In his after dinner speech, a sales manager praised the efficiency of his staff. “We are now making a sale every three minutes,” he boasted. “That’s not enough,” yelled a voice from the audience. The speaker was momentarily thrown off stride but not deterred by this heckler. Ignoring the rude interruption, he went on to talk about the new promotion that involved radio and TV ads, along with direct marketing. He told the audience this would ensure a sale every minute and a half. “That’s still not enough,” said the voice again.
Visibly annoyed, the speaker singled out the person who had spoken up and responded sharply, “You have interrupted me twice. Could you kindly explain yourself?” “Certainly,” came the reply. “There’s a sucker born every minute!”
There isn’t much difference between marketing and evangelization. Both are about getting the message out to as wide an audience as possible. Any company that doesn’t strive to reach its intended patrons cannot expect to have good sales. The same holds true for the Church and Jesus knew that early on. The mission he entrusted to the disciples was to proclaim the good news of the kingdom to anyone who would listen. That is still the mission of the Church.
Christianity took root and flourished because of the apostolic zeal of its earliest “sales reps.” Thanks to Paul and other evangelists, we have heard the word of God but what have we done with it? Are we in turn selling his message?
Jesus knew that people would respond differently to his message of salvation, so he used examples of varied soil conditions to describe how receptive they would be to allowing God’s word to take root in them. Our response can range from outright rejection to lukewarm interest to great enthusiasm. These are the various landscapes of the human heart. We have seen them in others and discovered them in ourselves. We are rarely just one type of soil. These soils are descriptive of how we relate to others and to God.
While none of us care to think of ourselves as suckers, many Christians are fooled by the devil into thinking that they have a stronger faith than they actually do. When judging how deep our faith may be, we should also look at our priorities and consider if they bring us closer to God or not. Jesus cautioned his apostles that not all who listen would see the value of what is being preached. He makes the point that we will not fully grasp all that he has to say unless we are willing to listen.
Modern psychology demonstrates that we only hear what we want to take in. if our minds aren’t open to what is being said, then we simply will not hear the message even if we have perfect hearing. If we want to better understand the good news, then we have to rid ourselves of those rocks and thorns that choke off God’s word from taking root in us.
In 1956, we moved into a new house in Lakewood with no lawn. For the next few weeks, Dad had my sisters and me raking the yard repeated to clear out as many rocks as we could. Each day, I wondered if rocks somehow multiplied overnight. Our efforts paid off with a beautiful lawn by the end of the summer.
Likewise, whatever condition we judge the soil of our heart to be in, we can change it. If God’s word and all that it holds is not strongly rooted in us, we are not the rich soil Jesus has in mind. If we are not fully committed to living our faith, then we have rocks or thorns that prevent his message from really taking root in us. That would be anything that stands in the way between God and us.
So what might they be? Distractions that take up our time could include the pursuit of more material goods than we need, an obsession with sports, an addiction to drugs, alcohol, or the inappropriate use of the Internet to satisfy other cravings, or simply too much time spent watching TV. Many of us, I imagine, easily spend more than an hour a day engaged in any of these pastimes, but how much time do we allow for prayer and reflection on scripture?
In the world of marketing, missed opportunities can be fatal to survival of any sales based organization. One of the most effective means of advertising is word of mouth. The Church has counted on its faithful to share with others the news of Jesus Christ. That is how many of us first learned about our faith. When our faith becomes deeply rooted, we are then motivated to share with others what we believe. In turn our faith will multiply many times over. As many teachers know, in the act of teaching, we master our subject.
(Given the right conditions, apple seeds become apples, peach seeds become peaches, likewise, God’s seeds become God within us.)
We should think of ourselves as “sales reps” for God’s kingdom, spurred on by an inner voice saying, “That’s not enough!” It is not enough for us to take a minimal approach to our faith and our relationship with God. It is not enough to simply believe in God. Not if want to see creation set free from its slavery to sin and corruption. Not if want to see our children live in a safer world. We can’t lose sight of who heads up this sales force, Jesus Christ. With his help, we can stop others from being suckered by the devil into passing up the deal of a lifetime: freedom as children of God for all eternity in his kingdom.