NOTES for Luk 8:16-25

"He answered them, My mother and My brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it." Today we read the Lord's words, which speak of the love between mother and child as something that leads beyond earthly feelings and becomes for us a kind of bridge to the knowledge of God's love. The parallels are close, even to the point that these words, like the words from the book of Sirach, cut and grate on the ear if they are read not prayerfully, but in the ordinary way.

But in order to try to understand, let us turn to the book of Psalms. "Have I not calmed and quieted my soul, like a child weaned from its mother? my soul is within me like a weaned child" (Ps 130:2). A great deal of what the Lord says is a direct answer to the questioning of the book of Psalms. This is understandable, for that book is a kind of sum of all prayerful sighing, of everything we want to say to God, while Christ is the center of what the Lord wants to say to us.

So let us look closely at this image of a child weaned from its mother's breast. This is how a person feels in the world: every person seeking the meaning of his life and the lives of those he loves, seeking a love that is not afraid of decay, seeking the sources of that inexpressible feeling of holiness that he senses in his chest. It is a brilliant image... The Lord gave birth to the human being into the world, nourished him, and released him from Himself, while the human being so longs to press his little nose to His breast again. Without Him it is so frightening, sad, lonely, cold, and hungry. These are human feelings.

But then Christ says... My mother and My brothers are those who hear the word of God... The reunion of mother and child, and of sisters and brothers with one another, has taken place; harmony has been restored with His coming into this world. Only it is strange: everything is reversed, and the images of mother and child appear to change places. Is this accidental? Was it just said because the occasion presented itself, because His mother came and His brothers came?

But nothing is accidental. Nothing is meaningless. As the great physicist Einstein said, "The Lord God does not play dice." Therefore in everything, in everything, we can look for meaning. So why did the images change places compared with the book of Psalms? Perhaps because pure love is a relationship between two who are fundamentally equal, or more precisely, commensurable. We cannot love an ant; it is too small. But we can love a kitten. Yet God is far more perfect than we are than we are more perfect than an ant; we are far less commensurable. And when this logic is broken through, one can no longer simply take the relationship of mother and child and place it directly on the relationship of God and His child. It is only a bridge. One can cross it in order to begin to know the love of God. And that means that the change of order alters nothing. The main thing is that the logic of incommensurability has been broken through; the main thing is that wholeness has been restored.

But there is also a simpler meaning. Perhaps Jesus is telling us that we are no longer little, that we are no longer infants; God has weaned us from His breast by bringing us into this world. Yet no longer, for all His love for us, can He put us to the breast again. Five-year-old children are not put to the breast.

Speaking of the Kingdom and of bearing witness, Jesus gives the example of a lamp that serves no purpose if it is hidden and made invisible. Of course, there is also a polemic here, not obvious to everyone, against the advocates of a holy war against the Romans. They usually acted in secret, seeking to prepare the uprising as thoroughly as possible so that, on the appointed day, they could emerge into the light as triumphant victors.

The Kingdom Jesus speaks of does not need some secret, clandestine organization to prepare its coming: it needs witnesses, not conspirators. Yet this is probably not the whole point. The point is also that once the Kingdom has become part of your life, it cannot be hidden from those around you. Of course, it does not begin publicly at all, for merely hearing testimony as we hear noise reaching us in the street is not enough.

It is no accident that Jesus says: take care how you listen. What is heard must be received by the heart; it must begin a spiritual process involving not only reflection on what has been heard, but also the choice the hearer must make after considering everything said, and the decisions that will have to be taken in accordance with that choice.

All this takes place “in secret,” since it concerns a person's inner life. But once the choice has been made, the decisions taken, and life changed accordingly, witness in one form or another inevitably becomes part of the convert's new life. Then the hidden truly becomes manifest: it is impossible to bear witness only within oneself. Testimony, in turn, once heard, gives rise to new witnesses. Thus the Kingdom brought by the Savior grows in the world.

Jesus is often called Teacher, and for us this is true as well. But each of us also has to take on that role from time to time, so it is worth learning from the Teacher. These three verses from the Gospel of Luke let us glimpse Jesus' teaching method.

After telling an extended parable, the parable of the sower, and giving its explanation for the disciples, He continues in the traditional manner of Jewish teachers, aphoristically. The classic example of this method is the book of Proverbs, which is composed almost entirely of aphorisms. An aphorism in itself is already an image, acting on the listeners' imagination and provoking them to reflection. The parallel passage in the Gospel of Mark, perhaps the earliest of the Gospels, Mark 4:21, shows more clearly the lack of connection among these sayings of Jesus, while the Gospel of Matthew even places them in different chapters.

Luke is writing for Hellenized readers who were not used to this style, and he inserts logical connectors such as "for" and "therefore," so that these sayings acquire the quality of a unified text that lets us trace the logic of the development of Jesus' preaching. The first image, the lamp, says that the new message heard by the disciples is not for "internal use," but for passing on to others. The second saying suggests the uselessness of playing hide-and-seek: everything comes out into the open. And then comes the unexpected "take care how you hear," calling for special attentiveness, and the paradox Jesus states many times about cooperation and inaction.

All this, gathered together, gives rise in the listeners to a new idea of the way of life before them: serious, interested, active, and fearless interaction with other people.

We can have quite varied relationships with the Word of God, but in today's Gospel reading the Lord singles out only two main points. First, there is attention, the readiness to listen to the Word. God speaks quietly, and in order to hear Him, one needs outward and inward silence and the desire to hear Him. And second, Christ speaks about putting the Word into practice. "Take care how you hear," and in explaining this, the Lord calls the one who hears and acts on it the one who "has." Such a person understands God's Word, and it fills him with life; it itself becomes his life. But the one who does not hear, and especially does not put the Word into practice, that is, listens in vain, loses even the very ability to hear.

In essence, the only One who truly hears the Heavenly Father and fulfills His will is the Lord Jesus Himself. Therefore those people who follow Him on the path of hearing and fulfilling the Word of God become close to Him; they become His family. And this kinship of ours with the Lord Jesus is no less strong than the bonds of blood kinship that connect people. That is why the Lord says that those who hear and fulfill the Word are honored with the name of His brothers and His Mother. And for all of us it is exceptionally important that Jesus' family, His Church, is gathered by Him not according to signs of bodily kinship, but according to obedience to the Father. That is why His Mother became the Virgin of Nazareth, who said: "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord." This is precisely how all of us enter His Church, though we are so far from His people.

More precisely, "even what he thinks he has." Jesus by no means has in mind something like the saying "money goes to money." He is speaking of relations with God to which we are not accustomed: relations of trust and respect (in the end, of love). God offers His relationship to everyone, but He forces it on no one. A person who freely accepts this gift enters an unending process of developing this relationship, whose goal is the deification of the person, the fullness of that person's entry into the life of God. But a person who thinks that everything is fine with him, that the relationship with God he thinks he has is enough for him, by that very fact closes himself off from God and does not accept from Him what God gives; and that means he breaks even the weak threads that had still kept him afloat in this life. "Take care, then, how you hear"; tune your "receivers" to the wavelength of God's grace.

The situation described by the evangelist Luke in this passage can cause surprise and even indignation. Jesus' relatives come to Him, and they do not interrupt His conversation but wait patiently outside, yet He does not go out to see them. A natural question arises: is it possible to treat one's loved ones this way, and is this Christian?

But if we read these lines attentively, we will understand that the Lord is addressing not His mother and brothers, but those who surround Him; it is precisely for them that He says this. In contrast to the Old Testament understanding of kinship, which presupposed blood ties, Christ proceeds from an entirely new understanding of relationships. It turns out that the Lord becomes neighbor to the one who hears His Word. Every person receives the privilege of being the Lord's brother or sister. And no national, geographical, or temporal boundaries can limit these relationships.

For many people these words are a stumbling block; it seems to them that Jesus is cruel here toward relatives. But Jesus does not reject kinship according to the flesh; He exalts kinship according to the spirit. Just as bodily kinship is determined by a certain unity, genetic unity, with a parent, so spiritual kinship has as its source the one Father. But if the first was never chosen by us, the second is our free agreement with the Father's will. That is why there is no spiritual feat in bodily kinship, while there is a spiritual feat in spiritual kinship, and Jesus offers us such a feat.

"God is awesome in the great assembly of the saints; He is awesome to all who surround Him. O Lord God of hosts! Who is strong like You, O Lord? And Your truth is all around You. You rule over the raging of the sea: when its waves rise, You still them." (Ps 88:8-10) This is the text often offered to us as a parallel to the fragment of today's Gospel. But let us look at these words.

Here the Lord appears as a fearsome Judge; He appears in Power and Glory. It is hard for us to judge the original meaning of the word "awesome" among the Jews, but already in the Vulgate and in translations into modern languages we find precisely such words as "terribilis," "feared," and so on, fully corresponding to our "awesome" or "fearsome"; and therefore this is already a fact of our many centuries of spiritual life. Now let us think, by contrast, how much silence and defenselessness there is in this figure of the Lord asleep in the stern. And when He wakes and appears in Power, He is still surrounded not by a host of angels, but standing in that little boat, surrounded by a handful of frightened fishermen.

But people with a more liberal-theological outlook can tell us in response to all this that the close connection of these two texts casts doubt on the authenticity of what happened and makes it look more like some kind of parable. We will not judge who is right. Each person has his own understanding. Yet, if we receive this text so existentially, we can also receive the spiritual interpretation that arises through turning to the prophet Isaiah: "But the wicked are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and mud." (Isa 57:20)

The image of the sea appears very often in the biblical text, and that is understandable: after all, the culture that became the manger for Jesus and the cradle for us is a Mediterranean culture. But the way the prophet Isaiah suggests reading this image gives us a great deal for understanding today's story about the Lord. The troubled sea is something that carries death within it, and sin is the path to death. But the Lord calms the troubled sea, because He does not desire anyone's death.

But "where is our faith?" Must we always wake the Lord? "Acquire the spirit of peace, and then thousands around you will be saved," said Seraphim of Sarov. These words of our remarkable saint seem to draw the image of today's reading, except that you must stand in the Lord's place. You are as if building a ship on which you lead everyone around you through the raging sea to a quiet harbor.

The episode in which Jesus calms the storm on Lake Gennesaret shows us with particular clarity what the Savior's disciples thought of Him and of the power that came from Him. After His miracle, they are terrified, astonished, and overwhelmed. Indeed, they had previously seen Him healing people and freeing them from the dominion of dark powers. Now they suddenly realize that not only the human body and heart, but also the forces of nature are subject to Him.

His might has grown immeasurably in their eyes. They feel they have discovered something new in their Teacher, or rather that He has revealed something new about Himself, showing them, as it were, a new measure of His might. Yet He asks them: where is your faith? He has no intention of demonstrating His power to them. They think He is intervening in the destinies of the universe, controlling the elements, while they need only stay near Him, listen to their Teacher, and follow His instructions.

Then He will lead them into His Kingdom. Perhaps they will have to fight for it. But they have a mighty Leader who fears no enemies: even nature obeys Him, so what can people do to Him? Meanwhile, Jesus reminds His disciples of the faith they so greatly lack. They probably still do not fully understand their Teacher, perhaps simply deciding that they should not have been so frightened or cried out so loudly in fear.

He clearly meant something else. Again and again He reminded them of the Kingdom. A Kingdom not somewhere ahead in a beautiful distant future that they still have to reach, perhaps through battle, but here, beside them. Only their own lack of trust—not so much in Him as in themselves—prevents them from entering this Kingdom here and now.

For He calmed the storm not by exerting force upon the elements, but by manifesting the Kingdom. A Kingdom where there is no place for a storm that threatens human beings, not because the elements lose their force there, but because they are wholly and completely obedient to spiritual influence, and therefore subject not only to God but also to human beings. Not only to the Messiah, the Son of God, but to every person connected with the Kingdom. The Savior wants to convey this truth, at once so simple and so hard to understand, to the apostles. Otherwise they will never understand what the Kingdom they are to enter is, or how one enters it.

The evangelist concludes both accounts of Jesus Christ's miraculous power with the words of the astonished witnesses: “Who is this, that He works such miracles?” Undoubtedly he wants to put this question to his readers as well. Naturally, he wrote for believers—see the Gospel's prologue, 1:1-4—who by virtue of their faith could already answer the question, calling Jesus Lord, Messiah, and Son of God.

What, then, is the point of these accounts? Another “proof” of faith, or another question posed to the reader's consciousness: who is He? Could a confession of faith alone be insufficient to touch the mystery of Christ's person? Might we need an unfading wonder before Him like that experienced by the disciples in the boat or by those who saw the possessed man healed? Could this question, “Who is He?”, addressed to ourselves and to Him, be no less important than the answer known in advance? Perhaps there are too many questions here, but the Gospel is a book that not only answers its reader but questions him as well...

Today's reading offers us two stories: the story of Jesus calming the storm on Lake Gennesaret (vv. 22-26) and the story of the healing of the Gadarene demoniac (vv. 27-39). At first glance, the two stories are connected only by the external thread of events. Yet on closer examination this is not quite so. One could say that they are linked by the theme of the Kingdom, as are all the other accounts of miracles Jesus performed. But each such account has its own features, shading this theme differently and describing the appearing of the Kingdom from different sides.

So today: before us, on the one hand, is the transformation of a natural element, and on the other, the healing of a possessed person. Yet in both cases the human person, not the natural element and not dark forces, is in first place. For Jesus does not simply calm the storm; He interacts with His disciples, rebuking them for their little faith (v. 25), but even earlier He awakens from sleep (vv. 23-24). At first glance it may appear that Jesus only needed to awaken for the power of God to be revealed in all its fullness, putting an end to the storm. But if that were truly so, He would hardly have rebuked the disciples for their little faith: then they really would have had no other way out except to turn to the Teacher and ask Him to intervene in events immediately. Evidently, turning to Him was not what Jesus expected from the apostles in that situation. And if we remember that the Kingdom is first of all not a space but a relationship, everything falls into place.

On examination it turned out that even Jesus' closest disciples' relationship with Him was not so firm. As soon as the Teacher turned away, fell asleep, and left them without direct supervision in a critical situation, the Kingdom at once ceased to be a reality for them; they felt it again only when Jesus woke up and addressed them directly. This may be why the Gadarene demoniac healed by the Savior wanted most of all not to bear witness to the Messiah who had come into the world and to the Kingdom He had brought, but to stay beside Jesus so as never again to be separated from Him (v. 38). Meanwhile, what Jesus Himself needed was precisely witness (v. 39).

Still, taking into account the spiritual situation that had developed in the home region of the man healed by the Savior, it is no surprise that he would want to leave with his Deliverer. For he had already seen the reaction of his fellow countrymen to everything that had happened, including the miracle of his own healing (vv. 33-37). Here it was no longer a matter of little faith, but of real unbelief. These two spiritual states are often viewed as very close to each other; yet little faith is much closer to deep and strong faith than to unbelief. After all, little faith still presupposes faith in the biblical sense of the word, trust in the one whom or in whom one believes, and in that case the faithful person simply lacks the spiritual strength for the relationships born of faith to unfold in all their fullness.

Unbelief, as a rule, means a complete absence of trust either in someone specific or, in especially severe cases, in everyone and everything in the world. Even weak faith points the road to the Kingdom, and, gathering spiritual strength, the one who has such weak faith still has a chance to come there, especially since on this path a person never remains alone. But the absence of faith means a dead end, or a road to nowhere. If little faith is often conditioned by a person's objective abilities and capacities, especially at the beginning of the spiritual path, unbelief is always determined by choice. A choice that excludes the path to the Kingdom. And not because God wants to punish someone for a lack of trust, but because those who do not trust God choose another path - a path leading away from the Kingdom. And if the weak can be helped, then even God will not help the one who refuses to go, for He respects each person's choice and freedom. Even when that choice and that freedom mean a "no" thrown in His own face.

Everything is subject to the Son of God—the raging elements and legions of demons alike. Only from a human being does He await free consent to communion and love. Even when a person’s will is afflicted, as in the case of the demoniac, Jesus is ready to come to our aid so that at last we may make a free choice. But freedom from demons or from other circumstances that enslave our will does not yet give us true freedom. We find it in doing God’s will (like the former demoniac, who went to bring the Good News to his compatriots), and also in the Holy Spirit, who enables us to know God and His Kingdom.

The account of the healing of the possessed man from Gadara raises an interesting question. Whom do people fear more, after all: God or demons? Here was a man living among them, possessed by dark powers. His possession was severe: judging by the evangelist's account, he had no control over himself at all and was wholly in the power of an alien will hostile to humanity. No one could help him free himself from its power. Then a mysterious Someone appears and gives the possessed man freedom. Admittedly, at the cost of a whole herd of pigs, but a human being's spiritual life is in the balance here. The man freed from possession bears witness to the miracle and to the One who performed it. And the people, having heard his testimony, ask the Miracle-worker to leave. What is this—a conscious choice of the dark side?

Probably not, after all. There is too little awareness of what is happening to speak of a conscious choice as such. Yet these people do understand something. And, for all its apparent primitiveness, the choice they make is quite definite and no less spiritually significant than if they had chosen the side of darkness in full awareness of what was happening. After all, they have rejected God and God's power. They have said ‘no’ to Him, even if for reasons that are quite understandable in human terms. Yes, everything is somehow strange and unfamiliar. And therefore frightening. Of course, it is frightening to have demons nearby too, but that evil is already familiar and habitual.

It does not utterly destroy the established way of life; it merely slowly poisons the souls of those who live by it. Day after day, hour after hour. Everything is so familiar that no one notices. Unless, perhaps, someone breaks down, as the possessed man from Gadara did. But that does not happen often; most people do not rage under demonic possession, most live quietly and peacefully alongside demons, in a state of habitual spiritual symbiosis, scarcely noticing them. If so, why should the devil reveal himself? And now everything may change.

This Stranger seems intent on waging a serious war against demons. And that means an end to stability and economic prosperity—perhaps it will not stop at a single herd of pigs... So the people prefer demonic stability and very human economic prosperity to God's Kingdom. Without, of course, having anything of the sort in mind. Thinking only of their own peace and quiet and of quite real, tangible profit. Yet the issue here is not what is chosen, but what is rejected in making that choice. It does not matter what a person chooses when rejecting the Kingdom: whatever they choose, demonic evil will come as part of the package. There are only two paths, after all: towards God or towards demons. There is no third.

Unlike Matthew, Luke places the parable of the sower in the context of words that Matthew records as part of other teachings of the Saviour (vv. 16–17; Matt. 5:15, 10:26–27). We can no longer say with certainty whether Luke quotes these words to remind the reader of what Jesus said on another occasion, or whether, after telling his disciples the parable, the Teacher really did remind them of something he had already spoken about. One thing is clear: for the evangelist, as for Jesus himself, the Kingdom is inseparable from witness. The parable of the sower can be read not only as a parable about what prevents a person from accepting and entering the Kingdom, but also as one about what prevents them from bearing witness to Christ and the Kingdom. Everyday cares, if we give them too much attention (v. 14), fear of persecution and harassment, if we give in to it (v. 13), and simple frivolity towards the revelation received from God (v. 12) can all hinder a faithful witness. It is not merely that all these things distract a person from a particular activity by turning their heart, and therefore their attention, to something else.

It is also that a full witness is not merely an account but a visible demonstration of what life with Christ in his Kingdom is like. Everything listed in the parable of the sower destroys the spiritual wholeness that makes this demonstration possible. It is no accident that commentators interpreting verses 16–17 still disagree about what Jesus means by the secrets that will sooner or later be revealed. Some are certain he means carefully concealed evil deeds or weaknesses that people do not usually speak of, and feel uncomfortable speaking of aloud. Others maintain that he was speaking of the Kingdom, which, though hidden for a time, will sooner or later be revealed in all its fullness and become visible to everyone.

Verse 18, meanwhile, may help settle the dispute: it calls those listening to a particular kind of spiritual attentiveness. The Gospels often mention situations in which people listen but do not hear. This does not mean that they simply let the words pass them by: Jewish culture is a culture of dialogue, not only dialogue between people but also between a person and God. It concerns what sometimes prevents someone from hearing the person speaking to them, the very thing described in the parable of the sower. The listener does not keep track of what is happening, because their attention is focused neither on the speaker nor on the words, but on something else. Without spiritual wholeness, however, a person may not even notice this, having neither the habit nor the skill of observing where their attention is directed.

Alas, such an unreflective state is normal for fallen humanity. But this kind of spiritual slackness is unsuited to the Kingdom, for what matters most in the Kingdom is relationships, and here attention, and awareness of where it is directed, become essential. Without this spiritual collectedness, a person will not gain the Kingdom they hope to receive. This is not an examination for its own sake: a spiritually slack person simply lacks the organ needed for life in the Kingdom. Or they have it, but it is so weak that even after entering the Kingdom they cannot remain there: they lack the spiritual strength to keep God and their neighbours in the focus of their attention, and without them there is no Kingdom. Then contact with the Kingdom becomes a moment of truth: what was previously hidden, perhaps even from the seeker—for fallen human beings are prone to deceive themselves about themselves—becomes evident and known to all. Then it becomes clear whether a person is ready to enter the Kingdom.

Jesus' parables are something halfway between amusing stories from everyday life and riddles: in them He explains the inexpressible, the Message of His Kingdom, in simple human language. Many of them begin just this way: "The Kingdom of God is like someone who..." - and then He sketches a situation familiar to His listeners, revealing to them the essence of His Gospel.

So, the most famous parable is about how the Word of God, like a seed, must fall into fertile soil in order to bear fruit and not be lost in vain. The evangelist wonderfully completes the parable by giving, immediately after it, the account of Jesus' family, where He speaks to the disciples a new riddle that expresses the same Message in other words: "Whoever hears the Word and does it has entered My family".

The listeners only have to compare these parable-riddles to understand what the Kingdom consists in that their Teacher brought to earth. Through his book, the evangelist offers this task not just to the small circle of disciples, but to all readers of the Gospel.

The word, the seed sown by the sower, contains within itself the germ of the Kingdom of Heaven. Falling into our hearts, it begins to sprout into an ear of new life. But in this parable the sower does not act alone. Without soil—that is, without us—the seed cannot sprout. As Jesus observes, the more we participate in this process, the more fruit we bear. This produces an apparent injustice: the richer we are, the richer we become. Yet the issue here is probably not spiritual wealth, but how much of our capital—our time, attention, strength, and finally our whole life—we are willing to invest in this shared process of cultivating the Kingdom.