NOTES for Mar 4:25

Today's reading tells us about Jesus' parables, in which He speaks of the gradual and unnoticed coming of the Kingdom of God, which, at the same time, in the end becomes so noticeable that it is impossible not to pay attention to it. In these parables the image of a sprouting grain constantly appears, an image widely spread in antiquity throughout all the countries of the Near East, from Egypt to Babylonia. The sprouting grain became here a symbol of eternal, constantly renewed life, which stands against death and conquers it. It is not surprising that Jesus uses this image to describe the Kingdom of God, for in the Kingdom of God everyone is given the whole fullness of life that can be imagined, and there is no place for death in it. But it does not come all at once, in such a way that the beginning of its coming is noticeable to everyone. Clearly, in order for the Kingdom of God to be revealed in all its fullness, time is needed, and this is exactly what Jesus speaks about, comparing it to a seed that at first is unnoticeable and then grows into a tree visible to everyone. This same passage mentions Jesus' calming of the storm that arose on Lake Gennesaret while He and the disciples were crossing to the opposite Galilean shore. It should be noted that storms on Lake Gennesaret are not uncommon, especially in winter. Winters in Galilee are warm; even in January the temperature rarely drops below +10, but strong winds blow, and on Lake Gennesaret, with its by no means small size, real storms occur. Fishing boats, even fairly large ones, are still not as large as real seagoing ships, and such storms pose serious danger to them. Fishermen caught by a storm far from shore could be in real danger of death, although the event was not taking place on the sea. Jesus calms one of these storms, saving the lives of His companions.

Today the Lord addresses to us one of the most important questions: "How do we listen?" We regularly read the Bible, and even visit Bible sites on the Internet, but do we have ears to receive the Word, let it take root in our heart, and bear fruit?

The Lord says: "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and more will be added to you who hear." In essence this means: what a person wants to find in Scripture, and in God's revelation in general, is what he will find. The Bible can provide us with the richest material for history, literature, philology, mysticism, and so on, but only the one who seeks in it the knowledge of God, that is, living personal relations with Him built on trust and love, will be able to find God in reading Holy Scripture.

And here the words that "to the one who has, more will be given" acquire their meaning. In listening to and understanding the Word of God, we can only deepen and multiply what we already have; that is, we must approach it from within an already existing bond with God, in faith and prayer.

Jesus' words about a lamp that is not hidden under a basket and about the one who has being given more are very closely connected; it is no accident that in the Gospel they stand side by side. At first glance, the statement that only the one who has will be given more may seem unfair: we are used to thinking that the haves should help the have-nots, but here it turns out that it is precisely the haves who have a chance to receive something beyond what they already have, while the rest cannot count on much.

The point, however, is that the laws of spiritual life differ somewhat from the laws of physical life, just as the spiritual world differs in many ways from the physical world. In the physical world, giving always presupposes the depletion of the one who gives. If I share something with another person, I have less of what I shared.

In the spiritual world and in spiritual life, everything is different. It is different not because it consists of some special substance with special properties, but because the spiritual world differs from the physical world by God's immediate presence, which determines its existence. Therefore the potential of the physical world is limited, while the potential of the spiritual world is boundless. The physical world is limited by its own nature; the spiritual world, being in its foundation the embodiment of an ongoing theophany, is limited by nothing.

Of course, we are not speaking of two different worlds. This is only a more or less conditional description, a description of two states of creation: on the one hand, its face, by which it is turned toward God, and on the other, its reverse side, by which it is turned inward toward itself. Having become used to life on the reverse side of creation, a life God never intended for us, we can hardly imagine giving as a process of accumulation rather than expenditure. In the spiritual world, on the face of creation, that is exactly what it is.

Here, the more you give, the more you receive, because to give means to enter the stream of that divine life which forms the foundation of the spiritual world. That is why the lamp cannot be hidden under a basket: if there is light, it must be visible, otherwise there will be no giving. Such logic is certainly unfamiliar to us, but it is the logic of the Kingdom, and Jesus calls us to live by following it, not the logic of this world.

Have you noticed how widespread schizophrenia is in our time? Some specialists already refuse to draw a line between it and normality. For divided consciousness, a double (or multiple) life, has in fact become the norm. When we are in public, we are one thing, and when we are alone with ourselves, another. We live counting on the fact that no one will find out what we are like in solitude. We have lost wholeness, the integrity of life, because we think that when no one is looking at us, no one sees us either; we have lost the sense of God's presence. But Jesus warns us: what we keep inside ourselves as a secret gradually grows, taking over more and more of our "self," and in the end breaks out. What is hidden becomes manifest.

In order for such a catastrophe not to happen, Jesus offers us a whole, unified life, a life of constant standing before God, regardless of whether people see us at that moment or not. If there is nothing hidden, then the light is not frightening.