Mark 4:21-25
“Let the Light In”
May 13, 2012 - Sixth Sunday of Easter

         Al Pacino covered the windows with butcher paper and put masking tape over the gaps. I was watching “Insomnia” the other night, a film about a detective on assignment in a small town in bush Alaska in the middle of summer. Pacino’s character was trying to get it dark enough in his hotel room to sleep in the land of the midnight sun. It was an obvious metaphor for his need to keep the light of truth from revealing that he had accidentally shot a partner who was about to reveal Pacino’s own corruption.

         It’s the sort of metaphor I at first took Jesus to be using in our text this morning. As verse 22 says, “Whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.” I took Jesus to be saying something like He did in Luke 12:2, where He uses similar words following a warning about hypocrisy. All our secrets will be revealed, everything we’ve tried to cover up will be uncovered. It’s a scary and true thought that should give us pause and make us want to have the kind of faith that’s deeper than a pretty façade of nice behavior.

         Yet Jesus is not talking about moral cover-up here. The larger context of these five verses is twenty verses we skipped at the beginning of the chapter, the parable of the sower. We skipped them because it’s pretty familiar and because you can get the expanded, director’s cut version in Matthew’s Gospel. But we can’t skip the basic ideas.

         Jesus created the clever image of seed sown on various soils, the hard-packed ground of the path, the rocky ground, the thorny weeds, as well as plowed, rich fertile soil. Those different conditions of soil represent the various dispositions of human hearts and souls and how they respond to His teaching. He’s warning us not to be rocky ground or a weedy, unplowed field, but to let His Word take root in us. Our text uses different pictures, but the point is similar. Jesus calls for a good response to His word.

         Almost every English translation gets the verb of verse 21 wrong in order to try and make better sense of what Jesus is saying. So we read about a lamp being “brought in,” as though the lamp is passive and someone is carrying it. But what Jesus actually asked here is, “Does a lamp come in to be put under a bushel basket, or under the bed…?” Go back to Mark 1 verse 14 and we read that “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.” Jesus Himself is the lamp here, and He doesn’t get carried in. He comes in, shining the light of His teaching, the Good News of the Gospel, into our lives.

         So the Al Pacino picture has that much right. This parable is not about us trying to light up a dark room by bringing a lamp in and putting it in the right place. This is about light which just arrives, like sunshine in the middle of the Alaskan night in June. How will we respond to it? Try to cover it somehow? Or let it in with all its brilliance to illumine how we live our lives?

         I’ve said all along in our study of Mark that this is the “action Gospel.” Chapter 4 is one of only two chapters (chapter 13 is the other one) that interrupt the flow of the story of what Jesus did, so that we can hear what He taught. The other Gospels devote much more space to Jesus’ teaching. What Mark wants us to grasp is what the spiritual heritage of the Covenant church is all about. Understanding the teaching of Jesus needs to make a difference in the way we live. Jesus doesn’t just want to change our minds. He wants to change our behavior.

         That’s why these five little verses are here. They’re about how we hear what Jesus says to us. The question is whether what we hear really changes anything. In the language of the sower parable, does the Word bear fruit in lives?

         So to get back to where we started, verse 22 is not about our ugly little secrets being revealed someday. It’s about God’s own revelation of the Way and the Truth and Life in Jesus Christ. Remember, the way Mark tells the story it’s like Jesus was trying to keep His identity secret for awhile. It seems He’s always ordering the people He’s healed or the demons He’s cast out or the disciples He’s instructed not to tell anyone about Him. But verse 22 is here to say the secrecy is not final. Nothing was hidden except with the purpose of ultimately disclosing it. There’s no secret about Jesus that won’t be made clear.

         Disclosing what was hidden and revealing the secrets happened right here in the Gospel. The Good News is that Jesus is the Son of God and that He came to die and rise and reconcile us to God. It’s all laid out, all made clear by the time Mark wraps up his book. There are no more secrets. The only remaining unknown is how you and I will respond, as we said on Easter and as Jesus is telling us in today’s text.

         Which is why I want to take a moment to warn you in a different direction. Beware of anyone who comes along telling you they’ve just discovered some new, secret teaching about Jesus. Whether it’s a Bible code discovering hidden meanings in the words or some extra book like the gospel of Thomas or Mary Magdalene, it’s all bogus. What Jesus meant us to know about Him, what He did and what He taught, is all here, plain as day. Nothing was hidden that God has not already revealed to us and for us.

         I say it again. It’s all right before us. The light has come. The secrets are revealed. All that remains is how you and I will deal with it. That’s why Jesus said what He said in verse 23 more than once, “Let anyone who has ears to hear, hear!” That’s the literal translation, but the NRSV uses a distinction we have in English to help get across the point, “Let anyone who has ears to hear, listen.”

         At this point, I’m going to get in my minimum required connection to Mother’s Day for this sermon and say that any mother knows the difference between her children hearing her and her children listening to her. Hearing is when he says, “Yeah Mom, yeah Mom, yeah Mom” and then still continues to thumb out text messages to his friends instead of doing his homework. He’s only really listening when he drags that biology book out of his backpack, flops down at his desk and starts reading and working the problems.

         You and I are not listening to Jesus just because we say, “Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes Lord,” no matter how fervently we whisper it or excitedly we sing it. We are only listening when the textbook of His teaching gets dragged out into the way we treat other people, respond to our problems, and behave when no one is looking. Are we letting the light of Christ not just into our hearts and minds, but into what we do and say all the time?

         Our lesson from I John 5 says that to love God is to obey His commands. Just as to really love your mother is to listen to her, to really love the Lord is to listen to Him and do what He says.

         Verse 24 crystallizes all this with another little metaphor. Jesus tell us, “Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given to you.” It’s a little image from the market. Let’s bring it up to date. You work as a barista at Starbucks. If you make that latte with a generous hand for the whipped cream or the chocolate sprinkles, you may expect that same sort of generosity in return, maybe a nice tip. On the other hand if you stingily measure out a quarter-size dab of cream or count out seven, and only seven, sprinkles, you’ll be paid pack in the same stingy fashion.

         Likewise, Jesus says that what we receive will be in proportion to what we give. Now, once again we can get off the track here, remembering how Jesus used words like this in another context, this time in Matthew 7:2, where He’s talking about judging others. There when He says, “the measure you give will be the measure you get,” He means God will judge you like you judge others, whether you measure out grace or whether you measure out harsh punishment.

         But that measure means something else here. It’s about how you do what Jesus just said in verse 24, how you pay attention to His Word, His teaching. It’s a cliché, but it’s truth. You will get out of it what you put into it. If you wonder why you don’t get more out of your faith, out of your relationship with the Lord, then the answer may be right here, “the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

         Consider for a moment what kind of time you give to the teaching of Jesus. Is it anywhere near the time you give to ordering that latte just the way you want it, or give to the latest James Patterson novel, or give to an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” or “Game of Thrones?” Is there a regular, reserved space in your life for listening to Jesus, for learning what He taught, and then for putting it into practice?

         Or do we just fly through a few verses, say, “Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes Lord,” then go about business as usual? Do we make any time for thoughts like, “How could I really do this thing of offering forgiveness today?” or “How could I be more like the Good Samaritan this week?” What measure are we giving our Lord’s teaching? Or are we covering up the light? Which brings us to the last and maybe most difficult bit of this text.

         Verse 25 says, “For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” Jesus is being deliberately counter-intuitive here. He’s helping us do what He’s asking by making us spend the time to figure out what He means. Why should God be so unfair as to give more to those who already have, and then take away even the little had by those who have nothing? It sounds more like the current economy than divine justice.

         Just remember that Jesus is still talking about how we hear, how we respond to the light of His Word. For those who begin to really listen, who already have some of the Lord’s teaching at work in their lives, there will be more to come. All the truth will be revealed, all the glory of the Lord will be seen.

         In Acts 10:44-48 we learned how those Gentiles in Cornelius’ house listened to the Word as Peter preached. They welcomed and believed in Jesus. So to the faith they already had, God added the gift of the Holy Spirit shown by speaking in tongues. Then because no one could then deny that God was at work in them, the Apostles gave them the gift of baptism. To those who have, more will be given.

         On the other hand, if we cover the lamp with a basket, if we refuse to really listen, then even the light which has come will be taken away, even the message we’ve heard won’t be offered anymore. There will come a day when we won’t have the opportunity to see or to listen any further. Even the little light that snuck through the cracks will be taken away.

         It’s not injustice. It’s the greatest justice of all. God treats us as we want to be treated. If we want to be with Jesus, if we want to learn from Him, if we give Him our time and attention, then we will receive more and more of His grace. But if we want to hide from Him, if we want to be left alone, if we shut out His light and plug our ears, then He will give us what we want and take away even the tiny bit of light that’s gotten through.

         The Jewish rabbis had a saying similar to what Jesus says here. They said that for human beings we don’t normally add anything to a cup or dish that’s full, but that for God it’s exactly the cup which has something in it into which God pours more. That’s how it is when we listen and respond to Jesus.

         God can’t work with us if we keep our lives absolutely empty of anything spiritual. It’s like you or I trying to work with a computer that has no software on it. Without an operating system or, at an even deeper level, without some formatting, a hard drive is just a complicated hunk of metal and silicon. It’s needs some information, some structure, before you can add anything else. Our souls are the same way. Until we open them up and let Jesus put a responsive faith there, He can’t do anymore with us.

         Yet lay down the formatting on the hard drive, install an operating system, then you can add all kinds of software. To the computer that has, much more can be given. You can talk to your friends on Facebook, balance your checking account, read the news, watch a movie, study a foreign language and do thousands of other things, useful or entertaining or both. In the same way, the soul that lets God lay down the basic operating system of faith in Jesus Christ is ready to receive more and more of God’s blessing.

         Let the light into your life. Take these five verses to heart and make space in your schedule to listen to Jesus. It could take the form of daily Bible reading. It might mean attending a Sunday School class. Maybe you will set up a on-on-one time of study together with a friend. Perhaps you will get a few friends together for a small group look at Scripture. However you do it, let the light in. And don’t just hear. Listen to what Jesus says and let it make a difference in what you do, in what you say.

         And if you’re here today and need to say, “I’m not sure if I’ve even got the operating system,” then by all means start there. God gives the gift of faith, the gift of new life in Jesus Christ, to anyone who wants it. “Ask and it shall be given,” said Jesus, “knock and the door will be opened.” Just peel back the curtain a little and the light will come flooding in. I’d be happy to talk with you about it more. Just ask.

         From computers to the church fathers. This is what Athanasius said about listening to Jesus, about listening to the Word of God:

“One cannot possibly understand the teaching of the saints unless one has a pure mind and is trying to imitate their life. Anyone who wants to look at sunlight naturally wipes his eye clear first, in order to make, at any rate, some approximation to the purity of that on which he looks. . . Similarly, anyone who wishes to understand the mind of the sacred writers must first cleanse his own life, and approach the saints by copying their deeds. Thus united to them in the fellowship of life, he will both understand the things revealed to them by God and, thenceforth escaping the peril that threatens sinners in the judgment, will receive that which is laid up for the saints in the kingdom of heaven.”[1]

That’s what Jesus means here. You don’t have to be pure and perfect to come to Him. But to keep learning, to keep growing, we must wipe our eyes clear to see the light, begin to put into practice what we’ve heard, start really listening and not just hearing. Then more and more and more of that same measure will be given to us until that day we receive all that our Lord has “laid up for the saints in the kingdom of heaven.”

         Amen.

         Valley Covenant Church
         Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
         Copyright © 2012 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj