The Measure I...give?

He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” (Mark 4:21-25; NRSV).
My oldest daughter sleeps with a night light – but she doesn’t like it shining on her at night so we have to put a blanket up in front of the night light to diffuse it. Now, that’s not quite like taking a light and hiding it under a basket but the point is this: the whole purpose of having a light is for it to shine in the darkness and illuminate things – if you hide the light, it no longer serves its purpose (and is just a waste of electricity or batteries). In the Kingdom, Christ calls us to be light in the darkness, to be light among other Christians, to shine all the time o ya.
The measure you give has nothing to do with the financial amount of money you drop in the plate or donate to charity – or at the very least it isn’t limited to that. What if the measure you give is talking about the amount of light you shine upon others. In other words, how much are you contributing to God’s Kingdom? The 21st Century Church has become pretty consumer driven – it’s all about what the church has to offer me and my family, it’s how much I like the songs or the sermon – it’s all about what I can be given. But notice that Jesus turns that on its head – it’s the measure that you put in (involvement, ministry, contribute) that defines what you will receive in turn. The Kingdom is bigger than our societal concept of offering something for “me” but rather it is a God given mission that, as Isaac Watts penned, “demands my life, my soul, my all.”