17th Sunday A

17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time A

Readings: 1 Kings 3:5,7‑12  Romans 8:28‑30  Matthew 13:44‑52

            By our very nature we search for the secret of wisdom.  In today's readings God offers us the simple answer to that quest: the gift of the wisdom is to do God's will.  Let us make our own the prayer of the responsorial psalm. “For I love your command/ more than gold, however fine. For in all your precepts I go forward;/ every false way I hate” (Ps119:127‑128).

            In the reading from 1 Kings young Solomon has just succeeded his father, David, as king of Israel, and God appears to him "in a dream at night," offering him the opportunity to have anything he may want.  “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.”   Rather than requesting the crass material rewards of a long life, riches, or military victory, Solomon has the insight to pray humbly for God's gift of wisdom to rule and judge the chosen people. "O Lord, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act.  I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted.  Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.  For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?" The Lord is pleased with Solomon's selfless request and promises him the gift of wisdom for which he became renowned. "I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you."

            The second reading continues Paul's lyrical description of the basis for Christian hope in the midst of our lives of "groaning" for the completion of God's kingdom.  Our hope has its foundation in God's providential plan of salvation by bringing those who love him "to share in the image of his Son."   Just as we share in the image of Adam, the selfish and mortal one, so God has called us to be conformed to his Son, the selfless and resurrected one.  Paul uses a series of five overlapping verbs to describe what God has accomplished for us in his providential plan for salvation through his Son.  In Christ, God "foreknew," "predestined," "called," "justified," and "glorified" us.  Paul's language of "election" and "preordaining" should not be understood in the sense that God decrees salvation for some individuals and damnation for others.  Rather, Paul is applying the biblical tradition of election to the Christian community of his time that is made up of both Jews and Gentiles.  This inclusive community is the result of God's plan for salvation for the whole human family.

The Gospel reading continues Matthew's parable chapter with three parables addressed to the disciples about the nature of God's kingdom.  The first two, the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price, proclaim that the kingdom is the most valuable of all realities and that it calls for a single‑minded response.  In the case of the buried treasure in the field, the stress is on the surprise of what is found, not on the man's morality.  “Out of his joy” at stumbling on this treasure, the man hides it again, sells all he has and buys the field.  The joyful discovery that we are called to do God's will is such an experience.  In the pearl of great price, the discovery is the result of a diligent search: the merchant is “seeking” for fine pearls.  But his response is the same as in the first parable.   When he finds “one really valuable pearl,” he too is glad to “put up for sale all that he had” in order to buy it.                       

            The dragnet parable is like the parable of the wheat and weeds from last week's readings.  Although we are responsible for the way we personally respond to the gift of the kingdom, we are not charged with the sorting out “the worthwhile” and “useless” fish in the kingdom.  God has reserved that task for the angels at the end time.  

            Jesus concludes the parable discourse by asking his disciples, “Have you understood all this?”  When they reply, “Yes,” he reminds them of their task and ours: to be scribes, learned in the reign of God, who can bring forth from their  “store(s)” the wisdom of Jesus' “new” teaching as well as “the  old” of the Jewish Torah.