God’s Crazy Treasure Hunt

Dear Friend,

What Seamus Heaney said about poems is true about parables: “Poems can’t change the world,” he wrote, “but they can change our understanding of what’s going on in the world.” That’s why Jesus told parables. He was concerned about our way of seeing the world; or, more correctly, our way of being blind to it and misunderstanding it.

In his homily a few weeks ago Father Larry put it this way: parables bring clarity and simplicity to what’s perplexing while complicating what we take for granted.   

In the first reading this Sunday, Solomon prays to God for the kind of knowledge that parables can deliver. He prays for the openness to hear God’s simple and confounding challenge: “Give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” He’s praying for the patience and discernment Father John talked about last week: the capacity to stand humbly in a field of weeds and wheat, and allow the Spirit to help us distinguish which is which – admitting our past failures on this score!

The world we inhabit today is in a political, economic, and social frenzy – all quite confusing. How do we understand it? In parables this week, Jesus invites me to imagine that in the middle of the field of frenzy there’s a buried treasure – the very life of God. Give it your all! He promises a catch of fish he’ll help us sort if we dare to throw a net into the swirl. 

Now, am I willing to go along on God’s crazy treasure hunt or join this crazy fishing expedition? St. Francis was and so, I believe, was St. Junipero Serra. They weren’t perfect, but they let the Gospel rearrange their understanding of the world and move them into action. God wants to clear our vision, too, and bring us into life!

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan, ofm