NB: this is what I planned to say - what I actually said was a little different: check out the audio version!
The story is told of a man who, in his youth, expressed his desire become a great writer.
He said, "I want to write things that the whole world will read, things that people will react to on a truly emotional level, things that will make them laugh, cry, and howl in pain and anger!"
He now works for Microsoft, writing error messages.
No-one ignores a Microsoft error message - but how do people respond to Jesus' message?
If you ask people: "what do think about Jesus and his teaching?", I guess many people would say: "he was a great man, and I live by his teaching" - but in fact, people are pretty resistant to his teaching.
We've seen that resistance already in Mark's Gospel, as we've looked at it over the last few weeks. We've been asking the question that Mark forces on us: "who is this man?".
We've seen the incredible impact Jesus had on people - there was an authority and power in his teaching and in his actions that pointed to the fact that he really was, and is, God, the Son. The King of the Kingdom of God.
But at the same time, we've seen how people reacted differently to that - and not always favourably. In the passage before this, Jesus was accused of being mad, or in league with the devil.
So as well as asking "Who is this man?" we're now thinking: "If he is the Son of God, how come the response is so mixed?"
And that's the theme of today's passage.
We started looking at it last week in the family service, and this week we're going to take it a bit deeper.
It's all about Jesus & his teaching: how resistant we are to the message about Jesus, but how powerful Jesus can be in our lives, if we let him be.
It's about how different people respond to Jesus' teaching in different ways.
But it's also very personal - it's about you and me, and what we make of Jesus.
In verses 1-9 we get the parable: the farmer's seed that lands on four different kinds of ground; and then in 10-20 the explanation.
v.14 "the farmer sows the word" - "the word" is shorthand for the message Jesus is teaching: that he is the King of the Kingdom of God - that's what he's been teaching everywhere since 1:15.
v.15 on: the four kinds of ground are four kinds of people, four responses to Jesus - some people are like where seed falls on the path, others where it falls on rocky places, others where it falls among thorns, and others are like good soil.
So, How do people respond to Jesus?
First of all, some people are not bothered.
They're just not bothered about Jesus. Anything they hear about him - it's like water off a ducks back. It's in one ear, and out the other.
v.15: "Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them."
It's in one ear, and out the other. These people take no action to hold on to Jesus' message, and so Satan, the spiritual enemy of Jesus, just deletes the message from their memory.
What does Jesus do to stop this?
Well, in a way, he encourages it.
He tells stories that people don't understand, stories that you have to ask about to get the meaning.
Yes, the parables are simple stories - but for many people, that's as far as it goes.
Have a look at v.9 - Jesus has finished telling the story:
Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that, " 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!' {Isaiah 6:9,10}"
Imagine the scene: a new political leader appears in the country, and gets more and more popular. One day he turns up in Verulamium Park, and a huge crowd gathers to hear him speak. You can feel the excitement in the air as he steps up to the microphone.
He spots an ice-cream van at the back of the crowd, and says:
"One day and mother with her children passed by an ice-cream van. She bought three ice-creams: one for herself, and one for each child.
She passed an ice-cream to the first child, who stuck it straight onto his nose
She passed the next to the second child, who started to eat it, but let most of it dribble down the sides of her face.
By the time the woman came to eat her own ice cream, it had melted into a sticky mess"
Then he steps away from the mike. There's a moment's stunned silence - and then rapturous applause -- what a speaker, he knows just what life is like, what a rapport with the people.
And the crowds start to drift away.
But what has he said to them? Do they know? What was the meaning of the story? Doesn't he want people to know he's on about? What's he think he's doing?
But that's exactly what Jesus did. Told them a nice story about a farmer sowing seed, and left it at that.
At school you were probably told that a parable is a simple story designed to help people understand about God. But that's not quite true, is it?
Jesus' parables are simple stories that are left hanging there, demanding an explanation, but with none given -- until you ask.
And that's the point. Just like a Tea-strainer filters tea-leaves out of the tea, Jesus' parables filter out some of the listeners.
Jesus explains that it's a kind of judgement on them - in v.12 he quotes from Isaiah chapter 6: back then, God's judgement on his wayward rebellious people was that he would teach them, but they wouldn't understand.
And so Jesus says: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" - if you can be bothered, there's something to learn from what Jesus says - but only if you can be bothered - otherwise Satan comes along, and it's gone. And you have come under God's judgement, in a Do-It-Yourself kind of way.
What about today? Who are these people who don't bother with Jesus?
Obviously people who are anti-Jesus, but also, surely it's a whole load of people who say: "I believe in Jesus".
Lots of people tell me "I believe in Jesus". They say: "I believe in Jesus, I live by the sermon on the mount, but you don't have to go to church to be a Christian."
But when I tell them what Jesus actually said in the sermon on the mount, they don't want to know. When faced with the real Jesus, they reject him. It doesn't look like they're bothered with Jesus at all.
And that could give me some kind of complex about how bad I am at communicating - except that Jesus tells me in this parable that it's going to happen.
And it's going to happen this morning: some of you sitting here today will be 'not bothered' people. And I want to say to you: be bothered. Don't stay on the enemy's team. Don't remain un-forgiven. If you bother about who Jesus is, and what he's done - you'll find that it's a treasure beyond price.
Be bothered!
How do people respond to Jesus? Some are just not bothered.
But the parable goes on - and the rest is about people who are bothered - in fact, the next kind of soil, the next kind of person, "receives the word with joy" v.16
But, then, they are "pulled back by the world."
Some people are "not bothered" - others are "pulled back by the world."
This is the next two kinds of ground - and here Jesus hits the nail on the head for most of us.
It's always tempting to think: the New Testament is so out-of-date, what can it teach me? But Jesus understands our human nature exactly.
Some people are like rocky ground - v 16 they "hear the word and at once receive it with joy." - it's brilliant, it's fantastic: Jesus is Lord, and he's amazing! but v.17 "...since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away."
And some people are like ground with weeds that grow and choke them: they hear the word, but, v.19 "...the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful."
Jesus knows us so well, doesn't he?
Two short verses that sum up all the things that pull us away from Jesus: the pull of the world.
Here's the first pull of the world: persecution: trouble or persecution because of Jesus.
Maybe a friend says to "You got confirmed? You don't believe that Jesus stuff do you? For goodness sake this is the 21st Century!"
Or maybe you've been very ill, and someone says: "How could Jesus let that happen to you?"
And instantly we feel: "oh dear, they've got a point"
And if we don't fight that,
if we don't remember Jesus' great love and forgiveness,
his presence with us,
his promise of life with him in his kingdom forever;
if we forget that Jesus is Lord and we think instead that friend's opinion is more valid,
then we're on a slippery slope.
Here's the second pull: perspective "the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things" - it's a brilliant phrase, isn't it? Doesn't it sum up exactly the things in our lives that crowd out Jesus, that stop us putting our energy into our commitment to him?
And it's all about perspective: how we view the world: nothing really compares with Jesus:
The worries of this life? He says: trust me, I'll help you;
The deceitfulness of wealth? He says: earthly riches rot;
The desires for other things? He says: seek first the kingdom.
Nothing can compare with Jesus and what he has in store for us: That's the perspective Jesus gives us on life.
The trouble is, there's so much around us saying the opposite:
Worry! The stock market is at a 6 year low; the firemen are going on strike
Wealth! You must have a people carrier, and a BMW, and a perfect garden, and designer kitchen
Other things! Put your time into sport, put it into art, put it into work!
And we fall for it "...the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful."
So what are we going to do?
As the boy scouts say: "be prepared"
Jesus is warning us here - yes, he's telling us what happens a whole load of people hear his teaching - some aren't bothered, some are pulled back by the world - but he's warning us as well: don't be like that! don't let it happen to you!
The Bible keeps on reminding us that we're under this pressure: 1 Corinthians 10:12 "... if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!"
Don't let it happen to you.
Make sure the word is not choked, make sure Jesus' word is firmly rooted in you.
That's why church isn't an optional extra for a believer, but it's a vital life-support system: we need help to live for Christ - and one of the most important ways God the Holy Spirit helps us is when we meet together with other believers and learn together and build each other up from God's Word, the Bible.
This is why we have to have the Bible as the central part of our meeting together - this is how God encourages us, and builds us up, and tells us his promises, and challenges our wayward hearts.
Imagine a meeting when we came together, shared our problems, prayed about them, and didn't spend serious time learning from the bible - then we'd have fulfilled v.19, wouldn;t we? "...the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things have come in and choked the word, making it unfruitful."
Don't let it happen to you.
Because if we bother with Jesus and his word, if we fight the pull of the world, then we can produce a crop - we'll be very fruitful followers of Christ.
Some people are "not bothered", some people are "pulled back by the world" - but finally, some "bother, fight, and bear fruit."
v.20 "Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop -- thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown."
This is how powerful Jesus can be in our lives, if we let him. Some people "bother, fight, and bear fruit."
What is it about these people that helps them stick with Christ? v.20 it's what they do with the Word: they 'accept it' - that is, they let it get right inside them, taking them over - they put themselves under God's word, and not over it.
That gives them strong roots - unlike the seed in rocky soil, they have a firm foundation - so that when the storms come, their life will be like a house built on a rock.
It helps them to keep the weeds clear, and have a perspective that sees them as the weeds they are.
And so, they will 'produce a crop'. That is, they will enter the Kingdom of God. They will be one of God's people, living under God's rule, in God's place.
It's not that they will have earnt it, it's simply that they will have trusted Jesus, and kept on trusting Jesus in the face of all the pressure.
You see, there's nothing to earn: The word of Jesus is the message that he offers us the kingdom, that he has paid the price for us in his death, to bring us back to God. That we can share his resurrection life with him, if only we will take him for who he is: the Lord of all, our Saviour - if only we will trust him.
He warns us here, that it's not going to be easy: we'll have to bother, we'll have to fight.
But he also tells us that it is going to be worth it - the crop at the end of the day will be 30, 60, 100 times what was sown. We be alive with him in his Kingdom, forever.
So: Some people are not bothered; some are pulled away by the world; but some bother, fight, and see fruit from it.
It is amazing, isn't it, the state of the human heart - that even when God himself is there, Jesus, teaching, caring, powerfully, and with great authority, the real impact, the below-the-surface impact, is so limited.
Jesus knows that the case, and he explains to his disciples then, and us today, why it's hard to share message of Christ. He helps us to see why our friends often don't respond when we talk about Jesus, why so many doors are closed to us: but no-where does he tell us to give in - because some do receive the message with joy and accept it at the deepest level in their lives.
But most of all, Jesus helps us here to see our own hearts: Jesus knows us so well: he knows the pressure we're under: he warns us to be bothered, to fight the pull of the world, to accept his word.
And this is something you and I are involved with this very moment.
Now we are looking at Jesus' word together, Now we are hearing what he has to say about our lives.
The question is, today, which of these types of ground will you be?