Jeremy L. Berg

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: Mark 4:26-34

“With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.” Mark 4:33-34

My kids are all learning to play the piano right now. While we could have sat them down and had them watch free YouTube videos of a skilled instructor explaining music theory and playing for them on a screen, we instead signed them up for private one-on-one lessons. Once a week they sit side by side at the piano, Miss Liz quite literally “taking them by the hand” and tailoring lessons to their skill level and needs, manipulating their fingers, correcting and encouraging, addressing their questions and meeting each student where they are at. 

As they progress in ability, eventually they are no longer learning the basic songs like Row Row Row Your Boat and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but get to chose and learn how to play popular songs by their favorite artists. Private lessons will cost more time and money than just watching YouTube videos at home, but they can also turn passive musical spectators into growing proteges and developing artists. The Bible calls such students disciples, and a core strategy in Jesus’ own ministry was moving people from the crowd of passive hearers of the word into the little group of Kingdom proteges signing up for “private lessons” on Christian living. 

The Sunday sermon has been the dominant form of Christian teaching and gospel proclamation for centuries now. Even these days as church attendance continues to decline, the faithful who do show up this Sunday in most churches will find themselves passively listening to a preacher up front teaching the crowd in the form of a monologue or lecture. “Those who have ears to hear” will lean in, take notes, and take the message to heart. They enjoy hearing the preacher describe the Kingdom melody and want to learn how to live in “the unforced rhythms of grace” themselves (Matt 11:28 MSG). Others will zone out, fall asleep, or scroll on their phones for 20 minutes showing themselves to be the three unreceptive soils in Jesus’ parable. 

While listening to sermons of all types—including parables—is a rich part of our Christian heritage and a powerful starting point for Christian formation, Jesus wants us to move beyond sermons to something deeper and more personal and interactive: private lessons with a trained instructor. Sermons, like parables, can provoke and inspire, instruct and challenge believers with biblical truth. But this passive, one-way mode of communication has its limitations. Still this is where many faithful “church-goers” start and end.

Today’s passage ends with a short but alluring detail that invites deeper reflection. While Jesus preached parable-laced sermons to the crowds, we’re told he “explained  everything in private to his disciples” (Mk 4:34). Mark’s Gospel especially highlights the difference between the crowds and the disciples, and only those willing to move from the former to the latter will reach spiritual maturity. 

What about us? Are we among the crowd who attend services and take in Bible teaching sitting in the back pew or anonymously in a darkened megachurch auditorium? What would taking the next step toward “private lessons” look like in our day? A couple suggestions. 

First, Jesus wants us to belong in a small inner circle of souls where we can be known more deeply and address our real needs more directly. This might be a small group, a spiritual huddle, a support group, etc. Jesus had an inner circle of James, Peter and John who he “took up the mountain” and explained things more deeply. The church I pastor has “huddles” where 3 or 4 people gather (with Jesus in the Spirit) to help one another hear God’s voice and to spur one another on in areas of spiritual growth.

Some people who have spent their entire life sitting in a pew and never opening up about their inner life will find such personal and interactive spiritual fellowship frightening and intimidating at first. Others will find the floodgates of grace and love and acceptance opening up wide as they finally feel seen, heard, known and accepted, and wonder how they have managed to do life all these years without such a group. 

Second, whether we realize it or not, I think we desire and need pastoral care and Christian instruction that is more personal, interactive, and face-to-face. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t read the Gospels and wish they could’ve been a member of Jesus’ inner circle, sitting around a campfire as he taught them and opened up the mysteries of the Kingdom to them—addressing their specific questions about faith and tending to their unique soul aches with compassion.

My doctoral dissertation argued that pastors need to move beyond being leaders of a church organization and get back to their primary role of being shepherds of individual souls. For this to happen, parishioners also need to move from being a face in the crowd on Sunday to being a soul under the care and wise instruction of a pastor or mentor or spiritual director or Christian therapist. 

Now I love gobbling up sermons and hiding in the crowd at Christian conferences or seminars. I love taking in YouTube teaching. I listen to a dozen podcasts each week as I go about other tasks. If I weren’t the pastor of a small congregation, I could easily see myself sitting in the back of a megachurch auditorium. But my great spiritual break throughs and most helpful instruction has come when I have “signed up” for private lessons with a mentor or counselor or trusted friend.

Like my kids sitting side-by-side at the piano with their teacher, and like Jesus walking side-by-side with his disciples along the road, I grow most by sitting with my mentors on a front porch, or conversing across a lunch table, or walking together on the trail. I can leave the crowd, and join a holy circle of sacred friendship, and “in private” these wise pastors and counselors help me sort through and unpack the baggage of my soul. Like a good piano teacher, they put their hands on my hands, their heart on my heart, and help me learn how to live more fully in the rhythm and melody of the Kingdom.

REFLECT: Are you still lingering in the crowd in your faith commitment? What step could you take to move into the inner circle with Jesus and seek more personal instruction in spiritual living? I know at least one pastor (ahem) who would be thrilled to meet with you personally to chat and go deeper together. :)