“Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Mattew 6:21).
2 Cor 11:18, 21-30; Mt 6:19-23
In today’s first reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul is in full gear defending his call as an Apostle, putting up his devotion and the cost of it against those charlatans claiming to be Apostles who are challenging his authority. Shipwrecks, beatings, imprisonment, exposure, poverty, threats, his anxiety over the churches – he has endured all of this for the sake of the Gospel.
And what has motivated Paul? We find in another letter his impassioned assertion that anything he has lost by serving the Gospel is but rubbish compared to the unsurpassed experience of being called and loved by Jesus Christ (Phil 3:8). This is his treasure. This is where his heart is.
Earlier in Matt 13:44, Jesus told a brief parable to describe the invitation to discipleship. A man finds a treasure hidden in a field, goes and sells everything he owns to take possession of the field and the treasure. In today’s Gospel, Jesus states that wherever a person’s treasure is, there also will his or her heart be. The image confronts us with the question: What is my treasure? Where is my heart focused and invested?
The power of the parable is in the question itself. What does this invoke in you? Have you found the treasure, or does it still lie hidden? Are you walking over or past it every day in the field of your ordinary life? What is missing in your quest for a deeply meaningful life?
If you feel you have found your treasure, what has it cost you to seek, claim and care for it? Has your treasure changed over the years? To respond to these essential questions is to locate yourself on the lifelong journey of your personal development. With Paul and Jesus today, can we affirm that our deepest fulfillment lies within the mystery of our faith? If so, we are not far from the kingdom of God.
