Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2026

From this morning’s reading from St Matthew’s Gospel, the 13th chapter and the 45th verse: The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

There are some tasks and roles that human beings undertake that seem to most of us to be, quite frankly, ghastly. I cannot begin to understand why anyone would actually want to be a Prime Minister or a President, nor can I really understand why anyone would actively seek to be a Bishop. I always recall the wise words of the late, great Henry Chadwick in his sermon at the consecration of Noel Jones, former Chaplain of the Fleet, to be the Bishop of Sodor and Man. He said to the new Bishop, “Always remember that a mitred head presents an excellent target for poisoned arrows”. I suspect that the allure of wearing purple socks quickly fades in the face of reality.

Yet there are these roles and tasks of leadership to be undertaken, and I am thankful that there are many who recognise that they are called to such positions, however unworthy they may think themselves to be, and that they accept them in humility, and in faith that God who calls them will strengthen them, uphold them and equip them for whatever they are called to do, however reluctantly they may do so.

We have an example of such humble acceptance in this morning’s reading from the Old Testament. The young Solomon finds himself inheriting the throne from his father David, who, despite his failings, and there were many, was by any reckoning a great king, and Solomon recognises that he is ill equipped to fill his father’s shoes. Yet it is God’s will that he should do so, and the Lord offers to give him whatever he asks for as he becomes the king. Being young and impressionable he could have asked for power and riches beyond measure, but instead he asks for the gift of wisdom – “an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil”. In saying this, he shows that his first priority is to govern God’s people with justice and equity, rather than seeking his own aggrandisement – a response that is pleasing to God and, indeed, to us. His is a model of godly rule, that all those in power over the nations of the world would be well advised to follow.

Regrettably, of course, we have all too often seen (and continue to see in our own day) those in authority who see their position as a means to increase their own personal power and wealth (power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton astutely observed a century and a half ago) – and such rule seldom ends well, especially for the ordinary people who should be at the forefront of their care and concern but end up being overlooked and disregarded.

It is, of course, not only those in high office who should follow God’s calling, any more than the only type of vocation is that to ordained ministry in the Church. Each and every one of us has a vocation, we are all called by God to be obedient to his will and to further the kingdom in our ordinary daily lives, in a small way following the example of Solomon – in what one of John Keble’s hymns calls “the trivial round, the common task”. I might add the words of another hymn, this time written by George Herbert, in which we pray “that what we do in anything, we do it as for thee”. Each of us has a Christian vocation and a part to play in the fullness of the life of the family of the Church to the glory of Almighty God, and all, it is to be hoped, in a spirit of humility and service. However ill-suited we may consider ourselves to be to the tasks set before us by God, however reluctant to undertake them, yet we know in faith that he supplies the strength and the gifts we need to fulfil them, as the Letter to the Romans reminded us in typically rather grandiose terms in this morning’s second reading – we are called, justified and glorified.

And it is important for us personally to do so, because for each of us our individual vocation is the way in which God, in his great love and mercy, sets our feet on the path that leads us to our participation in his kingdom – not some geographical location, but rather the “kingship” of Almighty God in which he offers us a share through our Lord Jesus Christ. This in itself matters immensely, because we are taught that God’s kingdom, and the possibility that we might approach it is by far the greatest treasure we are ever likely to have.

In the short compendium of parables in today’s Gospel reading (and there are, in fact, two further parables before those of which we read this morning), St Matthew tells us of Jesus trying to get his disciples to understand what the kingdom of heaven is like. At the end he asks them if they do understand and they say that they do – though to judge from the evidence of their grasp of the meaning of the Lord’s parables elsewhere in the Gospels I have my doubts. In each of these parables Jesus points to the inestimable worth of the kingdom and of the efforts to which his disciples might go to reach it.

The clearest of all, perhaps, appears to be the parable of the pearl of great price. So valuable and so desirable is that pearl that the merchant prizes it above all his worldly goods, selling them all in order to obtain it. The worth of the kingdom of heaven, we are taught, outweighs by far all that we may have in this life and demands that we set our sights there and there alone.

The parable is about the merchant’s almost superhuman efforts to acquire that glorious pearl. But however great the value of the kingdom of heaven may be, it is not, of course, up for sale. We cannot and should not expect to acquire the kingdom of heaven. Rather our hope should be that the kingdom of heaven will acquire us. And one element in the parable that I particularly note is that our Lord does not say that the kingdom is like the pearl, but that the kingdom is like the merchant, growing into the fulfilment of his heart’s desire. There’s another sermon there, I think, but not for today.

Earlier this week I happened upon some words that I found particularly striking while thinking about this parable. They were words that I found in, of all places, the Commonplace Corner in the Oldie magazine. (Well, if the Vicar can quote from Walt Disney’s “Frozen” …) They were words written by Thomas Hardy. They may be familiar to some of you, but I do not recall reading them before. He wrote: “The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him’.

We do not look to be surrounded by the kingdom of heaven, like some tourist visiting a world heritage site. What we hope and pray for is that the kingdom of heaven will suffuse our very being, that we may be filled to overflowing with the love, grace and very presence of Almighty God – for that is the great treasure of the kingdom of heaven.

Whatever task is set before us by God’s calling, whether it be small or great, when we make our best effort to be faithful in fulfilling that vocation, each small step brings us closer to the kingdom of heaven, which is our true heart’s desire.