Church Alive June 4, 2012 Issue

The following was written in support of Church Alive, a focus of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, that explores the meaning and possibilities of awakening to the spiritual basis and impact of Church.

Receptive to the Word

Jenny Lobl

Recently, I’ve been considering Jesus’ parable of the sower in relation to praying for our church services (see Luke 8:4–15). It’s giving me some food for thought about being alert to the ways error might suggest itself to us, dampening our receptiveness to the Word when we’re attending a church service, or even trying to talk someone out of being at church at all.

In the parable, Jesus compares different states of thought to different kinds of soil that a sower’s seed might fall on. The parable describes various ways materialism would try to stop us from being receptive to Truth.

The “way side” suggestion, for example, could be an aggressive thought that denies any validity at all to God, and lets the Word be immediately dismissed from consciousness. And what about the “stony ground” suggestion? The Bible tells us that this represents those who “receive the word with joy” but “in time of temptation fall away.” Then there’s the thorny “cares and riches and pleasures of this life” suggestion.

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