A friend of mine rented a movie called, “Everest” and recommended I see it. It’s based on a true story about the mountain climbing expedition that went bad when an unexpected storm came up. They got stranded, some died and one man, whom they thought was dead, survived, but he had his toes and fingers amputated because of frostbite.
To me all this seems like a risky and crazy thing to do, especially since I am afraid of heights! They asked one survivor, “Will you climb again?” His response, without a pause, “Absolutely!” The person interviewing him asked, “But why? You almost died on that mountain!” The climber’s response, “You just have to be there. It makes each minute of life so alive, so precious. Your whole life is affected by your experience on that mountain. You see everyday things, including your family, job and life choices, in a different light. You become more aware, once you’ve climbed, and nothing is ever the same in your life.”
I don’t get it. It’s obvious to me that climber has another perspective on life–worlds apart from my own. As did the other climbers listening to the interview, for they nodded their heads in agreement. They seemed to live in a completely different world than I do. They were insiders and I was looking into their world from the outside.
Something like that insider/outsider dynamic was working when Jesus told parables to his disciples. He has an experience of God and life that he is sharing with those “insiders” who are beginning to understand his view of life and God. When he lays out these stories to people looking from the outside, they don’t get it. To them the parables don’t make sense and even sound crazy. But for disciples like us, we may not be biblical scholars and are far from complete and perfect followers, but we have come inside to this place of worship where we hear with ears of faith and know what Jesus is describing. It is about a way of believing and living which, though risky, we have accepted, for we have come to know it as true. These parables have a wisdom we wouldn’t get on our own.
So we listen to the stories Jesus tells us today. A man stumbles on a treasure hidden in a field. When he found the treasure it had to have changed his life and held out great promise, for he sells all that he has and buys the field to possess the treasure hidden there. And again, when that merchant finds a pearl of great price, he too goes and sells all that he has and buys it. His life has been changed by the treasure he has found and no sacrifice is too great to possess it.
We are like the people in these parables who have made personal sacrifices, for what we have found is truly the most valuable possession we could ever have. As the hymn reminds us, we are “earthen vessels.” But we hold a treasure and are willing to make sacrifices to hold on to that treasure. We “buy the whole field.”
We do not live according to the prevalent standards around us: we choose honesty, even when it means not making extra profits on the job; we treat all people, not just family, in a loving way, even if others don’t think these people are worth it; we are faithful in marriage and friendships, even though the world treats promises, spoken and unspoken, casually; we help people who need us, even if we don’t owe them anything; we have hope as we look into the future, even though there is a lot that could make us despair; we forgive those offend us, even though our world keeps a long memory of wrongs, etc.
None of this makes sense to outsiders, they don’t get it; the way climbing Everest doesn’t make any sense to me, especially since some died there! That gamble just isn’t worth it. But when Jesus tells stories about finding treasures and a pearl of great price, I gamble and make the sacrifices necessary to receive and hold on to the treasure. I sense I have stumbled onto something very valuable, what I’ve searched for all my life, even though I hadn’t realized it. I have stumbled on a treasure and I will try to let go of whatever holds me back from embracing it — like the two in the parables who sell all they have for their new-found treasures.
That’s risky, maybe even more risky than mountain climbing, because I have to risk and take a chance on Christ and what he is offering me each day of my life; sometimes in large ways requiring big sacrifices. But mostly, the daily risks are little, but constant. It’s all for the sake of the treasure. In fact, while there are other things that the world considers valuable, like personal gain, possessions at any cost, time and certain pleasures, I’m willing to let all those “pearls” go whenever I sense they keep me from having the pearl more valuable than all the rest.
In the Bible the pearl is a symbol of wisdom. And in our first reading today Solomon is given a choice to ask for anything and God would give it to him. He chose and prayed for wisdom and that’s what we pray for today. If someone were to ask us why we have come together in worship today, we might respond: “We are searchers who have found a great treasure and we want to celebrate that!
We pray for wisdom: to help us make good decisions each day; to know what we have to the detach ourselves from in order to live in God’s way; to know what choices we must make in favor of the treasure that we hold; to know what changes, even the little ones, we must make to experience more of God; to know what to do to build up the relationships we have that are good and to know what relationships we have that are destructive and we need to let go of; to know where to invest our precious time and energy in ways that serve God, our treasure. Like Solomon, we desire and pray for wisdom. And like Solomon, God will grant it to us.
Why are we here? Because we don’t want to be tempted by fake pearls or fool’s gold. It’s just not worth it. We want the real thing in our lives and we sense what it is. We have stumbled on a treasure and know everything else isn’t worth what the treasure we have found is worth.
Jesus speaks of the “little ones” in the gospel. They are the ones who have the gift of wisdom, not based on a person’s achievement, status, or even education. These simple ones know, as if by instinct, what Jesus is speaking about and they live according to the wisdom they have been given. I remember once asking my aged father what he wanted for Christmas. He said, “I want a Christmas card with my wife, children and grand children’s signatures and I want all of my family around the Christmas dinner table.” I had been ordained 10 years at that time, but there was a lot I still had to learn about treasures and my 80-year-old father was once again a wise teacher for me. He had found “a pearl of great price” and he freely shared it with me.
“WHAT IS GOD LIKE?’
Jesus tried to speak about God to the people of Galilee and about God’s plans of making their world better and happier in a way they could easily understand. He wasn’t always successful, because they were always accustomed to imagine a God who was only preoccupied with the fulfilment of the Law and the offering of sacrifices in the temple.
In order to attract their attention, Jesus told them two very short and simple parables. He wanted to speak about a Kingdom of God, something that was much greater than what they had always experienced in the synagogue every Sabbath: God
was a great surprise and a new experience every time.
The two parables had the same structure. The first one tells about a farmer who finds a “hidden treasure in the field”. He is so happy that “he sells everything he owns and buys the field.” The second story is about a merchant of fine pearls who finds a very precious pearl…He is so excited that he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it.
That is exactly what we should experience when we discover the Kingdom of God that Jesus is announcing to us in his preaching and his life. God becomes so very attractive and inspiring that anyone really knowing him is drawn to Him for the rest of his life. Nothing else really matters.
For the first time, we realize how important God is to us. There is nothing greater to inspire us and make our lives worth living. The Kingdom of God makes us see everything different. We look at God in a different way and we understand why and where our lives are taking us.
Our present religion lacks a God that is attractive. Many Christians know only a God that has been imposed on them, a God they are afraid of, a God they have been taught to reverence and obey. They have never really felt attracted to God. No wonder that sooner or later so many give up their religion.
So many Christians have been taught an image of God that is so distorted and our relationship with Him is so unreal that we end up having a religious experience that is uncomfortable and unbearable. Many people, nowadays, are abandoning their religion because they cannot live any longer in a religious environment that is full of fear or guilt, and motivated by threats, punishment and commandments.
Every Sunday, thousands and thousands of priests and bishops preach the Gospel, as we explain the parables of Jesus and his gestures of compassion and love to millions of believers. What image of God do we project? What image of the Father and his Kingdom do we show? Do we move the people’s hearts closer to the God that Jesus preached? Or do we keep them away from the mystery of Love that he preached?
HIDDEN TREASURE
Not everyone was taken by Jesus’ preaching. Not a few had doubts and questions. Was it reasonable to follow Him? Was it crazy? These are some of the questions put by those Galileans and anyone who got in touch with Jesus at a deeper level.
Jesus told them two parables to “attract” some who might have been indifferent. He wanted to put into their heads a question that might make them think: is there still in life “something” that we have not yet considered?
Everyone understood the parable of the poor farmer who, while digging in a field, found a hidden treasure in a coffer. He did not have to think twice. That was the chance of his life. He couldn’t let it go. He sold everything he had and, full of joy, bought the land and the treasure was his. The same happened with a pearl merchant, when he discovered a priceless pearl. He had never seen anything like it. He sold everything he had and bought the pearl.
Jesus’ words are really enticing. Is God really like that? Do we experience with God similar attraction? Can we really feel that we have found a most beautiful and attractive treasure, greater than anything we have seen and experienced?
Jesus was trying to share His own experience of God: what had transformed His own life. Will he be right? Is it worth following Him? Shall we then have the ultimate fortune of finding what any human being has been looking for from time immemorial?
Many people in the developed countries are giving up religion without even having known or experienced God. We can understand that. Anyone would do the same. Without having had an experience of God, like Jesus had, religion can be boring. It’s not worth embracing it.
What is really sad for us today is finding so many Christians whose lives are not marked by the joy, the awe and surprise of God himself. They have never experienced it. They found themselves locked up in their “religion” without ever finding that treasure. For the followers of Jesus, interior life is not just one more thing. It is the most important thing to live open to God’s surprises.