We have arrived today at the last part of the so-called parables section in the Gospel according to Matthew. Jesus ends His teaching in (seven) parables with three stories, those of the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price and the net, which further introduce listeners to the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. At least three messages emerge from this and the final dialogue between Jesus and His disciples that are important for our lives today in relation to the Kingdom of God that Jesus tirelessly proclaimed in word and deed during His public ministry.
The first two parables, of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price, are called parable-twins by scholars because of their similarity in structure and message. They emphasize the inestimable value of the Kingdom that far exceeds all the goods that humankind can possess. Moreover, following the dynamics of the stories, we can glimpse an unexpected element by which the man found the treasure or the pearl, even though he could go in search of them.
Thus, the Kingdom of God, called by the evangelist Matthew the Kingdom of Heaven to avoid mentioning God according to Jewish custom, is always an unexpected gift both because of its value beyond any human prediction or vision and because of the unpredictability of its coming, according to an exclusively divine plan, with and in the person of Jesus, with and in His life and mission. Indeed, in Jesus is contained every treasure of wisdom and intelligence, of divine grace and glory. He is the treasure “hidden” in God and now revealed to all humanity.
Faced with the value of the Kingdom, people are invited to make a sacrum commercium, a “sacred trade” to acquire it. It takes wisdom along with the courage to take risks to make a fundamental investment in life! Mankind will be required to have a wise and courageous heart to welcome the Kingdom. Such a disposition, again, will be received as a gift from the Lord, as happened to Solomon in the Temple of God in Gibeon (cf. 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12) (as we heard in the first reading).
Indeed, in accordance with the biblical-Jewish wisdom tradition, this required wisdom even implies a certain shrewdness, determination, and even cunning! It is the case of the treasure hidden in the field that a man finds, hides it there again, goes and then buys the field to become the master of the treasure. It will be the case of the precious pearl that the merchant surely finds only after a long patient search. The emphasis, however, in both parables falls on determination: “sells all that he has and buys” the found object. It is about human commitment that is fundamental and necessary to receive the given Kingdom! What is more, as we can glimpse in the parable of the “net,” commitment will also be required to remain in the “net” of the Kingdom as “good fish,” lest we be thrown “into the fiery furnace” at the end of the world.
The final dialogue between Jesus and His disciples gives us an interesting cue to reflect on the figure of the Kingdom disciple. In this regard, the comment of St. Hilary (of Poitiers), quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas in his famous Catena Aurea, is significant: “ Speaking to His disciples, He calls them Scribes on account of their knowledge, because they understood the things that He brought forward, both new and old, that is from the Law and from the Gospels; both being of the same householder, and both treasures of the same owner. He compares them to Himself under the figure of a householder, because they had received doctrine of things both new and old out of His treasury of the Holy Spirit.”
With this in mind, the disciples who have understood “all these things” in parables, set forth by Jesus as the whole of the newness of the Good News, but rooted deeply in God’s ancient Holy Scriptures, are called to do likewise after the example of their Master in carrying out the same mission of proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom. Therefore, Jesus’ last recommendation to his faithful ones before his ascension into heaven will be precisely to go and “make disciples of all nations”, baptizing and “teaching them to observe all that” Jesus had taught (cf. Mt 28:20). In questo, il Cristo risorto ha affermato di essere con loro “always, until the end of the age.” In this, the risen Christ claimed to be with them “always, until the end of the age.” Thus, Christ’s disciples will be called to proclaim and teach the kingdom of God with Christ, as Christ, indeed in persona Christi “in the person of Christ” who is indeed always with them. They will be especially invited to speak and act with the wisdom of Christ, combining new things and old things of God under the inspiration of the Spirit, to draw all to the beauty of the Kingdom.
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