“You’re not listening” is a phrase I would hear as a young boy, normally from my mother.
We live in a world where we are inundated with messages. Anyone in the world of Marketing spends hour upon hour seeking creative ways to get our attention. Once they have our attention, they spend even more energy to communicate with us. They know, that about 5 seconds after they got our attention, we will be pulled away.
Jesus used parables. Perhaps they get your attention. Yet they also require some pondering.
Consider today’s parable:
21 And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light.
What do you make of it? Unlike the Parable of the Sower there is no explanation.
A parable is more than a metaphor. It communicates truth on three levels.
First, there is the physical level. On this level we see nature and God’s grace. From one parable earlier; seed, soil and more lead to growth.
Second, the parables, as all of Scripture, point to Jesus. He is the light that is coming into the darkness.
Third, they inform the theological truth about what we are faced with. Will we receive the light of Christ? And if we receive it, will we hide His Light that is in us?
Don’t miss any of these levels. God is at work in each. His work, we often call it grace, is a mystery. We get this hint of mystery when Jesus talks about things hidden being revealed. They are not always immediately obvious. Their revelation is God’s work.
Certainly, in this Gospel of Mark we are witnessing that God is now revealing the hidden secret, Jesus.
In our own lives, it is grace that reveals Jesus to us, a mystery. It is also grace, that God reveals himself to others through us.
It is no wonder Jesus’ call to pay attention. We must pray.
Consider the Parable of the Sower. In that parable, while I focused in my reflection on the seed, most people when they hear it then wonder if they are good soil.
The reaction as to “What kind of soil am I?” is the right response. So too, in this parable we must ask ourselves, “Have I, can I, even see the Light that is Jesus? Have I hidden my faith under a basket?”
Those, in Jesus’ day, who heard him talk and who witnessed his miracles must have felt some pressure to properly respond, unless of course their hearts are like the pavement in verse 4:15 and unless they were blind in darkness to the Light which was before them.
Are we in any different situation? We, who live on the other side of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we who live with a New Testament, we who live on the other side of Pentecost, we have a fuller understanding of the Person of Jesus Christ.
Life with Jesus is never static. We don’t receive Him and stop. We receive Him and are to grow.
His call, his question, “Are you hearing me?” Applies every day. If we are hearing him and acting, he will then add even more to us.
How is your current conversation with Jesus going? Are you hearing him, or running on old conversations with him?