Generous measures

Take care what you hear.
The measure with which you measure
will be measured out to you,
and still more will be given to you.
To the one who has,
more will be given;
from the one who has not,
even what he has will be taken away.

Thus says our Lord in today’s Gospel (Mark 4:21-25).

What do these somewhat cryptic parallelisms mean?

For one thing, these verses apply to the quality of generosity.

If we are generous with others, God will be generous with us.

If we are not generous with what we have, we will lose what we have.

We need to be generous with our time, with our material resources, and with the love of Christ.