Fr. Jim Kennedy's commentary for the 17th Sunday.

SEVENTEENTH  SUNDAY  OF  THE  YEAR

My dear friends in Christ, We have two parables used by Jesus today to explain the kingdom of God; one about a treasure in a field the other about the fisherman’s net. Jesus is telling us that once we recognise what an extraordinary treasure we are offered, we should be motivated enough to give up everything else to get it. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and everything else will be added unto you’. We can look at ourselves now and begin to sort out things out. We can find the treasures of inner peace and get rid of all t

hose things that adversely effect that inner peace.

We should remember that the Kingdom of God is opposed to the values of this world. Jesus is Lord and if I live in the Kingdom of God then I am driven by the person and teachings of Jesus. If I live in the kingdom of this world, my god can be money, success, pleasure or power.

  In the Kingdom every person on the earth has as much right as anyone else. In the Kingdom it is the Holy Spirit, living in me, who alone can make things possible. If I live in the world I can get my power from social status, or political clout. If I live in the Kingdom of God it is only possible through the Holy Spirit.

An elderly man, whose memory was beginning to lapse, decided to go by car to the new shopping in town.  His daughter tried to dissuade him but to no avail.. She insisted that he take her mobile phone just in case. An hour later she heard a traffic report on the radio; it told of a broken down bus and traffic lights that had failed somewhere. The reported went on to speak about someone travelling in the wrong direction against the flow of traffic on the motorway. She rang her dad to warn him about this as he would use the same motorway. ‘Tell me about it’, he replied, ‘there are hundreds of cars going the wrong way’.

Living in the Kingdom of God often involves going against the flow. You will meet people moving away from the very thing you are looking for. It is part of secularisation in the world of today.