If you were not here last Sunday night for our worship time and annual meeting…you really and truly missed something. Truly. Three years ago, I asked our Clerk of Session, Greg Nelson, to try and make the annual Clerk’s Report, which is essentially the numerical summary of the church year…interesting.

Imagine then, if you will…the clerk’s report last Sunday night. Imagine the Clerk’s Report, not only set to music…but set to the Blues. And not only set to the Blues, but performed by none other than Heavy G and the Clerkettes! Complete with sunglasses and a leap off the stage. And imagine the lyrics to a Clerk’s Report blues song entitled, “Ain’t No Way to Have the Blues,” that includes things like this:

“Now we have a righteous Session; they met eleven times
They spent one day retreating; the business got done fine.
We met five times all together to settle some affairs
Met twice about Steve Lympus…to get enough people there.
We got fifty-seven new members and nine went out the door
That makes five hundred sixty nine to clap and stomp the floor.

So get clapping
and stomp in those pews
Think about what God has done
Ain’t no way to have the blues.”

This week I have done exhaustive research, on the Internet and on the phone, and believe we can safely conclude that in the history of our denomination, there has never been a report like this one!

I have no idea what the Annual Meeting will look like next year…but I don’t think you’ll want to miss it.

This morning, we’re going to read one of Jesus’ parables from the gospel of Luke, chapter 8.

Before I read it, though, I want to just point out one of those little things that makes reading Luke so interesting. If you look at the first three verses of chapter 8, you’ll see what could seem like sort of a throwaway transition. Just a list of who was with Jesus, including the twelve. Then it says there were some women who had been healed of various things, and it tells us who a few of them were: Mary Magdalene, who had received a spiritual healing. And Joanna, the wife of one of the king’s court officials, and Susanna.

The easiest thing in the world would be to skip right over these few verses. But in a remarkable way, Luke is once again drawing into the spotlight those from the margins, the outside looking in:

• first of all, women in general, who in that culture were always second class citizens, but whom Luke repeatedly elevates as I’ve mentioned before.
• then a woman whom Jesus has healed,
• then the mention of a woman who is part of the upper class, and
• then another totally unknown to us.

They were among those who supported Jesus and his ministry. And they will later be important witnesses to Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection at the end of the gospel. And so in a few sentences, with a few names, Luke shows Jesus’ story as transcending barriers of gender, class and experience. The kingdom of God is bigger than those things.

I want to read from Luke 8:4-8 only.

Why parables? Why does Jesus want to use parables when he talks to these large crowds? It’s common for him to do so.

Maybe it’s because the stories are simple enough for all to understand.

Maybe it’s because Jesus knows that people will relate to the everyday things he tends to use in his parables. An agrarian society, farming, sowing, crops, seeds, soil…these are things of everyday. All who heard would be able to easily visualize them.

Maybe it’s because most parables just have one main point to them, and Jesus doesn’t want to distract people by making things too complicated.

Maybe it’s something else. Tell me, which one of these paragraphs is of more interest to you:

“In the 19th century in England, business people often conducted a wide array of different business, including lending money at high rates of interest, and being middlemen for sales of commodities. Many times, they would band together in small offices, or counting houses, and join together in partnerships lasting many years.”

Or

“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it…Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”

From just the looks on your faces, it’s pretty clear you are drawn to the introduction to Charles Dickens’ great story, A Christmas Carol. A parable is a kind of story, and we connect with stories. Our lives themselves are living stories, and when we hear a story told there is an easy connection. Parables are often filled with “Maybes…” Their meanings are a little elusive. Stories help us to not just hear…but to listen.

“A sower went out to sow his seed;
And as he sowed, some fell on the path
and the birds ate it up
Some fell on rock, and as it grew it withered
for lack of moisture. no roots.
Some fell among thorns. It grew strong and tall,
but weeds also grew and choked it .
Some fell into good soil, and grew,
and produced amazing abundance.
Let anyone with ears to hear…listen!”

Maybe we need to look at this story as an evangelist’s story. Evangelist as in “sharing the good news” of Christ. Not like a TV evangelist, not a Billy Graham stadium-full-of-people kind of evangelist, but the evangelist that each one of us is called to be. Share the good news. If Jesus Christ is the best thing that ever happened in the world, in your life, then you cannot possibly keep from living it out and speaking it out.

We ought to take heart that the seed is spread so generously… path, rock, thorns, productive soil.

Some will go to waste, of course. But sow it everywhere! This is an encouragement to the evangelist…sow the seed!

The thing is, you cannot tell by looking at a soil…if it’s good soil. You cannot tell by looking at a person…if they are good soil, if they are ready to encounter God. It’s just to hard to tell. So sow everywhere.

Nicky Gumbel, the Englishman who started the Alpha program tells a wonderful story of a man who started to go to an Alpha class in London. The man was angry and combative from the beginning. After the first week, when they talked about who Jesus Christ was, the man was so upset, and always his angry question was,

“What about other religions? How can there just be one way?!”

They didn’t think they would see him back after that week. But he came back. And after weeks 2 and 3 and 4…same result. Same anger, same question, “What about other religions?” In week 5, he came to Alpha and was an entirely different person. Calm, and in fact said almost nothing. And when he was quiet in week 6 as well, one of the leaders pulled him aside to find out what was going on, and the man said simply “I’ve met Jesus Christ. I’ve become a Christian.”

The leader was astounded, and wanted to know what had happened. And the man said “I went to the barber to get a haircut. And I was sitting in the barber’s chair, and he turned it around so that I was facing a mirror, and I looked at myself there and suddenly said to myself, “Why not me?” And so he became a Christian.

People around him had no idea. He didn’t look like good soil. But we can’t tell just by looks, can we? So sow the seed. A word of encouragement.

Let anyone with ears to hear…listen!

Or maybe this parable is a warning for believers, for those who were following Jesus. For the twelve…for the women…for that great crowd of people. Jesus spoke his word and it fell down upon every single one of them. Maybe he was urging them to look deep inside of themselves, and see…what was the state of their heart?

Were they like a hardened path? So many people trampling that path at the end of the field, and the one across the middle that they might just as well have been made of asphalt. Nothing is going to penetrate.

People can get that way, especially if something hard has happened, some crisis where they felt like God hadn’t protected them, or had abandoned them. They get cynical, and hard. Not going to let anything hurt like that again. Might as well be asphalt.

These people around Jesus, were they like rocky soil?

In parts of Israel, the soil is wonderful and rich for just a few inches, but beneath that is an entire layer of limestone and nothing of substance can grow for long. It starts up, but the roots go nowhere and it dies.

I have a friend I’ve known since high school. He met Christ, and was passionate about knowing God better, and was instrumental in a number of us growing in faith as well. But two or three years later, he was no longer walking himself. And twenty-five years later, there are very few vestiges of what he had started.

Other people are looking for the spectacular. They are introduced to God, and are smitten with faith. But eventually, something else spectacular comes along. And then something else. They go from one thing to the next. No staying power. no roots, no water.

Were those people around Jesus like the soil that had seed and thorns? Faith grew. In fact, it grew a lot, and for a long time. Strong and tall. But other things grew also. They were distracted by other things. Material things: cars, houses, income… “I’m going to make as much money as I can now so I’ll be free to do ministry later.” Trips, careers, etc. Not bad things. Even good things. Just things that could choke out a strong plant next to it.

Matthew Henry once said that “prosperity is a more subtle and dangerous enemy than persecution.” You know when you are persecuted for following Jesus, and you either decide to keep going or not. But prosperity is subtle and subversive. You wake up one day and find you are being strangled. Your faith is being choked out.

And then the good soil. Were these the people around Jesus, close to him? The good soil receives the word…and it grows. And grows and grows. It’s amazing how it grows. There’s some mystery there, some are so open. They hear God’s call, they trust, they act in faith, they fall down, they get back up, they look to God, they hear, they grow.

Let anyone with ears to hear…listen!

Maybe the soils are not in the people around Jesus in this story. Maybe it’s about you. And me. Some of us have followed after Christ for years. Maybe we’re harder than we once were. Maybe we think we’ve heard it all. Maybe we’ve experienced all that we actually will accept of God messing with our life…seemingly safe with our salvation, but not comfortable with going deeper. Maybe we’re playing the game of seeing just how many thorns we can allow in the garden without totally killing the plant. Maybe we need to have someone swing our barber’s chair around so we’re looking square in the mirror, and look to see what God sees when he looks at us.

Let anyone with ears to hear…listen!

Maybe…we need to do what the disciples did. Raise our hands and say, “Jesus, what does this mean?!” What would happen if we sat and prayed over this story, meditated, asked Jesus about it?

Be careful! What usually happens to me is this…I start out on the intellectual side of trying to figure out what the story means. But if I sit with it, it begins to drift to my heart and I find myself being pulled into the story. And I find myself asking God these questions:

• “Lord, why have you brought this story to me?”
  
• “Lord, why have you brought it at this time of my life?”
  
• “Lord, why have you brought it to me this particular week?”

If we’re courageous, we’ll do what the disciples did, and turn to Jesus and ask,

“Jesus, what does this mean?”

Here’s what he said:

"Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones on the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance."

Dale Bruner describes the picture this way: “It is the simple receiving of the Word of God (the Word of God made manifest in Jesus Christ) that makes one fruitful.

• The first soil did not receive the Word at all, though it heard it.
• The second received it with joy but under pressure let it go.
• The third received it with only one hand because the other hand was busy.
• The fourth soil received the Word of God…with both hands.”

Let anyone with ears to hear…listen!