“With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it.”Mark 4:33 ESV
Reflection: what do you do with truth when you hear it?
Not long after starting my first job after graduate school, our group already had a new manager as our current manager was retiring. I will not go into any detail about the new manager, but let’s just say we were surprised at the assignment. The new manager didn’t understand much about what our group did, not how we did it as he didn’t have an engineering background. A few months went by, and it was time for my performance evaluation. First time after starting my career. First time in this company. Although admittedly I didn’t have much respect for this manager (ok, I was young and pretty conceited), I was clearly expecting a good evaluation as my work was done, I had delivered on my projects. But the evaluation was terrible. I couldn’t believe my own ears. It was as if he described someone else, saying I was difficult to work with among other things.
My first instinct, my first reaction was to reject his feedback. To blame it on his ignorance. But deep down I knew he had hit a nerve with me. There were some deep truths in what he said. And, after hours of talking with my wife, bringing it before the Lord, and my own soul searching, I made a critical decision that proved to pay dividends for years to come. I accepted his feedback as truth, and changed my approach. It was very humbling, I must say, especially from this manager who I had in my mind put down. In hindsight, I think God put him there for me to learn some critical lessons, so that I could be successful in my career. And, looking back, it really was a pivotal moment in my career.
In the focus verse today, we see Mark making the point that Jesus gave the people who had gathered around him “many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it.” Mark has only recorded a very few, perhaps those which really resonated with him personally. Because, notice the point he makes in the second half of the verse “as they were able to hear it.” It wasn’t as if Jesus held back truths. No, on the contrary. The truths he shared were in a way limited by the hearers. The listeners. As I discovered painfully so during my first evaluation, many truths are painful to hear. But it allowed me to change my trajectory of my career, and also had a big impact on my personal life. So in hindsight, I am very thankful for this truth, although it was difficult at the time. And this is absolutely the case with most truths.
Why is truth often so difficult to hear?
Shouldn’t truth be something we want? We desire? To know and follow the truth? Well, it depends, right? if the truth we hear challenges us, perhaps even convicts us, then it is difficult to hear. And, it might be very humbling to have to change our ways. If someone tells us that we said or did something that hurt them, we might get defensive. “Well, you started it”, or “You also hurt me”, or “I wasn’t feeling myself”, or whatever excuse that we can come up with that moves blame from us. Moves accountability from us. But the truth is still there, that we hurt someone, because of our action. And, when we dig further into this, into ourselves, we often discover that this is fundamentally rooted in our own selfishness. So, perhaps with help from evil forces, we spin a deception, a lie, that somehow what we said or did really wasn’t our fault. It was others. Or the circumstances. Or, a new manager whom we don’t respect.
The truth is sown in us, for our benefit.
As the sower, Jesus spreads seeds of truths. Generously. Abundantly. On all sorts of fields and soil. Sometimes that seeds of truth that land on “our field”, comes from something we read. Sometimes from a spouse or a friend. Sometimes from the pulpit. And, sometimes from a new manager who isn’t even a believer. God spreads truths so that we can bear fruit. Good fruit, for the kingdom of heaven.
