The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 27, 2014 – St Joseph Old Cathedral Oklahoma City, OK
1 Kings 3, 5, 7-12 + Psalm 119 + Romans 8, 28-30 + Matthew 13, 44-52
Treasure stories abound in every culture, and those who make a study of such things have many examples all of which are shaped around a common theme: a treasure found leads to tragedy. One of the great treasure stories in our culture was put into a wonderful novel by John Steinbeck, The Pearl. It would make great summer reading and put you in touch with these parables in a very unique way.
Matthew is being clever by pairing these two stories so that we do not get distracted by unimportant details. There are a lot of features that are dissimilar, so we need not look to them for some meaning. … more »