Jesus speaks of great purpose and focus in the parables he tells this Sunday, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field which a person finds… and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”
Jesus is describing ultimacy, often referred to as ‘God.’ Our ultimacy fills us with joy and matters above all else. It is worth all that we have and having it is all that we want. For Jesus that ultimacy is Community, which Matthew translates as the kingdom of heaven. Jesus preaches about it all the time and gives witness as best he can. Our joy and all that we want is communion to which we are all invited and within which we can all belong and participate, Pharisees, laborers, and lepers alike. Our joy and all that we want is love which people marking tax collectors as sinners, followers ready to call down fire on inhospitable Samaritans, and scribes ready with stones for an adulterous woman are asked to share in. Our joy and all that we want is creative healing power which people who are willing to hurt and kill, elders and chief priests, Judas,’ and Roman soldiers can learn to give witness. Jesus creates the Community of God and initiates it as a People’s Movement amidst Militarism’s deadly religion. Militarism will never fill us with joy and having it is not anything we want. Militarism is ultimately supremacists who isolate by class, tribe, and ability and hinder communion. Militarism is ultimately haters or at least those who are suspicious and insecure and justify enemy making which hinders love. Militarism is ultimately soldiers waging war destroying people and the earth and hindering creative healing power. The Community of God is courageous people who put down the weapons Militarism convinces them they need. Weapons like cluster bombs, that maim and murder soldiers and children alike. Putin’s invasion and Zelensky’s subsequent munitions requests and Biden’s cluster bomb delivery with 72 armor-piercing deadly bomblets able to strike from 20 miles away, able to terrorize, and to kill many people, over many miles and remain embedded for many years is all that we dread and nothing we want. The kingdom of War Lords is like a cluster bomb buried in a field which a person finds and out of fear tells all he can to stay away. Again, the kingdom of War Lords is like a war merchant searching for fine plunder. When he finds a munition of great price he goes and sells it to all who will buy it.
“What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road (of war)? The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated. The worst is atomic war. The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” (Chance for Peace – President Dwight D. Eisenhower speech 1953)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, fill us with the joy of peacemaking amidst the misery of warmaking.
Question: What is our joy that matters above all else and how do I invite, share, and witness that joy?
July 30, 2023 Gospel Matthew 13:44-52 Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time