What is your spiritual risk tolerance?

If I were your financial advisor, one of my standard questions to you would be “What is your risk tolerance?”

 Are you pretty cautious and conservative or do you have a growth outlook on the stock market and you are open to being aggressive with your risk tolerance.  Conventional wisdom has it that the older we get, we should be more conservative with our finances and protect our assets.

Now it would be fake news if I were your financial advisor.  But the real question I would ask you is what is your spiritual risk tolerance?

There is a side of us that wishes to be very conservative.  We wish to preserve the great tradition that has been handed down to us as Roman Catholics.  We are a Church that is apostolic – that is to say, we are a Church built upon the apostles’ faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

In the light of today’s Gospel parable of the merchant searching for fine pearls, we are challenged to look again at our spiritual risk tolerance.  “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.  When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all he has and buys it.”  That doesn’t sound like a conservative strategy when one finds a pearl of great price.  It sounds more like a riverboat gambler willing to risk everything in the process of acquiring the pearl of great price.

In the spiritual life, the risk tolerance we are called to embrace is to die to ourselves and our control of everything and open ourselves in trust and faith to God’s plan for our lives.  That conversion is not so easy for any one of us.  We are used to what are used to, but  Jesus calls us to let go and let God.

The older we get instead of getting more conservative in our risk tolerance, may we have a greater spiritual risk tolerance and more of a willingness to turn our lives over the Lord.

In your faith life, what is your pearl of great price and what are you willing to sacrifice to acquire this pearl of great price?  We know what Jesus asked the first apostles:  “Leave everything behind:  come follow me.”  With each and every person that I have the privilege of baptizing, the pearl of great price that the newly baptized receives is the very life of Christ Jesus.  Indeed for us who are the community of the baptized and a Eucharistic community as well, the life of Christ Jesus is within us – a pearl of great price.  What are you willing to sell and to sacrifice to deepen your relationship with Christ Jesus?

How do you encounter the Lord in your life?  In the Scriptures, in the mystery of the Eucharist, in each and every relationship in your life, in the beauty of God’s creation, in the times of quiet during the course of the day, and in both the joys and struggles of your life?  In other words, there is no area of your life in which you do not have the opportunity of encountering the Lord.   But we need to ask honestly is the Lord on a front burner or is the Lord a long distance phone call for you?

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field which someone has found; he hides again, goes off happy, sells everything he has and buys the field.  The thing of it is that the kingdom of heaven remains hidden for us until we make it our first priority in our lives.  The reign of love, justice and peace that characterizes the kingdom  of God requires us to give up judging and discriminating against others, to give up consuming more than our share of the earth’s resources, and to give up our desire to control others and have it our way.

As we reflect on how our relationship with Jesus is our pearl of great price, we find added insight from today’s first Scripture reading.    Solomon was offered a pearl of great price when God said to him:  “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.”  In effect, God was offering to Solomon a pearl of great price.  If God asked us the same question, how would we respond?  Solomon asked for a wise and understanding, listening heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.

As a father, as a mother, as a son or a daughter, as a priest or as a parishioners, in our work life and in our neighborhood, may we have the grace of a wise and listening heart.  We pray for this grace for the leaders of government, for the leaders of the Church, for each one of us in our family life and in all dimensions of life.   If we all had wise and listening hearts, God’s peace and God’s love would reign in this world more freely.

May we pray for the centering and the focus that we need to commit ourselves to sell everything to acquire the pearl of great price – our life in Christ.   Will the people that surround you in life recognize what is your pearl of great price?  Even conceding that we are unfinished in our spiritual growth, we ask for the grace that the desire in our hearts be the desire to live in gratitude for the life in Christ that is within us.

Yes, we need to be patient with our own shortcomings and the shortcomings of others.  The kingdom of heaven we seek here on earth is not the perfection of us suddenly being without sin.  That’s not going to happen.  The kingdom here on earth is sharing with one another  love,  compassion, and  forgiveness.  With God’s grace in us, that can happen.

They tell the story of the great humanist Erasmus.  When asked why he didn’t leave the Church since he was such a critic of its faults. Erasmus said:  “I hope to embrace an imperfect Church just as the Church embraces an imperfect me.”  There is such a message there.  Our lesser angels within us can be concerned about the hypocrisy of other Church goers, but in a larger sense all of can probably say:  “The only hypocrite I have to worry about on Sunday morning is myself.

St Paul in the second Scripture reading gives us a simple profession of faith which I invite you to take with you today.  Paul says:  We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”  As we deal with our own history of loss, pain, failure, and sin, we see what a demanding doctrine Paul asks to confess.  All of this – all that is in your life story – works together for the good.  Can you believe this?

Have a blessed day.