Proper 12, Year A, 2011

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The Rev. Ronald N. Johnson

Today’s readings are an ethicist’s dream. They focus on values.  What do we value most? What is the most important thing to us?  The ethicist knows that values determine our conduct.  Values serve as an internal compass that gives us life’s direction.  This compass operates in the background of one’s psyche.  We are usually not aware of its prompting and pointing.  It sets a direction that we can blindly follow.  That is a scary thing.  It behooves all of us to examine ourselves and know ourselves.  Knowing and understanding our values, especially our core values, is a most important thing.

In today’s Old Testament reading, from 1^st Kings, God comes to King David’s son, Solomon, in a dream.  God offered Solomon the choice and chance of a lifetime.  “Ask whatever you want of me,” God said to Solomon, “and I will give it to you.”  There were no conditions on this offer. Perhaps God knew Solomon’s innermost thoughts and his heart and so felt he was on safe ground.  Regardless, the offer was unconditional.  “Ask what you want and I will give it to you.”

I have to ask myself what I would say to God were he to make me such an offer. Probably, in all honesty, I would say something like “financial security,” given the way the market has behaved the last couple of years, and especially the last couple of weeks and my concerns as I look to the future, although I would like to think that I’d be a little less narcissistic and ask for world peace, or something else really altruistic.  What would you say?  The answer depends on your values and especially your core values.  It is a scary thing to be brutally honest with yourself.  Usually we find that our values are driven by a surprising amount of self-love.

Take note of Solomon’s answer.  Solomon asked for the wisdom to govern God’s people well.  God was pleased.  God said, “Because you’ve asked for this, and not a long life, or riches, or defeat of your enemies, behold, I am giving you the greatest of minds.”  Jewish history records not that Solomon was the greatest of kings.  That designation is reserved for his father, David.  Rather, Jewish history records that Solomon was the wisest of kings and it was to him that God gave the privilege of building the first temple.  But, the point I want to make is that Solomon understood that wise service, not selfishness, honors God and brings fulfillment.  A single-minded desire to serve God and God’s people under-laid Solomon’s request for wisdom.  Solomon had, as a core value, to love the Lord his God with all his heart, mind and being and to express that love by serving God well.

In today’s Gospel, two of the parables really stand out and reflect values.  One is the parable of the treasure hidden in the field.  The other is the parable of the great pearl.  These parables are found only in Matthew’s Gospel.  Most of our Lord’s parables were addressed to groups.  These are addressed to individuals.  They focus on ultimate values, or really, the ultimate value, God’s rule in the individual’s life.  The parables tell us to devote the self to that rule.  In the first of these parables, the one about the hidden treasure, a man finds a treasure hidden in a field and covers it up, rushes out to sell all that he has so that he can then buy the field.  Nothing else is as important to him as that treasure.  It is the treasure of devoted love and service to God.  That is the ticket to God’s heaven.  The parable of the pearl tells the same thing.

These parables tell us something important.  We have but one life to live.  To live that life truly well, that internal, value-driven compass had better keep us on course.  The question of a lifetime is “does the needle point to the true north?”  Does it point to heaven?” Are we on course?  Do our values conform our lives to the will of Almighty God?  Amen.