Opportunity and Responsibility

Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We have reached the halfway point of the summer season. We are beginning to see signs of the transitions that will take place in the lives of many young people in the approaching months. “Back to School” sales are heralding the beginning of a new school year. It is also during this summer season that many young couples get married. Recent college graduates will be starting new jobs. As high school graduates move off into their college years, many parents will become “empty-nesters.” These transitions are all an incredible opportunity as well as a great responsibility as people move into a new stage of life.

In the first reading from the First Book of Kings, we meet the newly crowned King of Israel, Solomon, son of King David. He has been given the great opportunity and responsibility to govern God’s people as their new king. In this new stage of his life, Solomon has big shoes to fill. When God appears to Solomon in a dream, he admits to God: “You made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David, but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act.” Solomon understands his great responsibility and how unprepared he feels when faced with this task. He asks God for, “An understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” God grants his request and promises that after him, there will come no one to equal him.

In response to God’s answer to his prayer, Solomon trusted God to provide him with exactly what he needed to succeed. Solomon’s trust in God stands as an example to all of us as we approach new opportunities and new responsibilities. Solomon was known throughout the ancient world for his wisdom and for his great success as the King of Israel.

This relationship of trust is what St. Paul speaks of when writing to the Romans: “All things work for good for those who love God.” To love God is to be in a relationship of trust. God trusts Solomon with his purpose, and Solomon trusts God to provide for him, and ultimately to justify and glorify him. This is the love of God to which we are called. When we know this love – this relationship of trust – we know the joy and the infinite value of the Kingdom of Heaven of which Jesus speaks in the parables of St. Matthew’s Gospel. Nothing compares to this relationship. It is like a buried treasure or a pearl of great price that we find and for which we sell all we have.

We have been reading from the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel for three Sundays in a row. Chapter thirteen is the third discourse which St. Matthew includes in his Gospel. He includes five such discourses in the course of writing his Gospel, five discourses to imitate the five books of the Torah or Pentateuch of the Hebrew Scriptures. St. Matthew’s purpose in writing this Gospel is to present Jesus as the new Moses. The character of Moses in the Hebrew Scriptures mediates a covenant with God and the children of Israel. Jesus comes to mediate a new covenant that is sealed not in the blood of goats and heifers, but in the blood that Jesus sheds on the cross. The parables of chapter thirteen describe for us the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. Those of us who place our trust in God will come to realize that our pursuit of holiness which will leads us to that kingdom is both the greatest opportunity and the greatest responsibility with which God entrusts us. Like King Solomon of old, we come before the Lord every Sunday to plead for an understanding heart so that we will be able to fulfill our destiny as followers of Jesus.

As we make our way through life, a journey that ends with eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, we celebrate the new covenant mediated by Jesus by remembering the sacrifice that Jesus completes atop Mount Calvary. The Eucharist stands as a constant reminder of what God asks of us and of what we can expect of God if we wish to succeed in our quest to live the Gospel throughout our daily lives. Like Solomon, we ask God to fill us with an understanding heart and the wisdom to know the path that will lead us to heaven.