XVII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Matthew 13:44-52
This Sunday’s gospel presents us with a new set of parables about the Kingdom of God, which is presented as a highly desirable goodness that is worthy of all investment, even if we must forsake everything else to get it. When they set their hearts on anything, human beings can put up with and overcome many difficulties to achieve the proposed goal. According to Jesus, the Kingdom of God surpasses everything else, thus being worthy of all effort and commitment to obtain it. It is like the biggest treasure hidden in a field and suddenly found by us. It is like a pearl of great value that deserves to spend everything on it. On the road to Damascus, Saul (Paul) made that radical experience. Later in life, he would remember it, when he wrote to the Philippians: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Phil 3:8-9).
Nowadays, society in general has forsaken Jesus Christ and despised the Kingdom of God, as not being worthy of any sacrifice. People set their hearts on other things, earthly things, hoping to find their happiness in them. They will do anything to become famous, gain power and get all the riches of the world. They dream of a new world without God and against his commandments, a world drawn upon their rules, which they are ready to impose on the whole world. They are the ones who establish political correctness and decide to ban and cancel all those who do not conform to the new set of rules which they promulgate and impose as the road to heaven, a false heaven that turns out to be hell.
With the third parable in this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus warns us about our attitudes and the choices we make. The time for judgement will come. The Kingdom of God is like “a dragnet cast into the sea that brings in a haul of all kinds.” Then, the fishermen sit down and separate the good from the bad. The rotten one is thrown away. We are living in a rotten society which is turning itself upside down, destroying the great values that connected us to God. They pretend to design a humanity different from the one God created and established on earth. That is a road that we follow at our own peril.
Aware that “God co-operates with all those who love him” and that he turns everything to their good, let us put our trust in the Lord and remain faithful to his commandments.
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