Earworms

Have you ever had an earworm? You know, that tune that refuses to stop playing in your head over and over and over... Jesus wants us to have an earworm, too, but not an advertising jingle. This earworm is the sound of the Kingdom of God! Interested? Read on.
 

Does anybody here find Jesus confusing at times? I know that I do. Sometimes I think that he was being confusing on purpose! This text is a perfect example (Matthew 13:10-17). Jesus has just told a parable to the crowd. The disciples don’t understand it; so they come to Jesus and ask, “Why are you telling us parables?” His answer isn’t anything but crystal clear. It’s all about listening and hearing and understanding. We will be healed, Jesus says, because we hear and understand; but most people won’t, because they refuse to use the ears that God gave them. Now we’re more confused than ever; and we have a few questions of our own to ask Jesus. What does Jesus want us to be listening to? Why isn’t anyone else listening? And what is it that we understand that nobody else does? Let’s see if we can untangle what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus is talking about listening. There are all kinds of sounds in the world that we can listen to. Some are pleasant, and others… not so much! Many of the sounds that we hear come from the media. Let’s turn on the TV news and listen to what we find there. When we click the “On” button on our TV remote, we’re in the middle of the CBS news. They’re reporting on the situation in the Middle East; and we hear the sobs of mothers in the Gaza strip whose children have been wounded by mortar attacks from Israel. Let’s change the channel. The ABC news is reporting about an earthquake in Indonesia where over 300 people died. What do we hear there? The screams of men who have found their families dead in the rubble. So we move on. The third news network is NBC. When we turn to that channel, we hear the crackling roar of the wildfires that are raging in California, and the despairing voices of those who have lost their homes in the inferno. Who wants to listen to sounds like those? They make us feel angry and frustrated; maybe even despairing. The world is going to hell in a handbasket; and nobody seems to care! And if we listen to these sounds too much, we’ll get an earworm; and it will eat away at us like a canker sore.

I’m not talking about earworms that infest the corn crop. I’m talking about the kind of earworm that crawls into your head and won't let go. It’s usually a catchy song or an advertising jingle; and it keeps you up at night. We’ve all had them. Remember that night when you had to get up early the next morning? It was 11:00 p.m., you were lying in your bed desperately trying to fall asleep, and what kept running through your head? “We are Farmers! Bump pah dum pum, pum pum pum.” It’s not just advertising jingles that can become earworms. The sounds that we hear on the evening news can become earworms too. We can’t un-hear the sounds of the sobbing mothers in the Gaza strip, and we can’t un-see the pictures of them holding their dying children in their arms. No wonder Jesus said that the people “don’t hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.” We don’t want those screams to crawl into our brains; so we tune them out! When it’s too painful, we just stop hearing and seeing. I don’t think that Jesus wants us to have that kind of earworm, either. Oh, we can’t ignore those sounds, because they’re part of our broken world that Jesus wants us to help. But Jesus points to other sounds that most people miss; and he says that we are the ones who can hear them. “Blessed are your eyes because they see,” he tells us, “and blessed are your ears because they hear.” What is it that we as Jesus’ followers hear that the rest of the world doesn’t?

Let’s turn the clock back just two weeks and revisit the Caribbean Concert that we held in our recreation park. What sounds do we hear there? Well, we certainly hear the beautiful music that Joseph Glenn provided on his steel pan drum! We hear the laughter of children as they frolic in our playground: sliding down the slides and swinging on the swings. We hear sounds of hospitality, too, as people welcome friend and stranger alike into the park. But there is one other sound, too, so faint that we have to listen closely to hear it. It’s the sound of coins dropping into a donation box for Puerto Rican hurricane relief. Listen! Can you hear it, too? Clink… that’s a nickel. Clink… that’s a dime. Clink, clink, clink… that’s a quarter and two pennies. When we identify the donor, we are surprised to see a small boy, maybe 4 years old. His mother explains to us that he has raided his piggy bank to get those coins, because he wants to help children who don’t have as much as he has. Those sounds are earworms that I wouldn’t mind having: music, laughter, and the unselfish action of a small child who is just learning about his faith!

Yes, the sounds of the world are a mixed bag. Some are pleasant and some are distressing. We know that we need to listen really carefully to hear some of them; but we still don’t understand the point that Jesus is trying to make. So we turn to him and ask, “OK, we’re listening. We hear things in the park that we would never hear on TV. But what is it that we are hearing?” That’s when Jesus clears everything up. “You’re hearing the Kingdom of God,” he says. “The world can’t hear it because the world only listens to itself. But you can hear it because you listen to me!” And that’s when Jesus heals us. He turns our frustration at the world’s stupidity into joy that the fulfillment of God’s kingdom is on the way. He turns our anger at the world’s lack of caring into the certainty that millions of Christians are working for peace and reconciliation. And he turns our despair that nothing will ever change into hope that the world’s violence will one day be transformed one into the peace of God’s kingdom.

Oh, the sounds of the Kingdom of God are easy to miss. The world’s cries of pain and suffering drown them out most of the time. So maybe we should tune down the noises of the world. As we listen to the morning news, or read the daily paper, or scroll through the Facebook page, when the noises of the world intrude – as they will – let’s turn down the volume. We all know what they sound like; and we don’t want them to become our earworms. Jesus tells us to listen, instead, for the sounds of the Kingdom of God: murmurs of love, echoes of faith, and whispers of hope. When you hear those sounds, turn up the volume and invite them into your life! Let them crawl into your head and make their home there! Fall asleep at night listening to them! And if you find yourself becoming overwhelmed by the clamor of the world, Jesus invites you to turn once again to him, and be healed.