we will all fall prey to those things that Jesus describes in his parable that oppose what he’s trying to do. The evil one will snatch away the Word of God here and there. Sometimes we will hear God’s Word, but it won’t really stay in our hearts, and we forget it as soon as we close the cover of the Bible or walk out the door after church. It just didn’t get planted very deep. Other times, the cares of the world WILL overtake our attention and choke off our ability to hear what God’s Word has to say to us. It happens, because of our sinful nature, and we are bad soil because of it.

But here’s the thing: the good news is that Jesus will get a crop out of us anyway. He WILL find good soil here and there. It may be you and not me today; but tomorrow he might find good soil in me. Jesus WILL get a crop. Why? This is what Isaiah tells us in verse 11:

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

God’s Word WILL accomplish His purpose. It will NOT return empty. There WILL be fruit. Isn’t that refreshing? Jesus gets a crop despite my distractions, my inability to pay attention, my bad soil.

In actuality, Jesus is not only the sower, he is also the seed. Jesus IS the Word of God. It’s all about him. That’s the most important part of this parable. Jesus is using this parable to describe discipleship to those who are gathered to hear him, but he only explains the parable to those who are called to follow him. So the great crowd that’s gathered may or may not understand what he’s saying. But those who ARE his disciples are given that explanation.

The scary part is this: these disciples, even hearing the explanation, still didn’t really understand. Why? Because they had not yet witnessed Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is only in Jesus’ death and resurrection that anyone can truly understand who Jesus is, what he has done, and what he IS doing. We are blessed that we have that understanding now. We have been given the teachings of Christ and of his followers who built his Church. We have received the full understanding, in the light of his death and resurrection. And we are called to hear and understand His Word.

Will we get distracted? Yes, we most likely will at some point. Will we be tempted to let things get in the way of our reading and hearing the Word of God? Yes, that will happen, too. And we will still likely be tempted to think that we don’t need the Word of God in our comfort.

But now we have been warned. We have heard Jesus’ own teaching on this and we know now that he is working in us. He is planting the seed of His Word in us, to work on us, to teach and guide us in our walk of faith…our walk of discipleship. He is making that seed grow. And we are called simply not to resist him. Simple? Yes, but not necessarily easy. We will face obstacles and challenges every single day. We will be tempted to resist the work of Christ in our hearts. If you’ve listened to any of the daily Matins we’ve been doing, we’ve talked a lot about “who sits on the throne of your heart”… someone WILL sit there, whether it’s God or not. God doesn’t want anyone else but Him sitting there.

So, who sits on the throne of your heart? Did you get distracted and let someone else sit there? Were you tempted to put yourself there? If God isn’t in that seat, kick whoever else is there out and let Him sit there again. It was made for Him. And when He’s on the throne of your heart, you’re much less likely to be distracted, and you can focus on Him…and Jesus can get to the work of growing that crop. What can you do in the days ahead to help him grow that crop…or at least not work against him? Let’s all watch for opportunities in the days ahead to see if we can’t find a way to let Jesus work with our bad soil and get that crop growing.

May the peace which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.