SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME A

[cappie]

“What is your treasure?”

  In a world where bigger is better, where materialism reigns and fear has gripped so many this question matters enormously.

The Old Testament reading tells us that for Solomon the supreme good was a wise and discerning mind.  But marvellous as the gift of wisdom is, it is not enough, the New Testament tells us.

Much like today, different gods and life philosophies were plentiful in the ancient Roman world. They were like different pearls, available for people to pick and choose which they liked and wanted to keep.

 In the Gospel according to St Matthew, Jesus continues his teaching on the kingdom of heaven. Matthew collected all these sayings and they unfold before us, one after the other like freshly discovered treasures:  When Jesus talks about the ‘kingdom of heaven’ or the ‘kingdom of God’ being like a pearl of great price, he’s referring to the value of the new way of living available through him.

 The verses given to us in today’s Gospel are  emphatic;   The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl, like a treasure, like a net full of fish — and the fishermen who heard Jesus, whose very life depended on the catch in their net, understood this value. Everything but everything is as nothing before the great treasure of possessing or belonging to this kingdom. To know the love of God, to know that our God is a God of mercy and justice who cares for the poor and the hungry and the dispossessed is to belong to the kingdom Jesus was proclaiming to those poor Galileans. This is the greatest treasure; he tells them and us. This knowledge of God is so life giving, that in order to possess it, we must be willing to give everything else up — everything! “He went and sold all that he had and bought it. . .”

These stories based on the experience of the rural Galileans, of the people who thronged to hear Jesus, made sense to them. St Matthew understands how the kingdom of heaven can change a person. Not only has he given up everything, including riches and security, for the kingdom of heaven but, in attaining it, he is like the head of a household who can welcome others into the kingdom and give its treasures away. The disciples understood these stories, Matthew tells us.

When St. Paul writes to the Romans, the same treasure is again brought before another group of listeners and readers. It now takes on the sophistication of an urban mind writing to urban Christians who are already are aware that they are despised and who soon will be persecuted as scapegoats under the rule of the Emperor Nero.

We feel weak, we feel afraid. Sometimes, we are so burdened, or so sick and frightened that we are unable to pray, or rather to utter the words. Do not let this stop you, St. Paul tells the Romans and us. It is the Spirit that helps us in our weakness; it is the Spirit that prays for us and with us “with sighs too deep for words.”

This is the season of Ordinary Time and St. Paul understood the power and centrality of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian with a clarity and conviction that leave us in awe. It is the Holy Spirit who points us to our treasure and helps us in our desire and search for it. It is the Holy Spirit that intercedes for us. And only through the Holy Spirit are we able to understand the depths and height and power of our treasure — the love of God in Christ. The assurance of St. Paul the great missionary who had found his treasure and never turned aside from it rings through the ages: Be of good cheer, nothing but nothing “can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”