When we read Jesus' parables we can sometimes get hung-up on the wrong thing; when we think about today's parables it's easy to focus on the treasure or the pearl of great price, but then we miss the point. The point is the man who sells everything once he has found what he was looking for; being Christian means sacrificing everything to possess what Christ promises - adoption by God and glorification with Him forever.
It’s summer holiday time and all the schools are off. When I was younger, summer holidays meant driving down to Poole where my mum worked so we could meet her after work and have dinner on the beach. One summer my parents bought toy metal detectors for my brother and I to use on one of these beach trips, and my father buried a fifty-pence piece for us to try and find. Either we weren’t very adept, or the detectors didn’t work; but I suspect that fifty-pence piece (if it ever existed) is probably still buried somewhere on Branksome Chine beach. Needless to say, neither of us ever developed a passion for metal detecting like those people you sometimes read about on the news finding great hordes of Roman or Anglo-Saxon treasure in some farmer’s field.
That’s the image that immediately came to my mind reading today’s Gospel;
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off happy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.
It’s an attractive thought, finding something that valuable hidden in an ordinary field. But sometimes, with Jesus’ parables the thing which draws our attention isn’t the important part of the parable; we like to focus on the treasure hidden in the field, or the pearl of great worth. But the point of these parables is the person who finds the treasure, and what they do once they’ve found it. The treasure hunter and the pearl merchant have found something of surpassing value, something worth more than everything they have, and they willingly give up everything in order to possess it. This is the Kingdom of heaven.
Human beings are the kind of creature that wants, more than anything else, to have purpose. We go out in search of meaning. We want to matter. The word of God, spoken through the prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New, revealing God’s design for us is (in this respect) the great treasure we are looking for; St Paul writes, he intended us to be true images of His Son, he called us so that he might justify us, and in justifying us make us share in His divine glory.
Here we understand what Jesus is telling us; we are the seekers, the promise of eternal life and glorification is the treasure. The Kingdom of heaven is found by the one who gives up everything to follow Christ's word of life.
The Gospel is always challenging us, because it is constantly calling out of ourselves – calling us away from comfort and ease, calling us to abandon our attachments to the things which stand between us and the Word. The treasure is there for us to find, the pearl of great price is on display in the marketplace waiting to be bought, but we actually have to buy it. A treasure so great cannot be bought simply with what we have left over, it requires sacrifice; it requires everything we have.
The three pillars of the Christian life, are the three sacrifices we make for the Kingdom;
1. Sacrificing our time by setting aside time for prayer. Imagine if we spent as much time praying as we spent watching TV or scrolling through Tiktok videos on our phones, how different our lives might be.
2. Sacrificing our money by giving alms; setting aside what we would have spent on luxuries or frivolous things to give to the poor or to support the work of the Church.
3. Sacrificing our desires by fasting, by willingly giving up something good and offering it as a sacrifice.
I saw a homily from last Sunday’s readings online, where the priest reminded his congregation; we don’t get into heaven by flashing a Catholic ID card, we get into heaven by living an authentic Christian life.
This is the warning in the middle of today’s Gospel;
the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea that brings in a haul of all kinds. When it is full, the fishermen haul it ashore; then, sitting down, they collect the good ones in a basket and throw away those that are no use.
It’s not enough to call ourselves Christians, or to call ourselves Catholics, because if we are not living truly Christian lives of sacrifice we are like the useless fish – still caught in the net, still members of the Church, but fit only to be discarded.
We have searched for treasure, for meaning, and we have found it in Christ’s words of eternal life. Now it’s time to take the plunge and be prepared to give up everything to possess it.
XVII Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
Second Reading: Romans 8:28-30
Gospel: Matthew 13:44-52
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