Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
We’re all searching for something. The human spirit is prone, perhaps even programmed to search. We all search – we search for happiness, we search for purpose, we search to find meaning, some search for wealth, prestige, success. Epic Heroes have been part of literature throughout the millennia, capturing our hearts and imaginations with their undaunted searching. We love these stories because they reflect us. Ultimately, the soul’s sole search is for God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus likens the Kingdom of Heaven to searching for something priceless and sacrificing everything to obtain it. Today, let us pray that Jesus and his Kingdom might become the one thing, the one necessary thing that we seek and value above all else.
Jesus paints two pictures for us to help us conceptualize our search for the Kingdom of Heaven. Allow your imagination to picture these scenes. A person finds a buried treasure. This is the stuff of epic tales. Imagine you’re this person. You’ve won the lottery, essentially. You quickly rebury it so that no one else finds your booty. It’s such a priceless find that you sell everything you have to buy the field in which it’s buried. Imagine the risk. What will your family say? What if someone else finds it before you return to make the purchase. What if you’re wrong about its value? What if, what if. Again, imagine yourself a merchant in fine pearls. You travel a vast territory searching for them at great personal expense and hardship. You finally find one! Imagine your relief, your joy, the adrenaline rush. It’s worth selling all that you have to obtain it. What if your spouse resists, what if your accountant advises against it, what if you might get robbed trying to take this pearl to market. What if, what if.
I think we sometimes resist going “all in” with the Kingdom of Heaven because our fears and uncertainties get in the way. Our inner doubts and questions become barriers to following Jesus more closely. We face pressure from family and friends that add to the difficulty. Perhaps you’ve tried to take some brave steps forward only to be confronted with obstacles that discourage you. Certainly, the enemy mounts attacks against which we sometimes succumb. What if’s stimy and mire us. Sometimes we value material things and human relationships above the Kingdom. Sometimes we can’t muster the necessary sacrifice.
Today, can we believe and declare that the Kingdom of Heaven is the most important and most supremely valuable treasure that we could possibly ever imagine? Can we believe and declare to Jesus that he is the most important and supremely valuable treasure? Origen, second century theologian, describes Jesus as the “Kingdom in person.” Jesus is the personification, the embodiment of the Kingdom of God. In Christ we find the Kingdom and experience what it means to live it out. When we seek the Kingdom, when we pray God’s Kingdom come, we are asking that Christ’s life, his rule, his reign, his New Covenant of love be incarnate in us. The Kingdom is God’s way of ordering things; it’s God setting things right and bringing them out of disorder. When we seek this “buried treasure,” we bring it to light as we live it out and our lives go from chaos to order in God! Today, let us be drawn more and more into Jesus’ embodied reign, let us “sell” whatever we need to shed. May his Kingdom come, his will be done, in us as it is in heaven!
St. Thomas Aquinas talked about the unum necessarium, the highest and, ultimately, only important good. This one necessary thing is doing the will of God and abiding in his presence, so that you may become the person God created you to be. This one necessary thing is the treasure that we seek, the pearl of greatest price; it is the Kingdom of Heaven. God’s Kingdom is not one value among many, it’s not even the highest value among many, it is the value, the priority. It has no rivals. No other value can even be defined as such when we place it against the Kingdom. Today, let us say to Jesus, “You alone are the center of my life, you alone are my treasure. Jesus, no other value in my life is in competition with you.” When we make that declaration and begin ordering our lives around it, then all other values find their place around that central value which is Christ and his Kingdom.
I can testify to you that I’ve made this my prayer for the past 2-3 weeks. I begin each day by centering myself in Christ and telling him that he is the unum necessarium. Throughout the day I remind myself frequently of this truth and re-center myself in Jesus’ presence. I can tell you that my life has changed – I’m experiencing joy like I haven’t for a long time, a couple specific vices that I’ve been seeking to rid myself of have fallen away, and I’m becoming much less selfish and humbler. I praise and glorify God for this work of conversion! I connect it to seeking Christ as my one thing, my only treasure. I share that testimony to encourage you to make him your one and only, too. It does require sacrifice. What do you need to lay down, to die to, to set aside, so that Christ may take his place as your one necessary thing? May God bless you richly with the graces you need to seek first his Kingdom. Amen!
Elizabeth Wells