17th Sunday Ordinary time (A) 30 July 2023 Seeking treasure
The man sells all he has to buy that field which contains the precious treasure. (Mt 13,45-46).
He reasons that the treasure is worth more than everything he has now.
We are always trying to make things as advantageous to ourselves as possible.
If we buy a product for instance, we calculate that the product is worth the money we spend on it.
It can be difficult evaluating things which we contemplate acquiring for ourselves.
Not everything has a price tag. In the spiritual world there are things like wisdom, courage, compassion, kindness etc. these things cannot be put in monetary terms, yet we will have to give up other things if we are to possess them.
To acquire good habits, for instance, we must be prepared to give up the bad habits.
If I want a healthy diet, for instance, I have to eat less junk food. A sacrifice on one side, a greater benefit on the other.
When it comes to right and wrong, faced with a choice, we have to sacrifice something if we are to have the other thing.
We do not always calculate accurately. Adam was deceived into thinking that the forbidden fruit would make him even happier than he already was. He gave up his union with God for what looked like happiness but was not.
Judas, along similar lines, forfeited union with Jesus for thirty pieces of silver!
Solomon, however, made a better choice (I Kings 3,9). He preferred wisdom to wealth and comfort.
Looking at our lives overall we see that we have an ongoing choice to walk in God's ways, or to reject Him.
Going with God and not against Him will being us great happiness, but sometimes at a cost, a sacrifice of some lesser happiness.
Would we be prepared to die for our faith, for example? It hurts to be eaten by lions, but there is great joy for those who go that far in their love of God.
Heaven is pure bliss, so any sacrifice we have to make to get there will be worth it.
If we discover God - His goodness, His desirability – when we really get hold of that then we are more happy with that possession than with all the other things put together.
We can say we possess God, not in the sense that we have control over Him, but in the sense we have access to His help in all matters at all times.
We might try to possess God without giving up anything else, but that will not work.
There has to be a certain definite decision to obey God in all matters, to entrust our lives to His service.
He helps us to understand that is what we need to do and eventually to want it as well.
We learn to trust that whatever God wills must be the best for us.
It is in a way just another transaction. We give up one thing for another.
When we choose what God would have us choose we gain far more than we lose, so we have a good bargain.
And this we can do all our lives, growing all the time in understanding of God's ways.
If we get it wrong and try to get by without God (as did Adam and Judas) we can still recover and get everything back in the right place.
This is the beauty of God's mercy that He will not hold us to our first decisions if they were wrong. We can then make another transaction – our guilt for His mercy.
So let us trade all else for that treasure in the field, the key to eternal life.
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