Jesus often concluded his sermons with the phrase, “Let anyone with ears hear my words.” But of course, he meant more than just to “hear” his words; he was hoping that we would “listen” to them—and as the parent of three teenagers, I can tell you that there is a significant difference between those two.

Hearing simply describes the ability to perceive sound waves as they move through the air, vibrate against our eardrums, and eventually register somewhere in the temporal lobe of our brains. Listening implies that the brain has not only received the message, but also on some level, meaningfully interpreted it.

Back in the 1960s a number of studies were done with congregations in order to determine if what they actually heard in sermons matched up very well with what their preachers had attempted to say. Most of these studies involved people filling out questionnaires following the worship service, and the results demonstrated that the majority of listeners could not remember what the sermon was about fifteen minutes after hearing it. Moreover, even those who remembered the sermon routinely described it in vastly different terms than what the preacher had intended—prompting one of the researchers to quip that sermons are the “chicken chow mein” of ministry.

However, I’m not quite ready to dismiss the sermon as a hopelessly unreliable form of communication—and that’s not just because I make my living delivering them! Actually, I think it’s a bit misleading to measure the effectiveness of a sermon simply on the basis of whether what the preacher said was accurately received by the congregation. After all, we are not pieces of electronic equipment exchanging data. We are human beings who are constantly interacting with the message—sifting it, debating it, adding to it. During the sermon, we may be thinking about what the upcoming week will bring, or wondering how we are going to resolve a situation at home, or trying to make connections between what is being said and our own life experience.

What all of this means is that I have stopped fretting about whether the people in the pews can give me a word-for-word recitation of the sermon fifteen minutes after the worship service. In fact, I have occasionally had someone thank me at the door for something I said during the sermon—which, upon reviewing my manuscript, I’m not sure I actually said! It was the Holy Spirit finding a way to speak through my words … and beyond my words … and sometimes even in spite of my words. But the message was received nonetheless—and in the final analysis, isn’t that what matters most?

Put another way, you probably can’t remember what you had for dinner two weeks ago either … but it was still nourishing!