Whenever Jesus teaches a parable beginning with “the kingdom of God is like,” we need to pay particular attention. As we have seen the past few Sundays, parables are understood allegorically. We should be grateful, as his trusted disciples, for those parables, like that of the sower, that Jesus himself gives us the correct allegory.
Before we get to what the kingdom of heaven is “like,” we need to ask what the kingdom of heaven is. While not yet fully realized, the kingdom of heaven is already here. This kingdom was inaugurated by Jesus Christ, who, according to Origen, the great Church father who remains the unsurpassed master of scriptural allegory, is Autobasileia. Autobasilieia, which is a big Greek word, means something like "the kingdom in person."
So, wherever Christ is, there is the kingdom of heaven. As the inspired author of the Letter to the Colossians points out “the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past… is Christ in you.”1 Just how does Christ come to be in you? Well, the Holy Spirit, who, since Pentecost is the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence, is the one through whom Christ can dwell both in and through you.
Each of the Church’s sacramental rites features an epiclesis. Epiclesis is a Greek verb that simply means to call down. In the sacrament of the Eucharist, the epiclesis occurs during the Eucharistic Prayer. It sounds something like this:
Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dew-fall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ2It is the Holy Spirit who transforms the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. It is the mystical Body of Christ we receive that, in turn, transforms us into Christ’s true Body, the Church.
At the end of Mass, having been thus transformed, we are sent to make Christ present wherever we go. This how is the kingdom of heaven of which Jesus speaks presently exists. This is perhaps stated better by the lyrics of a song written by Michael Card:
Every time a faithful servant/
Serves a brother that's in need/
What happens at that moment/
Is a miracle indeed/
As they look to one another/
In an instant it is clear/
Only Jesus is visible/
For they've both disappeared3
The kingdom of heaven is not something abstract that will be realized in some distant future and that has little to do with us. As Christians, our mission is to make the kingdom of heaven visible and present here and now. Let’s not forget that a simple definition of a sacrament is a visible and tangible sign of Christ’s presence in and for the world. This means by virtue of your baptism, your confirmation, and your ongoing participation in the Eucharist, you are to become a sacrament- a visible and tangible sign of Christ’s love in and for the world.
Saint Lawrence was a deacon in Rome who lived in the third century. Pope Valerian entrusted Lawrence, who was a young man, with the management of all the Church’s assets. After Valerian was arrested while celebrating Mass and beheaded shortly thereafter, the agents of the emperor set their sights on the young protégé of the Bishop of Rome: Lawrence, whom they knew was entrusted with the Church’s wealth.
After his arrest, Lawrence was given three days to round up the wealth and surrender it to the emperor. During those three days, Lawrence sold everything and distributed it all to the poor. When the emperor summoned the deacon to his palace on the third day, he asked him to hand over the treasure on pain of death. Whereupon he gestured back toward the door where, streaming in behind him, poured crowds of poor, crippled, blind, and suffering people. “These are the true treasures of the Church,” he boldly told the emperor.
Lawrence understood that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field and like a pearl of great price, worth selling everything to obtain. To say something is “like” another thing is to establish a recognizable similarity but not an identity. The kingdom of heaven is infinitely more valuable than any earthly thing.
Another thing that needs to be noted about the kingdom of heaven based on Jesus’ teaching, is that it is a kind of a bizarro world. It’s where the first will be last and the last will be first. It’s the world the meek will inherit. It is a kingdom that will not be and cannot be brought about either through political action or by force.
Lawrence, and many other holy women and men throughout the Church’s history, are certainly among the keepers caught by the net cast by God into the sea of humanity. Even though, like his bishop, Valerian, he died as a martyr, he is one for whom all things worked for his good because he loved God.
For a Christian, death is not the worst fate. As we hear Jesus say elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, “do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”4 Currently, the memorial acclamation we’re using is “Save us Savior of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free.”5 Christ has set us free from the fear of death, which frees us for fearlessly making present the kingdom of heaven.
Solomon was wise because, as a young king, instead of asking for riches, power, or fame, he asked God for wisdom to govern the kingdom with which he was entrusted. Wisdom comes through discernment. As the example of Saint Lawrence amply demonstrates, true wisdom often, as in almost always, seems counterintuitive and countercultural. He did the wise thing, which to the eyes of many, looks very foolish.
Let this petition from our Collect for today be our prayer:
O God… grant that, with you as our ruler and guide,
we may use the good things that pass
in such a way as to hold fast even now
to those that ever endure6
1 Colossians 1:26-27.↩
2 Roman Missal, Eucharistic Prayer II, sec. 101.↩
3 Michael Card. "Distressing Disguise."↩
4 Matthew 10:28.↩
5 Roman Missal, Eucharistic Prayer II, sec. 105.↩
6 Roman Missal, Collect for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.↩
Thanks for that homily. It resonates with my reflection on the Sunday readings. Blessings on your ministry.
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