Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

“Why should I worship a dead Jew?

As you can read on the insert in your bulletin, it was that question that caused the writing of today’s “Great Hymn of the Faith.”

“Why should I worship a dead Jew?”

How would you have answered that question? Would you even have attempted to answer that question, or would you have tried to change the subject or pretend that you didn’t even hear that question?

Alfred Ackley, the author of today’s “Great Hymn of the Faith” – “He Lives!” not only was asked that question. Not only did he hear that question. But Alfred Ackley also answered that question. That question and his answer became so powerful for him personally that he kept thinking about that question and he kept thinking about his answer. That question and his answer became so powerful for him that we are also to this very day privileged every time we sing his hymn to ponder that question and to ponder his answer.

Listening, hearing and taking to heart are exactly the three things that Jesus’ Parable of the Sower is all about.

As Jesus told the parable, a farmer went out to sow seed. Four very different things happened as a result of his sowing. Note right away that in each of the four very different results, the farmer is the same and the seed is the same. You can’t blame the farmer. You can’t blame the seed. What accounts for the four very different results is the soil.

Result #1 – the seed fell on the soil but the birds came and ate the seed before it even had a chance to do anything.

Result #2 – the seed fell on a rocky shelf. Bathed by the warm sunlight, the seed sprouted quickly until the hot noonday sun started beating down upon it. The fast growing seed quickly withered and quickly died.

Result #3 – the seed fell on good soil, but good soil that was already occupied by wild growth. The seed sprouted but its tenderness was no match for the tenaciously gnarly wild growth which claimed the nutrients and the space for itself.

Result #4 – the result for which every gardener hopes and prays. The good seed cast by the good farmer fell on good, unoccupied soil. It sprouted. It grew. It multiplied. It produced beyond the wildest expectation of the farmer.

While we rejoice with Result #4, we also must mourn. The farmer experienced only a 25% profit. Seventy-five percent of his labor and 75% of his investment was wasted on soil problems.

One commentary I read this week identified the “soil” in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower not as our hearts nor as our minds but as our ears.

Eight times in the Gospels and eight times in the Book of Revelation, Jesus throws out the challenge, “He who has ears, let him hear.” I guess Jesus’ challenge could be restated like this, “It’s not that we don’t have ears. It’s that we don’t use them.”

Some ears are like a hard road, totally unreceptive to the message of Jesus they may hear proclaimed.

Some ears are like rocky soil. They hear the message about Jesus. It catches their attention. The Gospel sprouts and grows, but the ears stop listening and the Gospel seed dies.

Some ears are akin to a weed patch – too overgrown, too thorny, listening to way too many other things to allow the Gospel to even stand a chance .

Finally, some ears – in fact, according to Jesus, only 25% of this world’s ears – are ears that actually listen and actually hear and actually take to heart the message about Jesus Christ.

A little girl – a 5-year-old – suddenly began to not feel well. Her parents noticed it. Her teacher noticed it. The little girl simply had no energy. She was always tired. She always wanted to sleep. That’s not a typical 5-year-old, is it? Her parents took her to a doctor who referred her to a specialist, a heart specialist. The diagnosis was grim. The girl had a congenital heart defect. She required surgery. During her last exploratory procedure before surgery, as a little camera snaked through her arteries into her heart, the doctor noticed that the girl was visibly upset. She saw pictures of her heart on the monitor. She grew even more concerned. The doctor asked her what was wrong. The girl, now with tears in her eyes, said, “I don’t see Jesus there.” “Oh, He’s there. He’s there,” answered the doctor. The girl successfully underwent open heart surgery. The first face she saw after surgery was that of the doctor, who, before even notifying the parents that their daughter had awakened, whispered tenderly in the girl’s ear, “I found Jesus in your heart and I left Him there.” The girl smiled. Everything would be O.K.

You see, the little girl had fruitful ears. Even at 5 years of age, she had listened about Jesus. She had heard about Jesus. And she had made room for Jesus in her heart. And, when you stop to think about it, so had the doctor because he knew that what the little girl wanted to hear was not how the surgery had gone, but instead that Jesus was in her heart. I don’t know of a lot of 5-year-old who would have had that concern. I don’t know of a lot of doctors who would have responded to those fears of a 5-year-old in that way.

That’s exactly what Alfred Ackley heard in that challenging, scary question, “Why should I worship a dead Jew?” He didn’t take it personally as an attack on his own belief system. That question didn’t send him away shivering since he didn’t know how to answer that question. Instead he recognized in that question ears that weren’t properly listening or properly hearing or properly taking the message about Jesus to heart. Instead of blasting back at the young man who had challenged him with that question, as he could have rightfully done, Mr. Ackley instead cultivated the soil of the young man’s ears: “I know that Jesus is not a dead Jew, but that He is alive and He is living in my heart.” That answer won the man to Christ. The good farmer sowed good seed in good soil. It produced a crop.

This week, my personal prayer for each of you as your pastor is not that you will have ears to listen and hear and actually take to heart the message about Jesus Christ because I am certain that the great majority of you are already included among those 25% of fruitful ears in this world who have already listened, heard and taken to heart the message that Jesus died and rose again to forgive your sins and to guarantee for you a place in Heaven. Instead, this week, my personal prayer for each of you is that you will have ears to listen to, to hear and to take to heart the questions that are being asked you every single day and that you will, like Alfred Ackley and like the doctor, give a powerfully fruitful answer to those questions by saying, “I know that Jesus is living! He lives within my heart!”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena