What would you do for a chance at joy?

Using reason alone, humanity has never been able to reach consensus around a system of ethical standards. Challenging realities like sexuality, environmental concerns, or warfare have eluded easy categorization into right or wrong. This Sunday’s readings provide a reflection on the risk involved in building a life on such shifting and contingent foundations. The wisdom offered from our sacred texts provides an opportunity to “find” values to live by and to “discover” a community that is life giving. There is genuine joy in this discovery, as the Gospel reads, “like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Mt 13:44).

This Sunday’s first reading casts Solomon as the wise philosopher king, whom countless later rulers will follow as a personal model. His dream reveals a request to attain a “listening heart” in order to distinguish between good and evil (1 Kgs 3:9). This desire pleased God immensely, “Because you have asked for this—not for a long life for yourself, nor for riches, nor for the life of your enemies, but for understanding” (1 Kgs 3:11).

Solomon had it all. In the biblical account of his life, we learn about his wisdom, reputation, riches, fame and capacity to build the temple of the Lord. He was the perfect wise ruler until his final years. As the Israelites drifted into the worship of the gods of the Moabites and other neighboring peoples, the theological-historical blame was placed on the shoulders of the wisest ruler of Israel. “Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD,” says the narrator, “and he did not follow the LORD unreservedly as David his father had done” (1 Kgs 11:6).

The Word of God in the Scriptures is the treasure that guides us through life, and a personal relationship with Christ is the discovery that saves us from our own shortcomings.

This Sunday’s psalm reflects Solomon’s desire for wisdom in the face of a complicated world.  Every strophe says something equivalent to “your law is my delight” or “I love your command more than gold, however fine” (Ps 119:77, 127). There are 128 verses to Psalm 119. Throughout this psalm, the writer captures the joy that comes from contemplating the Word of God and walking forward on the Lord’s path. Those, like Solomon, who wander off this path are lost. 

Matthew 13 is an assortment of parables, and this Sunday’s Gospel reading contains the ones that bring the chapter to conclusion. Matthew invites the reader to “understand” that wisdom comes from knowing how to interpret the Scriptures in the here and now. “Every scribe,” explains Jesus, “is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old” (Mt 13:52). Matthew wrote to a mixed Judeo-Greek Christian community. He identified a “new” way of Christ emerging from the inheritance of Israel. This new faith was based on both a book and a person, as Christ’s disciples were asked to trust equally in Scriptures and in the living presence of Christ. 

The “joy” of this discovery might be most apparent to anyone who has survived many experiences of failure. The characters in this Sunday’s Gospel reading, the merchant, the traveler and the fishermen, undoubtedly endured many failures before they gained the understanding they show in this Gospel passage. The Word of God in the Scriptures is the treasure that guides us through life, and a personal relationship with Christ is the discovery that saves us from our own shortcomings. To avoid an outcome like Solomon’s, we must give all we have to secure these pearls of great price.