The Real Thing, Fr. Andrew Ricci,  Three Great Things.

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[Jesus said] …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.   Matthew 13:45-46.

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All three of Jesus’ examples of “what heaven is like” have something in them which can be easily identified as “The Real Thing”: the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price and the catch of fish, once it has been sorted, the good from the bad. And each requires effort, the treasure must be buried again until the finder can raise enough money to buy the field, similarly the merchant must sell all he has to pay the price of the pearl, and the fisherman must labor for the catch of fish, then sort it all out, good from bad. So a question arises: who is doing all the labor? Is it us? Do we all go looking for pearls of great price? Are we all “detectorists” now, looking for that buried treasure? I can imagine many of us looking for riches and a comfortable life; is that looking for eternal happiness in heaven? That doesn’t ring true, does it? It has to be deeper.

There is a passage in Luke’s gospel which describes Jesus calling the fisherman Peter. Luke says Jesus found Peter cleaning his net. Now this was morning, as Peter said he had been fishing all night and had caught nothing. Jesus tells him to push out once more into deep water and cast his net down one more time. Now Luke says that Peter’s response to this is: “Teacher, we have worked all night and we have caught nothing. But because You told me to, I will let the net down.” (Luke 5:5). Now consider; Peter had been hauling away all night with nothing to show for it. This holy man arrives and tells him to go out again. Peter is exhausted, tired, angry, frustrated and had to have been in a terrible state of mind, and the holy man says go out again. Now, what would you have said to the holy man? Be honest. Almost certainly the rough fisherman would have told where Jesus could go with his suggestion, and what he should do when he got there! I am certain Luke has censored Peter’s response… But – but – there was something about this holy man that moved him to do exactly that, and he netted in a huge catch. Then Luke states Peter’s response: “Go away from me, Lord, because I am a sinful man” (v.8). That smacks of the truth; Peter must have realized that this holy man was The Real Thing, must have deeply regretted what he had probably told him what to do with his suggestion, and was now full of remorse and regret. Peter, of course, became the leader of the Jesus’ followers, and Catholics regard him as the first pope. But look at the sequence of events.  It was Jesus who recognized the tremendous worth of this fisherman. He made the first move, and risked and withstood the fury of the exhausted man. But Peter must have sensed something really special about the holy man by actually doing what Jesus asked him to do. And the result was that he was won over forever.

From which I am suggesting that it is the Lord to finds the treasure in the field, the Lord to sells everything to buy the pearl of great price, and the Lord who lands the great catch in today’s gospel and sorts out the good from the bad. We are the treasure, the pearl of great price and (hopefully) the good fish landed by the Lord. So does the Lord work for us, reburying treasure, selling all he has, laboring on the waves? Yes: he suffered and died for us all, giving us literally all he had. We are the goal of all his work on earth. Heaven is us uniting with this unrelenting laborer who will do anything to get us to follow him, up to and including dying for love of us. All we have to do is recognize that and respond appropriately. Why? Because Jesus wants us to share with him the eternal happiness and peace of heaven, the opposite of the pain and agony of this world. We can even approach the peace of heaven here and now through union with him, obeying his will rather than our own. Imagine the joy of the treasure, the pearl of great price and the good fish claimed by the Prince of Peace, the Son of God, guarding and valuing us for what we are, his brothers and sisters, his friends forever.

Christians of the Middle East Foundation.

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