Lord Make Us Sensitive To Your Word!

WEDNESDAY Evening Prayer Reflection 102721 Matthew 13:1-9 “That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: 'Listen! A Sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!” Farmers are good analysts! They have a sense of the most efficient time to sow to make the highest yield. They understand times to plant and most ideal season for each plant. They also know that some things are not under their control. Jesus must have spent a good time observing farming practices! Well Jesus is God and he knows all molecules of plants, times and seasons better than we do. I trust his judgment! His parable is pointing to something specific: our hearts. We internalize everything in our hearts, and the word of God comes as a plumbline to straighten us up. In Jesus parable, the word of God becomes the seed, the uncorrupted seed, the seed of truth. The recipient is our hearts represented by the soil. We learn that the soil can present some challenges to the seed taking root. God works in mysterious ways! I have always wondered of those whose hearts have turned like a rock where the seed sprang up because there was no depth of soil. Could it be that this lack of depth and absence of receptivity is a symptom for all humanity? Which is the reason why we all rely on the power of God and His grace to soften us, to make us sensitive to God’s voice? When we resist God’s word, our hearts prove to be a rocky ground. It is true that often enough we are surrounded by values that are opposed to God’s Kingdom. It is a toxic environment that is likely to elevate our ego, to push us towards goals that do not glorify God in the end. These values may be attractive to us, but also, we may be so into them that we may not realize how entrenched in them we are. After considering the example of the Amish that forgave the murderer of their daughters, it is easy to conclude how much connected to the values of the Kingdom of heaven these Amish families were, compared with the rest of us. We are more likely to be governed by our highly volatile emotions and act on them. This tells me how vital it is for us to pray for God’s grace to soften us, to open our sensitivities to God’s word and His values. Most often we don’t realize that when we are tempted or drawn towards the maze of the values of this world and its attractive and seductive attire, it is easy for the word of God in us to get choked by the “thorns” which are the objects of our interests. Yes, the objects of our interests could be anything that draw our hearts far from God. I mean the desires of flesh that are in opposition to the spirit. So, we are not to do whatever we want (Gal 5: 17) yet the world tells us to do whatever our hearts desires! According to the acronym YOLO (You Live Only Once), we are encouraged to do anything we want. Therefore, we are in great need to learn about the life of freedom in Christ versus the freedom the world promises. In the dictionary, freedom is defined as “the power or right to act, speak, or think without hindrance or restraint.” You have probably heard of the saying: “one person's freedom ends where another's begins.” This means that we are still not at liberty to do everything we may want if it infringes on the freedom of others. Does this mean that all people respect this? No, that’s why our world has countless of oppression stories. It is because somewhere along the line, someone decided, his freedom included the lack of freedom for others. It looks like humans are not ready to quit that. But they can if they trust and believe in Jesus and his power to transform us into whom God created us to be. Jesus said: “Love one another as you love yourself” Today’s Gospel according to Matthew (13: 10-17) brought up the idea that people’s pursuit of their freedom beyond the freedom of others makes them blind to God’s principles of life and also deaf to God’s voice. Jesus said: “The reason I speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: “You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn—and I would heal them.” Is Jesus referring to their hearts being dull meaning their heart is like a soil that is rocky? I think so. The closest I can think of is the narcissist tendency in people. We do love ourselves quite a bit with varied degrees. When we no longer care about what happens to others as long as we win or get what we want then, we have positively fallen into this category of dull hearts; and hard of hearing. Lord Make us sensitive to your word!