Don’t you love stories that tell of a person stumbling upon a magic lantern or amulet? They accidentally rub it and a fairy godmother or genie appears saying,
“Wish for anything you want and I will grant it to you.” That’s when we put the book we are reading down and our imagination runs wild. What would we wish for: money? No more work? Good health? Long life? Peace in our families? Peace in the world? I’ve always wanted to be a concert violinist, without the long hours of practice. That’s what I would be tempted to wish for.
The first reading, from I Kings today, enlivens our imagination. God comes to Solomon in a dream and bids him “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” God has entered Solomon’s life with an open invitation that catches Solomon at a vulnerable time in his life. He is young and has just begun to reign as king. He is feeling inadequate. Solomon has gone to the mountain shrine of Gibeon to pray for help. In his response to God he admits his need: his youth and inexperience and the burden on his shoulders of ruling a large nation.
Solomon could have asked for anything, but his request is for an “understanding heart.” (Some translate this as “an understanding mind.”) He’s not asking to have all knowledge at his fingertips. He will not try to impress his subjects by knowing everything. Instead, he wants to know how to govern a vast nation with an “understanding heart.” In other words a “listening heart,” so that he will be able to distinguish between good and evil; to determine what is right for his people. He seems to understand already that his role as a ruler will require that he be unselfish in his service of God and God’s people.
Let’s return to the beginning of the story. If God put the same offer to us, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you” — what would we ask for? The offer really puts our priorities and highest values on the line, doesn’t it? Who are those who are important to us? What do we need in order to respond and be of service to them? In addition, what are our core values? Since God took the initiative in the story and granted Solomon’s right-ordered request, maybe God is ready to do the same for us, if we discern our priorities and ask.
Solomon was invited to make a choice. So were the disciples in today’s gospel. The kingdom of heaven requires us to do the same. It may seem that we happen upon it, by chance, like the treasure buried in the field. Still, it requires discernment on our part. Can we appreciate what a treasure we have come upon? Are we willing to accept it in joy and make the sacrifices in our lives to retain it? These are big choices, not lightly entered into. Once the person in the parable sells all they have to obtain the treasure they will have nothing left — except the treasure. Our daily lives need to consistently reflect the choice we have made in our response to God. We will need to practice, as fully as we can, what we profess here in church on Sunday? After all, we did buy the field didn’t we?
If we did buy the field then all of our living will reflect our choice. What is the cost of Christianity? Everything. Didn’t Peter, Andrew, James and John leave all they had– boats, and nets, father and their business, to follow Jesus (4:18-22)? Later Matthew would leave his tax collector’s post (9:9) to follow Jesus. They did give up much to “buy the field.”
At first they may have felt excitement as they followed the popular itinerant preacher. Later, after the tragedy of his death and the revelation of his resurrection, they would experience the joy the person in the parable did. Note that the Gospels don’t emphasize the sacrifice the first disciples made. The sacrifice was worth it, they had come to know the joy one finds in the kingdom of heaven.
We shouldn’t get distracted by the legalities of whether it was proper for the man to keep the treasure secret from the field’s owner. We will let Jesus, the storyteller, tell us a brief, pointed parable about a happen-chance finding and the joy the discovery brought to a person . While the cost of purchasing the field to get the treasure is great — “all that he has” — I wouldn’t stress the sacrifice the man makes. Jesus seems to focus on the treasure that is the kingdom and the joy that treasure brings to the new owner.
Jesus’ parables about the kingdom of heaven aren’t other-worldly stories. If they were we would be gazing up at the sky to see what the kingdom is like. Instead, when Jesus began his ministry after his sojourn in the wilderness, he proclaimed, “Reform your lives, the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (5:17). Where could people find that kingdom?
They would discover it in very concrete ways, when Jesus entered their lives and healed someone; reached out to outcasts; cared for the poor; accepted men and women as equals. That’s how concrete and close the kingdom of heaven was for people when Jesus passed by. It was like the person in the parable. They would discover the treasure of the kingdom, as if by chance. And once they accepted it, they would share in its joy.
People could also discover the closeness of the kingdom whenever Jesus told one of his parables. The parables were as ordinary as everyday life — seed planted, bread baked, sheep lost and found, pearls purchased and fish caught. Those are the examples Jesus used to help his hearers imagine God in their lives — in this life, and now, not in a future time and in a far off residence. He described God’s word as Moses did to the people about to enter the Promise Land: “something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out” (Deut 30:14).
The actions of Jesus tell us that God’s revelation is concrete and up close. It’s also what the parables teach us by their ordinary, everyday figures: that the kingdom of heaven is right there in front of us in our daily lives, if only we have ears and eyes to perceive it. Parables, like today’s, provide the eyes and ears to catch God’s entrance into our lives in surprising ways: like a treasure you happen to stumble on and realize its life-changing the value. When we realize that, we do whatever we have to do to possess it in joy.