Fr Jaroslaw Kurek OSB
We often seem to have a peculiar fascination with Royalty. Many enjoy following ‘the royals’. All that excitement about the lives of royal families, the pomp and ceremony, family dramas, fashion, wealth……. The births, weddings and funerals.
The words we heard in the 1st reading, from the times of Moses and Aaron, point to a royal invitation from God! ‘If you obey my voice and keep my covenant […] you shall be for me a priestly kingdom’.
This overwhelming perspective may sound though somewhat enigmatic as the logic and meaning of the Old Testament often remains unclear for many of us. Also, there is an important ‘if’ there, ‘if you obey my voice and keep my covenant’, in other words, if you genuinely listen to me and keep my words.
Now, was the message about our potential royal destination a matter of consideration for our ancestors in faith only? No, it became a principle of our Christian vocation. In the Book of Revelation John gives thanks to Jesus Christ ‘who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father’.
Jesus prompts the apostles to proclaim this good news: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near’.
Now St Matthew to whom we listened this morning and will listen over the next weeks, every day, doesn’t seem to grow tired of delivering this message, a message about the kingdom of heaven. Shall I say that his gospel is actually ‘a book of future royals’, or, to put it differently, ‘a book for future royals’.
Why such a statement? Because through the teaching of Jesus Matthew keeps explaining what this ‘kingdom of heaven’ is about. He truly wants his readers to understand their royal vocation and become the partakers of this regal, spiritual space.
He doesn’t want anyone to be a mere spectator, just watching from outside; no, he wants you and I to become an ‘insider’, to fully partake, to enter the royal palace.
Isn’t that a wonderful, incredible calling?
You and I are invited to become royal!
To join a royal family!
To enter the palace!
To become royalty!
Do you hear and understand your invitation?
Now, two thousand years ago many who listened to Jesus couldn’t understand the meaning of his words.
And often, we do not either.
The problem is that we often hear, ‘There is no need for you to understand; this is a mystery’.
But Jesus said to his disciples: ‘To you, it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven’.
When explaining the parable of the sower, he described the one who will truly blossom and bear fruit: ‘The one who hears the word and understands it’?
We need to listen, but crucially we need to understand. Through understanding, we can fully exploit the privilege granted to us, the disciples of Jesus, to gain knowledge of the secrets of the heavenly kingdom.
Dear fellow Christian, recognise your royal nobility. You might never be granted access to Buckingham Palace in this life, but you are invited to access somewhere incomparably greater.
Take this ‘book for royals’, explore its secrets, and fulfilling its commandments enter the infinitely more splendid palace, the royal palace of God.
However narrow and challenging the door, once you’ve entered and experienced its wonder, you will be able to exclaim as this early Christian author did:
I am a priest of the Lord,
And Him I serve as a priest;
And to Him I offer the offering of His thought.
For His thought is not like the world,
Nor like the flesh,
Nor like them who worship according to the flesh.
The offering of the Lord is justice,
And purity of the heart and lips.
And you come into His Paradise,
And make for yourself a crown from His tree.
Then put it on your head and be joyful,
For His glory will go before you, amen.