Jesus said: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44,45)
We could have it all. And have it slip away. We could make a fortune. And lose it. Or we could have it in our hands the whole time and never grasp its meaning. That is part of what is happening here: Jesus tells stories, brief vignettes, about people who get it. Who get the meaning of what they have, what is right in front of them. It’s not that they always had it and never knew it, not these people with the field and the oyster. It’s that when it is presented to them, they know its worth. They know it is worth more than everything else that they had. And so they give it all up, set all that aside, to have that one great good thing that is the true prize.
In the Gospel of Thomas, an ancient text not in our Testaments, the illustration was drawn from fish. A fisherman goes down to the sea and casts in his net: when he pulls it out, he finds he’s caught lots of little fish and one good big one. So it is with the kingdom of heaven. Everything else is set aside, not because it is unworthy in itself, but because next to the one thing that counts for all, they count as if for nothing.
Thomas Aquinas put it this way, when he was given a vision, in contemplation, of the holy: I have seen things that make all my writings seem like straw.
In comparison to that final gift all else seems of lesser value. Until it is put in its proper place. Until all else is understood in right relationship to the gift of heaven, it will all come to nothing.
And then all else begins to grow into more than we could have imagined, looked at in isolation.
Jesus put before the crowds another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32)
A mustard seed. Or a redwood seed. Or a saguaro seed. Not much, by itself, to start with. But let it grow. Let it come into its fullness. Better yet, grow into fullness with it. Then you’ll really see something.
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
JRL+
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On the feast of St. Nicholas [in 1273, Aquinas] was celebrating Mass when he received a revelation that so affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his great work the Summa Theologiae unfinished. To Brother Reginald’s (his secretary and friend) expostulations he replied, “The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.” When later asked by Reginald to return to writing, Aquinas said, “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw.” (www.catholic-forum.com/saintS/stt03002.htm)
“Aquinas’s vision may have been a vision of heaven, compared to which everything else, no matter how glorious, seems worthless.” https://www.catholic.com/qa/when-st-thomas-aquinas-likened-his-work-to-straw-was-that-a-retraction-of-what-he-wrote
2023 July 30
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 12 Year A
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp12_RCL.html
Track One (semi-continuous)
or Psalm 128
Track Two (complementary)
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