Michael Lutter

Matthew 13:10-17

10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see;
    though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
    you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
    they hardly hear with their ears,
    and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
    hear with their ears,
    understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’

16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

Reflection:

A goal of our church is to create a city (and world) transformed by the love of Jesus, and we believe that we have an active role to play in that process with each of us having been sent by God to bring about God’s preferred future for the city in which we have been placed. The question is, how do we serve that crucial role laid out for us?

A starting point for me to answer this question comes in the familiar prayer of our pastors before their sermons: “Lord, open up our eyes that we might see; open up our ears that we might hear; open up our hearts that we might feel; and then, O Lord, open up our hands that we might serve.” There is a chronological order in that prayer, a relationship between the first three requests and the last one. We must be willing to see, hear, and feel the world around us before we can authentically serve the world as God intends. Unfortunately, as the passage above reminds us, it is all too easy to, at times, let our hearts become calloused, refuse to listen to or observe the troubles of the people around us, thus limiting our capacity to serve.

Fortunately, God meets us where we are with passages like the parables that show us how to break apart the hardness of our hearts and serve God and the people around us in the way God intends for us. There is a power in the simplicity of the parables; they prevent us from not being able to see the forest for the trees, boiling down God’s instruction to the most fundamental instruction: Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Reading and contemplating on the parables is a great way to combat the hardening of our hearts that can come so naturally.

Prayer:

Dear God, please help me to be willing to see and hear the pain and brokenness in the world, even if that disrupts the goals I had set for myself today. Please make my heart respond with compassion and feeling for my fellow man, rather than turning away so as to not burden myself with someone else’s problems. Help me to serve, as you intend for me, with eyes, ears, and a heart willing to love you and my neighbor in all things. Amen.