Thursday January 18
In the world of advertising, there has to be as much initial coverage as possible, even to the point of saturation. Advertising campaigns are planned and executed like a military assault. Some American companies mount the assault first, then gauge the response, and only if the response is good do they finally make the product! In other words, the advertising is literally about nothing! The way of the gospel is the opposite of this. Everything begins on a small scale: Jesus spoke of seeds hidden in the ground. Seeds are very small, but they are not nothing; they are a tremendous something; to understand even a single seed in its very essence would be to understand the universe. Loud is often shallow. There is a kind of Christian advertising (let’s not call it preaching) that has none of the depth of gospel. This is already visible in the gospels, and Jesus himself had to discourage it (as we see in today’s reading). One remembers Thomas Hardy’s remark, “That man’s silence is wonderful to listen to.”
