Over the past few days our daily mass readings have centered on chapter 4 of Mark’s gospel. We hear Jesus, use a variety of parables to describe God’s Kingdom and tell us about the invitation God extends to us and the response he desires of us.

In the parable of the lamp and the lampstand (Mark 4:21-25) Jesus tells us about God’s light.  Rather than it being hidden from us, God provides his light to all of us.  God freely reveals himself to anyone who is paying attention.  God loves us and desires to make himself known to us. He looks to illuminate our hearts and minds with the light of his wisdom and love.

In the parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-20) Jesus tells us about God’s grace. Going beyond revealing himself to us, God looks to plant his own divine “seed” within us.  He offers this grace to anyone who is willing to accept it, anyone who is willing to provide fertile soil so that his seed can take root.

In these parables we see our gracious and generous God inviting us to dispose ourselves to him – to keep our eyes open to his light, and our hearts and minds open to his seed – so that we might come to know and love him, enter into relationship with him, and allow him to live in and through us.

But there is more to our response than simply disposing ourselves to God.  We must actively work with God in nurturing his light and seed.

Through liturgy, scripture, and prayer, through reflection on God’s loving action in our world, and through our own acts of love and kindness, we help Jesus penetrate us more and more deeply and motivate us to live out our calling as his disciples.

And we can be confident that this will happen. Jesus himself says so.  In the parable of the mustard seed (Mark 4:26-34) Jesus assures us that if we dispose ourselves to God’s grace, the smallest seed of faith that God plants in us can grow and mature well beyond our expectations.

But there is even more to our response.  We must go beyond our own nurturing.  We must nurture others.

As we come to know and love God more and more – as his light and grace are nurtured and penetrate us more deeply, as his seed takes root in us more deeply – we ourselves become carriers of God’s light and sowers of God’s seed.  God is not to remain hidden in us.  We are to be that lampstand on which God places his lamp so that through us his light can shine on others.  And we are to be sowers of God’s seed, actively spreading God’s good news to our neighbors and helping them prepare their own “soil” for God’s seed.  And then all of us together help God make his Kingdom a reality in the here and now.