With the coming of Jesus Christ into our world, the kingdom of God became “close at hand” and Jesus’ mission was to help those people chosen by God to live in the kingdom.
In the gospels, we follow Jesus as he travels through the countryside preaching and teaching, healing and forgiving, challenging and chastising. This was all carried out freely, with a love that was beyond understanding for many people, even those who were in the positions of helping the people of the time to come to know the glory of God.
Sadly, over time, the elders, the Pharisees and scribes lost sight of that abundant love and imposed extremely harsh rules attached to the law that God gave to Moses. It became such a burden that many of God’s chosen people gave up. All they could understand was that their leaders were more concerned with their own well-being and the building up of their status and wealth.Prior to Jesus, there were the prophets, who warned the leaders and the people that they had gone astray and they needed to renew their lives of faith or suffer the consequences of the wrath of God. And just preceding Jesus, John the Baptist, displaying a life of asceticism and prayer came to warn the people that God’s kingdom was close at hand.
We all know these stories, from an early age for most of us, and we are, in the main, living a life where the kingdom of God takes second place. Materialism, pride, wealth and position in society still play an important part of our lives.
Then, suddenly, we are reminded through scripture that all this is nothing compared to the pearl of great price. We have been claimed by Jesus through baptism to become members of his body and share in his inheritance of the kingdom of God.
What must we do to retain this inheritance? We are told in harsh terms that we should throw away all our worldly possessions and relationships and follow him. This seems to be beyond our comprehension. However, in the terms of the language of Jesus’ day, exaggeration is used to make an important point.
It is therefore, not wrong to have possession and wealth, but it depends on what we do to obtain these possessions and wealth that is important. Our finding the pearl of great price helps us to understand that deep within our hearts we hold that pearl as God’s love for us and our love for God. In this way we are already experiencing the kingdom of God.
This does not come without a price though, because we are called to share both our worldly possessions and our love with others. The parable of the dragnet provides us with the responsibility to live alongside those who we would consider good and those we consider as not so good, however it is not our responsibility to choose. That is to be left for the end times, when God will appear in glory.
This reflection prior to the gospel may be worth considering, “The world is made up of the good and the wicked. If we wish to be among the good, we must be happy to detach ourselves from everything in order to obtain the kingdom, leaving to God the judgement of individuals on the last day (Glenstal Bible Missal).
Deacon Les Baker