First Kings 3:5, 7-12Soloman asks for an understanding heart to judge God's people and to distinguish right from wrong. Pleased with this request, God grants Soloman wisdomPsalms 119:57, 72, 76-77, 127-128, 129-130God's teachings and commandments are more precious than silver and gold.Romans 8:28-30All things work for good for those who love God, and are called according to God's purpose.Matthew 13:44-52 or 13:44-46Jesus uses parables to teach that the kingdom of heaven is available to those who seek it.
The kingdom of heaven is the theme or phrase that stands out in the Gospel for today. It is mentioned by Jesus, many, many times throughout the Gospels. It is a key issue. But what is it, where is it? Jesus uses images, metaphors to explain it, to help us grasp it, the reality of it.
We will use two other realities current today as backdrops or the canvas on which we paint the meaning of the kingdom of heaven for us today.
One of these realities is the political process. In the United States we are in the midst of an election campaign. Here in Juba, Southern Sudan where I live and work there is also preparation going on for presidential elections slated for next year.
Another key reality is ‘investment'. In the United States we constantly hear the word; television programs and books make household names for men and women who teach us how to ‘invest' to assure our future, to attain our goals. Whether that be amassing money for retirement, our children's education or buying a home. Even in newly emerging markets and countries around the world ‘investment' is a common word on TV and radio broadcasts and in the print media.
In the Gospel today Jesus speaks to the crowds. Speaking of the kingdom of heaven he uses three images or metaphors. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found. They hide it again, go off and sell everything they have and buy that field. Secondly a merchant in search of fine pearls, when he finds one he sells everything he owns and buys that pearl. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that catches and brings in many fish. Then the catch is separated into good and bad and the useless thrown away and destroyed.
At least one thing is clear in these parables of Jesus: the kingdom of heaven is available to those who seek it. But attaining or appropriating the kingdom involves three things: a process of finding, selling and then buying. What, we might ask, is Jesus talking about? Clearly, Jesus speaks of the relationship of the human person with God. We human beings have a spiritual core that centers us in this shifting, changing, complex world. That spiritual core is a treasure. But it is not just on the surface of our life. Jesus says it is a treasure we seek. Our spiritual life is a process of seeking and finding. Then when we find the treasure we are faced with attaining it...the selling of other possessions, even everything else we have, so as to be able to buy it. Then it is ours.
Jesus is saying, we need to make choices. Am I willing to sell off most or all that I have in life so that I can buy the treasure that I have found? Maybe, in today's investment terms, am I willing to give up some of the goods that I could enjoy right now in order to invest in my future, to take a mortgage on a home, to save monthly from my earning so that I will have a pension when I retire or to have funds for my children's education?
Jesus uses images that we can easily translate into our ordinary daily life experience to teach us about the reality that is our spiritual life, about discovering the true inner core of our being. Just as all of us, as individuals and as members of towns and school districts and countries struggle to evaluate properly and make wise decisions about investing on all these levels in our future so too Jesus says we need to evaluate our personal decisions about our spiritual life. It is a constant process of choosing and evaluating and making decisions.
Recently when Pope Benedict visited the United States I read and heard commentators who wrote and spoke about his impact. But almost all said that U.S. Catholics and Americans in general are spiritual people. This meant the American people have a desire for spiritual experience. Even if they are not actively practicing their faith tradition as they did in the past or as their parents did, still they have a belief in the presence of God and live with the assurance of ultimate meaning in their life. In terms of the Gospel we have heard today we would say most people are seekers and even that many have found the treasure, the pearl of great price. It is a spiritual experience, it is God, it is the divine presence within them.
For most of us then we are in the second stage of the spiritual process Jesus speaks of, of finding a treasure, then selling what we have and then buying the treasure. In this second stage we now are evaluating all the stuff we have accumulated in our lives through our past decisions, we are deciding what we are willing to dispose of, what we need to sell as Jesus said, so that we will have the means to buy, to attain or possess that treasure we have found.
Again let us use an experience from daily life to help us understand this process. All of us have seen the reality, if not in our own lives then in the lives of others, of having bought too much on credit, of having debt come due without the means to pay. In this second step of the spiritual process, Jesus is saying we have to look at what we have accumulated or at what we want to accumulate, we have to evaluate what we will not buy and what we need to let go of so that we will have the means to buy what we know is most important, the treasure we have found. We know from experience this process of making choices, of not overextending, can be painful. It is part of learning and changing and of growing.
In the United States at this time there is a serious process of evaluation going on among individual voters and political parties and candidates for office. There is a process of seeking more information, more truth and value as we strive to determine how to live better together, to function better as communities and as a country in relationship to all other communities and even countries in the world and who will be the better political leaders to help us in that.. Even in politics when we find something of value we need to seek compromises, perhaps sell off some of those things we felt in the past to be important but now less important so that we can buy that which is of more treasure, of greater value.
Here in Juba, in Southern Sudan where I live the local political party recently held its convention. Their treasure, their pearl of great price, is what they called the vision of a New Sudan, a place of true democracy incorporating the participation of all people in the country and they acknowledged that this entails a great price. We must, they said, put aside tribalism and ethnicity that gives favor to some and excludes others. This will not be easy. We must allow all cultures and all religious traditions to practice freely and government not favor one and block another. This too will not be easy. Only, they said, if we can choose to put aside past advantages for some and disadvantages for others will we have the unity and goodwill to claim, to achieve or buy the treasure of a peaceful and just country and people.
This is our challenge as followers of Jesus. The kingdom of heaven means that we engage ourselves each one in the spiritual process of renewing ourselves so that we can claim and fully activate that great treasure of God's presence that is real within us. And with that great treasure so alive in our hearts, may we bring it to bear also in building a better world for us and for all in the years ahead. Jesus admits that the cost may at times seem high but assures us that it is cheap at any price.
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