Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 13th July 2008 by Phyllis Wong. The scripture readings that day were Matthew 13: 1-9; 18-23; Psalm 65:1-13.


Opening prayer
Triune God, we ask for a prayerful heart to hear and understand the words of God. We humbly ask for your presence and guidance through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In Matthew 13, Jesus delivered his message to the crowd about the words of kingdom in parables. By the use of symbols and images, Jesus challenged the people of his time to reflect themselves and seek to penetrate more deeply into the understanding of the kingdom of God.

Today, we read the parable of the sower. The parable of the sower is very familiar to many of you I guess. This parable was recorded as the first one amongst all others in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. For this parable, the emphasis is “seeds fall in good soil bear fruits and yields”. The key for this parable is as stated in Matthew 13:23, I paraphrase as “for those who hear the words and understand the words indeed bear fruits and yields”. The significance of it is related to the importance of hearing and understanding the words of the kingdom of God.
Hear and understand are the core elements to bear fruits for the kingdom of God. Today, I will focus on these two words ‘hear’ and ‘understand’.

Hear, begins with a H, and then ‘ear’, we need to use the biological function of our ear to receive the sound, but more importantly, to hear the message, we need to take the H right at the beginning. H stands for heart. An ear to hear with a heart is a kind of empathetic listening, that is able to carry powerful impact to make positive changes, and to bear much spiritual fruits as describe in Galatians 5:22. Here I quote, :spiritual fruits are love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

The other key factor for people to be able to bear fruits and yield is ‘to understand’
Understand is made up of two little words “under and stand”, what kind of stand do we under? When we talk about the words of kingdom, a stand should be to God and for God. Since God has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, therefore, we as Christ followers should stand in line with Jesus.

In Luke 4:18, Jesus had made it clear of his mission and stand.
“The Spirit of Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captive, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”

If we hear without a proper stand in Jesus Christ, we will not be able to fully understand the Kingdom of God in terms of serving the weak, the vulnerable and the oppressed.

I would like to share with you here my experience of setting up the first rape crisis centre in Hong Kong, namely RainLily in the year of 1998-2000. RainLily was initiated by four founders. I was one of them.

All founders take a very firm stand that sexual victims should be taken care of by our society. There should be comprehensive and quality services provided for them. In addition, victims who were sexually harassed should be treated with dignity and their whole well being should be preserved. With this stand and firm belief to serve the best for the victims, we are able to set up the first one-stop rape crisis centre in Hong Kong. We started from nothing, all we had by that time was our passion and each of the founder donated HK$1,000 to start the organization Association Concerning Sexual Violence against Women in 1997. The fruits that we bored were amazing. These were the fruits of love, patience, kindness and faithfulness. (Galatians 5:22) All these fruits were very much driven from a strong heart for the victims because we had heard and had the empathetic understanding of their plights and needs.

Just now I have shared about ‘hearing and understanding’ on a level of community service. In this section, I would like to share it at a deeper personal level.

Recently I have an encounter with my son that helped me to reflect on the importance of hearing and understanding.

There is a TV series in the Jade Channel called ‘World Trekking’. (向世界出發) One night when I was watching this program, and that particular episode was about India and Mother Teresa’s faithfulness to God by serving the people who were dying and deprived of basic food and shelter.

I seldom watch TV. But I am really interested in this particular program series. I tried to keep my concentration while watching. It was very annoying to me when my son who is ten years old kept asking me questions times and again while I was watching. I stopped his questioning and told him to ask me later after the program or at the commercial break. My son was not cooperative and I was angry about that.
When the program was over, my son shared with me. Mum, you told me not to disturb you while you are watching TV. But in the past, when I watched my cartoon program, you always interrupted me by asking questions like whether if I had completed my homework or whether if I had finished my physical exercises etc. If I did not reply to you because I was too preoccupied with the program, you would just simply switch off the television. While he was sharing his heartfelt feeling, I saw tears in his eyes.
With his frank and bold sharing, I realized how awful I was. I recalled what he shared. Yes, there were times in the past I did what he had accused me of. I felt ashamed and embarrassed at that moment and I realized I had been emotionally violent to him and too dominating in our relationship. I thanked God that I was not at all defensive but tried to confess my wrong doings at that moment. When I tried to hear my son with a heart of empathetic listening, I was enlightened to understand my son more. In the name of love and “for your own sake”, I tried to impose my expectations upon him. And too often, I used my standards to measure him. Although he sometimes resisted, yet my power has always overwhelmed him. With this episode, I realized that although I tried to impose my expectations with a high hand on him for his own sake, I paid a great price. I was not aware that with such a dominating attitude and order being imposed on him, I had hurt his feeling and pride. By hearing his sharing of how I requested his full obedience to me while I did not care for his feeling and not being understood, I felt sorry for leaving him such a scar of not being respect by his mother. I apologized to him. Now I am aware of and am sensitive to what my son is doing. I focus not only on my own needs, but his needs and the current condition. Such an understanding has helped to improve our relationship. In these few days since that TV program, when my son is watching TV program, I will ask if I can talk or when I can talk to him. When he gained my respect like this, he responded to me positively by giving me a hug and was willing to give me attention.

Empathetic listening and understanding is important to build up relationship. Without the empathy and respect of other people, even though we listen we may not really hear and understand. It is because if we focus on ourselves but not on others, it would be too easy for us to defend ourselves and find excuses to justify our needs and desires, rather than the other way round.

This empathetic listening and understanding is based on love and letting go of our own ego, including our self-righteousness. My son may do wrong, but I may not always be right either. If I am able to hear my son from his point of view and make a stand for treating a child with the same dignity and respect, the relationship that is fostered could be tremendously different. With a stand of loving the little ones without manipulation of power and dominance, we are able to produce the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22) In a world of adult and powerful dominance, it is a great lesson for us to learn. May we ask for God’s mercy to inspire us and give us courage to act.

Perhaps people will agree the importance of hearing and understanding, and yet when it comes to a situation that we encounter great challenges and difficulties that require us to pay great costs. Are we as Christ’s followers, willing to insist in God’s will and bear the responsibility for Gods sake? In my example, my relationship with my son is still far from perfect, and I often feel progress is painfully slow with steps going forwards and backwards. It will never be plain sailing and all relationships need constant nurturing love and efforts.

The same goes for RainLily, since its inception, it faced acute crisis and was at the brink of closing down due to discontinuation of support from a Trust Fund. But with perseverance and hard work, the crisis was resolved and the centre became even stronger financially at the end.

In Psalm 65 that we have read this morning, the scripture reminds us once again, God creates the whole world and all fruits we gain are from him. God is our source of hope. All we are and all we have are from God. Therefore, we have to transform our life from focusing on humans to God. As God has promised to his people, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)

In addition, whenever we encounter tremendous difficulties, never give up. Remember that God is the one who hear us and understand us. God always hears the cry of his people and understands their suffering. God of deliverance in the old testament and our redeemer Jesus Christ in the New testament have given us this promise, right?. Therefore, it is our faith to trust in God that we will not be abandoned. God is always there to help and strengthen us. He is the creator and redeemer, out of his power and grace, he is the one to make fruit bearing possible. By focusing our life as ‘God-centered and follow Christ’s good deeds’, we do our best, and let God do the rest”.


Let’s prayer:
Dear God, help us to develop a heart to hear and a firm stand grounded in the love and justice of Jesus, to understand and serve your Kingdom in this world. Lord, grant us strength and persistence to live in your words so that we are able to bear fruits for your glory. In Christ name we ask, amen.