Fr. Joel’s Homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
1 Kings 3:5, 1–12
Romans 8:28–30
Matthew 13:44–52
Can you imagine if God appeared to you in a dream and made you an offer: “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” —What would you ask for? What will your response say about your deepest desire or need? These days our response might be different than it would have been a few months ago. We might ask for an end to this pandemic, some might say for our country, some might say for our world. For someone struggling with a job, the focus might be on employment or more money to get through. We might ask for cure for people we know with the pandemic. Some might simply ask for things to get back to normal. Others might look at another aspect of our lives these days and ask for a way forward out of our racism. These might be asking not for something material but for a change of heart, a new vision of the human person, for humility.
Today we hear Solomon’s answer to God’s offer: “Ask something of me and I will give it.” His response reflects his current situation–he is young and finds himself in leadership. He is looking ahead to the future. What will he need? His response includes the admission that “I do not know how to act.” These days, when the overall situation of our lives is unsettled and uncertain, we can easily see ourselves saying the same thing. I am not sure what to do? I am treading in ways that are partially uncertain. We can join Solomon in asking “Give us an understanding heart….give us wisdom because we are very fragile at the moment.”
Solomon is the classical wisdom figure of the Bible. He and wisdom go hand in hand. It is important to remember that it was a gift to him from the Lord. It was not something he created on his own. His honest assessment of his situation led him to ask for it. His honesty was met with the gift of an understanding heart and wisdom. We would do well to do more than admire Solomon. We would do well to pray for an understanding heart and wisdom for ourselves. Some might even go further and ask for leadership to be given wisdom and an understanding heart–—leaders in our Church, leaders in our civil and political society, leaders in the business and economic forum.
Solomon was looking toward the future. And God responded by giving him what was needed for the future: a heart of understanding and wisdom. When God gives gifts for the future it not material wealth, long life, power over people, victory over opposition, success. What God gives is something for the heart. God’s gift for the human heart will reflect his own heart—a heart that seeks to understand, a heart that has a profound knowledge and love of others and wants to support them, a heart for justice and truth, a heart that seeks to bring humanity together, a heart that knows what is the good in the hearts of others. We hear that echoed today in Paul when he says that those whose hearts are set on God will be working to bring the good that is there out into the open. This working for goodness, he says, was God’s plan from the beginning. Receiving wisdom is becoming a partner in that plan to weave all things into his glory.
Jesus’ parables offer us two images of what wisdom looks like. Wisdom is a treasure, hidden, waiting to be found. Wisdom is like a pearl waiting for us to buy it. The activity in the parables is the activity of a person readying themselves for wisdom. You search for it seek it and you find it….sometimes it is hidden at first, sometimes it jumps out at you. And when it appears you do all you can to get hold of it and you don’t let it go. And when you find this wisdom and understanding, she will become your joy. (See Sirach 6:27–28).
In the well-known parables, we find wisdom is life in the Kingdom. The Kingdom is not so much a territory or place, a situation of power, but a way of life, the way God has put in front of us….Some might understand the treasure and the pearl as Christ himself. For him, we will give up everything to become part of him. Or as Paul puts it today, committing oneself to the treasure is a way of conforming yourself to the image of God’s Son. Christ is the pearl which I buy not to possess it but to be possessed by him in joy.
Wisdom is a gift, a treasure I discover and pearl I find. Wonderful! But once in front of me, there is something I must do. I must acquire what I have found—this wisdom, this treasure of the Kingdom. But to acquire or buy, I must first sell. I must look at what has been there, the old that Jesus speaks about. And some of those old needs, beliefs and behaviors have to be set aside. These old parts of myself would hold me back from entering fully into the new that I have discovered and are working toward accepting. I need to see them off, I need to lose them. Only then will the new become a joy and will the work of conforming myself into the image of Christ take hold.
It is quite possible that our experience of the pandemic will call up the gift of wisdom. The pandemic, for all the upsetting it causes, may reveal another layer of our humanity that seeks to be found. The way forward may mean letting go of that old that has not been working for the good. It may well be that we will become more aware of our shared humanity as a real treasure to be held and loved and cared for. We may discover that what we walked over and disregarded, whether it be mother earth or the stories of fellow humans, contains pearls beyond price.
Each of us still in the process of seeking, selling and buying. The gospel affirms us in this process for it is a process that comes from an understanding heart. It will mean walking with old and new. And its goal will—a humanity conformed to the image of Christ. He, we believe, is the first born of a new family of many brothers and sisters—the treasure that our God saw and knew from the beginning.