Gospel Reflection For Sunday 30th July 2023

17th Sunday Ordinary Time – by Fr Brian Maher OMI

Gospel Reflection for Sunday July 30th 2023

In my many years as a Secondary School teacher I often had the opportunity to discuss with parents their child’s future, both academically and socially. Overwhelmingly, their number one priority for their child was that he/she would be ‘happy’ in life. Their second priority was always that they would be ‘healthy’.

Whether we know it or not, all of us are searching for happiness. St. Augustine, in the fourth century, said,

“…You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”,

while in the mid-seventies Ian Dury sang,

“sex and drugs and rock and roll are all my brain and body need…”.

These are two totally opposed answers to the search for happiness, yet both of them express our deep yearning to find a place of rest, peace and happiness.
Between these two extremes there are countless philosophies, theologies and theories, all offering us the sure path to happiness. It is big business – courses on mindfulness, various wellbeing diets, present moment, yoga, meditation, will all eat up the money of the rich in their search for happiness.
The rest of us juggle with career, power, money, ambition, freedom, relationship, and so much more in our own search for the elusive ‘happiness’.
We want it for our children, we search for it ourselves, our hearts constantly yearn for it – so why is it so difficult to find?

Occasionally, when I am tired or in need of something to distract me from the ordinary stresses of life, I browse through the hundreds of TV channels modern technology offer us looking for something that requires little thought and no reflection. Amidst the dross and mind-numbing rubbish offered I sometimes find a programme of vague interest.
One such programme I came across is based on modern gold diggers in America and their efforts to strike it rich. Honestly, the effort and back-breaking work they put into finding gold is almost super-human. The programme allows us to enter their search with them. We hear of the dreams of wealth and fortune which motivate them and we are aware of the money they have invested in these dreams – most have sunk everything they have into the machinery and technology necessary to mine for gold in the modern world. At home, wives and children live frugally, always waiting for the phone call that will make them wealthy for the rest of their lives. Very poignant are the times their hopes rise and they are sure their search is over, only to have those hopes shattered when what glittered in the pan turns out to be no more than fool’s gold. The devastation and despondency they feel is agonising. Seeing strong, hardened men genuinely cry is painful.
Seldom, but often enough to entertain, we witness their successes, large and small. We experience their excitement and elation, their joy and delight, and their relief that at last they can rest and be with their families. We are not told if their success leads to happiness!

These programmes are, I think, the modern, real-life equivalent of today’s Gospel parables of the ‘treasure in the field’ and the ‘pearl of great value’. Jesus gives us the story without filling in the details. The television programme fills in the background, dreams and emotions of those involved. What stands out very starkly for me in both parable and TV programme is the huge risk they take in following their dream. In both of today’s parables, we are told that the finder of the treasure and the finder of the pearl are prepared to “sell everything they own” to possess the treasure or pearl.

Now, if you can, imagine for a second that you were talking to me in my school days about the future of your child, and all of the fears, anxieties and worries you have about the world she/he is entering. And imagine if I was able to say to you, “I know a place, an island far away, where your child can live. It is a place based on trust rather than suspicion, where children do not have to be told not ‘to talk to strangers’ and where they can play safely out of sight of their parents.

I can take your child to a place where people share without the need for campaigns to prick their conscience. A place where greed and jealousy are unnecessary; a place where every person is content with what they need rather than what they want. Your child will live in a peaceful place, where that peace is based on justice and forgiveness rather than coercion and control.
Above all else, I can take your child to a place where all children smile and where all adults speak gently and kindly to one another. If I had it in my power to say that, and if you could believe it, I am certain you would want it for your child. You would not need to ask about the career prospects there, or about the size of the house they might buy, or the neighbourhood in which they will live. No, I am certain that you would say, “Yes, this is a place where my child will be happy.”

Isn’t it extremely sad that for all our human intelligence, heightened evolution, technology and creativity this ‘place’ lives only in our imaginations?

Yet, the truth is that this is a place which is offered to us. It is a place one man in history actually showed to us. He didn’t just talk, make promises and give vague guarantees. He lived this place. He was this place. He said, “follow me” and you too will live there.… And then he died, cut down by the jealousy and greed and hatred he told us was so unnecessary. If that was the end, then just another idealist, another dreamer, another schemer came and went.
But it was not the end. As Marks says in his Gospel,

“You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has Risen, He is not here; see the place where they laid him.” (Mark 16:6)

This is what makes what Jesus lived and offered us real and possible. The ‘place’ he showed us, the place he called the ‘Kingdom of God’ or ‘the Kingdom of Heaven’ had come to us, guaranteed by his resurrection from the dead – “He has Risen, He is not here; see the place where they laid him.”
Jesus dedicated his life to showing us “The Kingdom of God.” Time and time again it appeared in what he taught, “Happy are the poor in Spirit, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven….”; It was in his own deepest prayer, “Thy Kingdom come…”; and as he died on the cross, there it was again, “this day you will be with me in Paradise.”

And here today, in our Gospel, he is telling us – showing us – that the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is a” great treasure” or a “pearl of great value”. But read it again; it is not a treasure or a pearl that is still to be searched for or hoped for. It is a treasure or a pearl which has already been found! “The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found….”!

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found….”

The Kingdom of God has come among us and it is a treasure or a pearl of great value. It is not just a theory or a political manifesto or a series of empty promises. It was shown to us; it was lived for us in the person of Jesus. And it was guaranteed, with absolute certainty, by his Resurrection from the Dead.

And now comes the difficult part, and it is a part we cannot avoid. The Kingdom of God (Kingdom of Heaven) is for this world.
It is not enough for us to go to Mass, say our prayers and wait for the Kingdom of Heaven after we die. Doing that is leaving the treasure in the ground, or the pearl in the oyster shell.
We have already been shown the Kingdom of God by Jesus. In the Gospels, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus it is no longer hidden; it has been found.

The sad truth is that if the Kingdom of God is not visible, is not celebrated in the world like a great treasure, then we who call ourselves Christian must take responsibility for it. Maybe because of fear, or laziness, or selfishness, or just thoughtlessness, we have left the Kingdom of God hidden from the world.

The Kingdom of God, this pearl of great value, is there for us to see in the life of Jesus. He forgave; he healed; he did not judge; he was gentle; he was compassionate; he was kind; he was tolerant….. These things are the Kingdom of God, they are the Kingdom of Heaven. And when we look at them, we will discover, maybe with a shock, that not one of them is impossible for us!

The Kingdom of God in one single word is ‘Happiness’. It is what we want for our children and what we endlessly search for ourselves.
Yes, there are risks. There will be losses and doubts and times of fear. The gold miners in my television programme show me clearly that finding gold is well worth the risks. Jesus shows me by his Resurrection that finding and sharing the Kingdom of God in this world is also worth the risks taken.

We don’t need to wish it for our children. We don’t need to search for it in philosophy or expensive courses. We already have it and we can, if we choose to, make it visible to our children by forgiving, healing, not judging, being gentle, compassionate, kind, and tolerant…..

Today, in this Gospel, our deepest search is answered. The Kingdom of God, Heaven, Happiness, is ours to find and share with others.
Maybe, waiting for us in the life to come, Jesus is saying, “…Happiness is what you are searching for…and it is what I have shown you in everything I was… It is what you want….What are you waiting for?”

“…Happiness is what you are searching for…and it is what I have shown you in everything I was… It is what you want….What are you waiting for?”

Many thanks,

Brian 

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection, please feel welcome to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie

He sells everything he owns and buys the field

Tags: gospel reflection, sunday reflection