Seventeenth Sunday

Readings: 1 Kings 3:5,7-12, Psalm 119:57,72,76-77,127-130; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

When I used to work in Guyana and come up for a break to Canada. I would spend TV time watching comedies. One of my favourites was Bewitched, the other was I dream of Jennie. I realized that it was a safe way of escaping from the petty difficulties I had. A bob of her pony tail from Jeannie, or a twitch of her nose from Samantha and your wish would be granted.

What if you had granted just one wish? On the one hand you had a lot of debts – mortgages, alimony, sickness, poor relatives and friends. You may either have a million dollars or the choice of having World Peace. Which would you choose? If you were a self centred person, that would be what our teenagers call a “no-brainer”! You would of course know that this was a dream, not reality.

However, when God gives Solomon one wish. It is not a dream but reality. God could and God would grant Solomon’s one desire Although these are the hot, long lazy days of summer, this is a serious question that is posed to us as much as Solomon. Both the first reading and the Gospel focus on this question: What is the dearest desire of your heart? Or as the Gospel puts it what do you consider the greatest treasure in your life, or the pearl of greatest price?

The first two parables of the Gospel focus on impractical cases at first sight.

A man finds a treasure in a field that is not his. It is not a question of finders keepers ! Since it is not his field, he sells all and buys the field for the treasure.

The second, a man sells all he has to buy a pearl of great price.

Both these seem to lack common sense. If he sold all – what was he going to use for food, housing and clothes. However, neither the treasure nor the pearl were to be taken in a literal and material sense. The question then as it is now : is what matters so much in your life and mine, that we will sacrifice everything ?

A good example would be a family who has a child who is sick. They will give up job, their home, they will sell every precious material thing they own to pay the bills of the sick child.

For most of us we think that the Treasure or the Pearl is some material article like gold, or silver or a precious heirloom. But it could very well be a person, or a state of life: (marriage, priesthood, religious life, a single life)

May I suggest two practical Treasures or Pearls of Great price:

The first is the earth on which we live. It was entrusted to us and we were made stewards of creation. We are given the responsibility to harness its resources, to protect it from destruction and waste. Now we hear cries of global warming, green house gases, depletion of water, dependence to the extent of an addiction to gas consumption. We use the earth’s resources, and we waste as if there is no end in sight. The resources are used as if they were limitless. The reality is that we are using up our children’s and grandchildren’s inheritance.

A young man came across an elderly but spritely 80 old planting fruit trees in the valleys bordering Switzerland and Germany. He was planting about 30-40 plants a day in a steady rhythm. Why are you doing, old man? Asked the youngster. This will take at least twenty years to grow and yield its fruit. Ah said the wise senior. All my life I enjoyed plenty of fruit. They were from trees I never planted. Now I am paying back – I am saying thank you by planting fruit trees which other people will enjoy some day. If you go to that area today, you will find a whole valley planted with fruit trees. This man truly understood what it meant to give all to purchase a field with a treasure, to buy a pearl of great price.

The second is our health. We hear in America, have an abundance of food, doctors, and gyms to take care of ourselves. People in some third world countries do not have this luxury. And yet we are guilty of obesity, or eating unhealthily, of spending oodles of money on weight-loss clinics, diet fads, botox – just to look good. This is a treasure in the field. This is a pearl of great price. It is a gift given to us by God and we are stewards in a slightly different way from that entrusted to us by God in relationship to the Earth.

One of the reasons for acting in this manner is our desire for an instant fix. I want answers, I want pleasure, I want peace, I want joy and happiness and I want it now ! I want it without blood sweat and tears.

Like Solomon we should ask for Wisdom and Understanding.

Understanding is the gift of discerning what is right and wrong, what is good and bad. Too often our minds are coloured by our own biases, our upbringing, our political allegiance or even our pet causes.

Knowing what is right or wrong is only the first step. Now comes the Wisdom to choose the means to achieve this goal. Solomon did and so can we. We received these gifts: Wisdom and Understanding at the time of our Baptism and we receive it each time we receive the Lord in the Eucharist. The Bread of Life, the Word of God – this brings us Wisdom and Understanding.

Our prayer can be that of the Al-Anon:

Lord

give me the courage to change the things I can

give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

give me the Wisdom to know the difference.

Amen