Homily from the Parish Priest for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings for Year A: I Kings 3:5-12; Psalm 118; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52
“I lost my job a few weeks ago and I now find I’m just not able to pay the rent nor to feed myself”. “Do you have any family or friends you could go to?” “No, I’ve no family here and I can’t do sofa surfing with friends – they’re too worried about catching the virus”. So goes the kind of conversation you can easily get into with the destitute at this time of crisis. Young, old, women, men, from any number of countries, British. How can we offer hope of a treasure to be found? To individuals whose life is a mess, individuals who could so easily be you or me with just a few bad decisions. To hold up a treasure to be found when there is none to be seen in a world of such injustice. When the good are seemingly punished.
We only need to look around this neighbourhood to see how the misuse of treasures dressed up as shrewd investment or the pre-eminence of personal property rights to a shared wealth ethic, make life unfair. All legally but unjustly. Not just political issues but devastating effects for real people. Where is that treasure then for me? Where is it for us as a community?
The readings today remind us that to find our true treasure we need to know first and foremost as a society, as a Christian community, that our treasure is a gift from God, a treasure which enables us to build up his Kingdom, the Kingdom of heaven on this earth. It is a treasure which to flawed humanity is elusive. To find it requires a state of mind, a commitment to a vision for communal human flourishing, respect for each other especially the weakest in society, care of the planet that we tread and whose resources are not to be plundered but as gifts from our creator to be treasured and nurtured for the common good of us all who call earth our common home.
And Our Lord wants to set this before us as the only starting point for a life of following him. It is to know it is not me through my efforts alone doing good work for the Lord but the Lord working through me, in me, and granting us his gifts to be used for the good of all. And to know deeply that only this brings true inner peace. Peace: which does not set sights simply on the passing contentment of this life – be it status, economic wealth, family, job, relationships, or whatever of themselves cannot fulfill the infinite desires of the human spirit – but gives our life so others may flourish.
What more can we do to co-operate with him, helping the seed to grow in the world? Where in my life do I actively commit myself to Kingdom values? Do I see in my sister and brother God’s face or do I exploit others, control them for my own gain? Am I satisfied and content with the gifts God gives me or am I greedy, over-ambitious and self-serving? Do I give thanks to God for the gift of creation, for the food I eat, the land on which I walk, fostering genuine care for the common home we all share?
The Holy Father keeps reminding us that this is a change of era, a time it seems to me as an avid Camino walker to, as it were, reset the compass, to reconnect with the scent which leads us to the treasure. The scent gives us the clues to that treasure, the compass is pointed to Christ. For those who walk caminos you may know the frustration of arrows pointing the wrong way, broken compasses, scents which lead us down the wrong trail. You may know the exhilaration of arriving at the shrine but the shrine itself is not the treasure. The end is not where the Kingdom is. It’s much simpler yet more challenging. The scent is right under our noses, in the facts of life, here at the oasis, at the turning point, in the companionship, the community, the closeness to raw nature human and divine, especially at our most vulnerable when we realise together our limitations, shared desires and stewardship of this planet and her people, and we reset our compasses together. The treasure is right here in the heart of the city, in each other, where Christ is to be found and made known.
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ