Pentecost 4: Hearing the Call and Doing

Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

In the prayer book of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, the lector ends the readings with the words, “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church”. Such an acclamation is certainly resonant with Jesus recurrent injunction throughout the gospels: “Let anyone with ears listen” (Matthew 13:9) and with the recurrent phrase in the Revelation to John: “Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” (e.g. Revelation 2:29) Yet there is a difference in the New Zealand acclamation and those biblical verses: the first uses the word “hear” the other two the word “listen”, and so their relationship begs the question: What is the difference between “hear” and “listen”? Certainly, the Greek of the New Testament has two different words for “hear” and for “listen”; in fact, in some ancient copies of Matthew the verse reads, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen.” In a more recent modern translation the passage reads, “Anyone here with two ears had better listen”. Now the lectionary does rather a cheat with today’s Gospel in that it implies that throughout Jesus is speaking to the same group of people. But if you notice the citations, the passage is filleted; verses 10-17 are not included. The fact is that when Jesus tells the parable he is speaking to the crowds at large. That’s verses 1-9. But when Jesus is explaining the parable in verses 18-23 he is actually speaking only to his disciples. When Jesus speaks to the crowds generally he uses the word “listen”: “Listen. A sower went out to sow.” (Matthew 13:3b) When he explains the parable to his disciples, those who have already made a commitment to follow him, he uses the word “hear”: “Hear then the parable of the sower” (Mathew 13:8) And in explaining the parable he continues to use the word “hear”. The difference between “listening” and “hearing”. He calls the crowds to “listen”, he enjoins the disciples to “hear”.

Listening is fundamentally a passive, interior activity. So much so that the term “active listening” has had to be invented to demonstrate that – in counselling, for example – something is being done even when the counsellor is simply listening. Hearing on the other hand suggests or even demands some kind of action. In Jesus’ explanation of the Parable of the Sower each of the times he uses the word “hear” it is coupled with some action, even if the action is mis-understanding or despondency. The injunction to listen, it seems, is for the un-initiated, for those who are still processing the information in order make a decision. Listening is for those who are still trying to discern if there is truth in what is being spoken; for those who are still wondering if they can make or want to make a commitment. But those who have made a commitment – like the disciples, like you and me – then we are called to hear; hear with both ears; hear and do something. The call to hear is for the initiated for those who say that they have made a commitment, and it always carries with it the call to action.

If we are Christians then we have made the commitment. In one sense, we cannot fall back on simply listening, but we are hearers and that means acting, acting because God and God’s kingdom depend on us, depend on our work. Those of us who have heard the call of Christ know that we must respond. Those who have heard the word and invitation of God are ultimately called to bear fruit, and to offer back to God and the world something meaningful, a rich harvest: “my word…that goes forth from my mouth…shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

If you are a hearer of the word, committed to the Way of the Christ, what are you doing? What are you offering back to God? What is your adherence to the word yielding in the world? The writer of the Epistle of James reminds us, “rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” (James 1:21-22) Each of us have heard the word; in baptism each of us have had the living word of Christ implanted in us, but what have we done? Have we abandoned it to the rocky, inaccessible places of our lives? Have we let it wither through well-meaning but unfulfilled intentions? Have we choked it through negligence or warped priortities? Or have we been faithful to the what we have heard and yielded a return – thirty, sixty, perhaps a hundredfold? Only each of us can answer these questions for ourselves. But we must examine oursleves and make some kind of answer to those questions, lest we discover that the the word we have heard, the word implanted in us ultimately returns empty, yields nothing, and we miss altogether the divine partneriship into which we have been called, miss altogether the word of the kingdom.

Hear the parable of the sower. Hear the call. Hear the invitation. And as Jesus says to his followers, “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” (Matthew 10:27) Do, act, proclaim by word and by deed the good news you have heard, the word that has been implanted in you so that God’s truth does not return to God empty but bears fruit in us and in our world, yielding a harvest of joy, peace and justice.