17th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 26, 2020

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 26, 2020

17A20.   Solomon said to the Lord: “I am a mere youth, not knowing how to act.” “Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” ‘The Lord was pleased that Solomon made this request. So God said to him:” “For understanding so that you may know what is right–I do as you requested.”  Solomon was like the scribe of third reading who brings from the store room of being raised as a good Jew what, was best for his new assignment from God, to be king of Israel.

Matthew 13:44-52.   Among the Jews the scribes had the necessary and important task of mining the Law and the Scriptures to make them understandable and digestible to the people so to lead them to holiness.  Jesus in his humanity is like that scribe who brings from the storeroom what the Holy Spirit makes available to him the stories and parables that enable his followers to understand what it is to be a truly holy people.  The first parable explains that to become people of the kingdom of heaven while here on earth is to give over all of one’s self to a life of faith in the Lord.  The second parable asserts that the pearl of great price is to possess a life in heaven by giving over oneself completely over to living a holy life in the Lord here on earth. The third parable, like that of the separating of the wheat from the weeds that grew together, is the separating of the good fish from the bad that lived in the same sea and then throwing the bad into the fiery furnace of hell.  Then Jesus asks his disciples,  ”’Do you understand all these things?’” They answered, ‘Yes.’” Jesus is like David and that scribe who is the head of his household.   However, now he leads his earthly people to his heavenly kingdom.

Romans 8:28-30.