1 Kings 3:5-6a, 7-12 ‘You have asked for yourself understanding.’
Romans 8:28-30 ‘He
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.’
Matthew 13:44-52 ‘He
sells all that he has and buys that field.’
Preached at St Michael and All Angels, Croydon, at the Parish Mass, on the 30th anniversary of the priestly ordination of Fr Tim Pike.
And Jesus
said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of
heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new
and what is old.’
+
What a field! What treasure! What a pearl!
Who wouldn’t want to trade everything in for something so
very wonderful and precious?
The parables in today’s Gospel reading speak of the great spiritual
riches of the kingdom of heaven: treasure to be sought and found for which we
trade-in everything.
Jesus tells us: the kingdom is like treasure; the kingdom is
like a merchant who seeks fine pearls.
So they sell up and buy that one field with its treasure, and
that one pearl.
The parable isn’t independent financial advice – in fact it’s
very unwise financially – but it is spiritual wisdom: offload everything and
anything that impairs your grasp on the kingdom of heaven.
The Patristic writers, the Church Fathers, variously, see the
field in which the treasure is found as the Church; the treasure within the
field is the scriptures; the pearl is Jesus Christ the bread of life.
St Paul says ‘the kingdom of God is… righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Spirit.’ (Romans 14.17)
The kingdom of heaven is not a human social or political
programme but it is the reign and rule of God, his sovereignty in our world and
our hearts and the intimacy of a relationship with Jesus Christ the Word made
Flesh.
People seek the kingdom in different ways.
Some are like the man in the first parable.
They encounter God in the Church and commit themselves totally
to it but their instinct is to cover it up: once they are in the field they uncover
the treasure and delight in it.
The next parable spoke of someone who traded in pearls.
This is the sort of person who trades in spiritual type things,
is seeking meaning and purpose in life, knowing there’s something more.
These people dabble and trade in those sorts of pearls, until
the day when they find the Greatest Pearl is in front of them, and they can
have it, if they renounce their dabblings and delusions.
It’s a bit like the Magi at the birth of Christ.
It wasn’t pearls in their case but the stars: and when they
saw The Star, they doggedly followed it and look where it led them.
***
You inhabit that field – the Church – and the treasure is
here for you: continue to delight in that treasure; yearn for it.
When we open the treasure chest of the Church there are
riches beyond imagining: the Sacraments that nourish and sustain us; spiritual tools
to fight off the Evil One; virtuous living shaping us in faith and hope and
love; prayer that roots us into the very life of God; the saints who accompany us,
give us good examples of Christian living and pray for us as we go on our journey.
You have The Pearl before your eyes and in your hearts: the
pearl that is Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary.
Christ is The Pearl who gave everything for us, so that we
can give everything to him and for him.
Knowing the field of the Church; the treasure within it;
knowing Christ the Pearl of Great Price we are also given a challenge to tell
others about this.
But if you found treasure in a field, or a priceless pearl,
would you tell others about it?
We think of these things as a ‘zero-sum game’: if you win,
then I lose; if you have the treasure then I can’t.
But the paradox is that the kingdom of heaven doesn’t work
like that; the love of God doesn’t work like that.
Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit endlessly
generate more righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Even human parental love does not diminish with the birth of
each new child; rather, it grows.
The love a parent has for one child doesn’t halve when the
second is born, it doubles! Three, it triples; four, it quadruples, and so on.
That’s a good argument for large Christian families!
If that’s true for human parents, it is truer for the his
treasure of our heavenly Father.
When you and I have His treasure, we don’t have half the
treasure each, there is double the treasure.
These are great parables to ponder.
That takes us to the third of the parables this morning, of
the great net cast into the sea.
This parable sounds trickier and quite tough, but in fact is
very merciful: God is all-merciful.
The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, ‘is like a net that was
thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.’
The kingdom seeks to embrace everyone, draw in everyone.
At the same time our worthiness to be participants in the kingdom
of heaven is not taken for granted.
To be citizens of the kingdom of heaven places demands upon
us: we are to renounce evil and embrace righteousness.
No one is destined to be outside the kingdom but through our evil
deeds, our lack of love and our rejection of the field, the treasure and the
pearl, we can put ourselves outside it: that is enough to make us weep and gnash
our teeth.
***
Mindful of Fr Tim’s 30th anniversary of Ordination
to the Sacred Priesthood these parables give some important pointers to the
life and task of the priest.
The priest must have discovered the field for himself, renounced
everything and bought the field and its treasure.
The priest must tend the field where the treasure is to be
found and invite others into it to discover the treasure.
The priest must know the Pearl of Great Price and behold and
adore that Pearl, Jesus Christ.
Supremely the priest has the task of presenting the Pearl of
Great Price to the people.
In the Mass this invitation to the treasure and to receive
The Pearl is distilled into these words:
Behold the Lamb of God,
behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
Blessed are those called to the
supper of the Lamb.
And you stretch out your hands to receive Him.
The parable of the Great Net gives another dimension to the priestly
task, and that is calling the faithful to holiness of life and rejecting evil.
The priest joins Christ in saving souls: no priest wants anyone
to go to the fiery furnace but, as fishers of men, with the apostles, want all
to be drawn into the saving net of the Church.
That task happens by calling you to repentance, by enabling you
to make confession of your sins so that you rediscover the Treasure and The
Pearl in your lives day by day.
Along with the altar, the priest wants to be busy in the
confessional!
***
Jesus said to the crowd, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been
trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out
of his treasure what is new and what is old.’
Today let us give thanks for Fr Tim’s 30 years as a priest,
for the way each one of us shares his life and he ours.
Pray for him, support him, love him: for, like the master of
the house, who Jesus commends in the Gospel, he brings out the treasure and
pearl of Christ, in wisdom ever old and ever new, and presents it afresh to you.
Let us then go together, with joy, to seek the kingdom of
heaven.
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