The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure in the field worth selling everything you have to get it; or again, the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price, of great value. Well, where do we get this treasure, where do we get this pearl? Well, I guess it's here, coming to Church on Sunday, right? I didn't get a lot of rights back on that … ha ha! You're not so sure, you're not so sure!

You know, it was not at this parish, it was at a different Church; but, a couple came out after Sunday Mass and the wife said to her husband, "Did you see that strange hat Mrs. O'Brien was wearing?" And the husband said, "No, I didn't see it." And then the wife said, "Did you notice those kids in the pew in front of us, how poorly they were dressed?" And the husband said, "No, I didn't notice that." And a little later, she said, "Did you see Billy Smith, he really needs a haircut." And the husband said, "Gee, I didn't see that." And the wife said, "Honestly John, you never pay attention! I wonder if you'll ever get anything out of going to Church!"

What is the treasure, the pearl, that we get out of coming to Eucharist, coming to Church? One way that I can sum it up is in three words: in vision, in sacred space, and in community. I think, hopefully, when we come to Church, at least some of the time (at least on our good days, or maybe on our worst days - our bad days), we refocus and refresh our vision, our values, our wisdom for daily living. That's the vision. And sacred space, on good days or maybe on our worst days, we find sacred space and time to be touched by God's presence, which gives us energy for our daily lives. And finally, community - we come together and we celebrate and we're reminded that we are connected to community and family, that when it comes to our faith and our belief and our daily lives, we're not really alone. That's one way of looking at what we get.

You know, I wasn't sure how to sum up and how to tell you what we get out of the Eucharist, so you know what I did? I called Fr. Michael Dibble - he's a great preacher - and I said, "How should I explain this?" And he said, "Use an acronym." (Laughter!) And, you know, an acronym is a word formed by taking the first letter of each point you're going to make in your outline and in your talk. So I said, "I think I'm going to use the word ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM." (Laughter.) He said, "I don't think you have the concept!"

There's a word I want to use, but not as an acronym. The word "beyond." It's the word and the reality of the beyond. Hopefully, when we gather for Eucharist we get an experience of God who is beyond us, who grounds us, who carries us, who touches us - hopefully we get some experience of the beyond.

But more than that, we also get to look beyond where we are. The Gospel stories are, for example, today's story of Solomon and of the pearl of great price. They help stretch us so we look further than we're normally willing to, we look further than we usually do. So the pearl story reminds us to look at our priorities, and look at them differently. The story of the good seed being planted reminds us to look at how our life is growing, and whether it's growing. The story of the Good Samaritan reminds us to look differently at compassion toward those who are different from us. The story of the Prodigal Son stretches us to look differently at forgiveness - at our style of forgiveness and whether we are truly forgiving. So at Eucharist, we are offered an experience of the beyond, and we're called to look beyond ourselves, and we also, because we are what Catholics call a "Sacramental Church," we also see beyond. What do we see?

We see the very presence of God. The fact that our belief and our celebration sees in our gathering (where two or three are gathered), and sees in Communion the real presence of Christ, signals to us that just as God comes among us in our gathering and in bread and wine, so we need to see God in the ordinary stuff of our daily life all week long.

The fourth "beyond" is, finally, we're called to go beyond. To be a people who make a difference in our world and in our society. That's why I like that outline of what our Mass is about, "Gather the folks, tell the story, break the bread, and change the world." Those are the four things that we're called to when we gather in Eucharist: to experience the beyond, to look beyond, to see beyond, to go beyond.

Last weekend, Dave Perata was with us and spoke to us, and he shared with us something of his experience with God. And it was a unique spiritual experience - he spoke about locution, somehow hearing God's voice, or the Spirit. And he spoke about conversion, and in his experience, actually kind of having a vision. And amazing things do happen. And God comes to us in many ways. But when it comes to the experience of God, the normal way, the standard way, the Catholic way is the exact opposite of that. What we believe, as a sacramental, Catholic people, is we find God in the ordinary. We find God in the flesh and blood of a Jewish rabbi carpenter. We experience God in the plain coming together, simple gathering in faith and song. We meet God in the commonplace words of Scripture and of faith. We find our God in the humble bread and wine that we bless together. And we find God in the ordinary, in one another, because we are called to be Sacraments to each other. We find God in people of all kind - and that's one thing, when we gather, there are so many differences here! We have in common baptism and faith, but beyond that we're different in background and history and race, in style, and in opinions. All kinds of people. That's why James Joyce wrote, when he described the Catholic Church, he described it as, "Here comes everybody. Here comes everyone." The God who is totally beyond us comes to us in the commonplace. Comes to us in the painful. Comes to us in places where we least expect God, and, if it were not for the eyes and ears of faith, comes to us in ways that would be very, very hard to recognize. That's why Jesus says, "Let those who have ears to hear, listen; let those who have eyes to see, see." That's why, in the early Church, the Christian people who followed Jesus were described as "the people who see."

Give you two examples, if I may. They both come from Ravensbrook, which was the concentration camp open from 1938 to 1945, north of Berlin, and it was the only concentration camp in the Second World War entirely for women and their children. And we have the notes of two women who died there; one we know by name, the other we don't. An unknown woman wrote this little prayer, and pinned it to the dead body of a little girl there. "O Lord," she wrote, "Remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all of the sufferings they have inflicted on us. Remember rather the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering - our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity. The greatness of heart which has grown out of all of this. And when they come to judgement, let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness." Wow! How's that for looking beyond ourselves.

And the other woman, whose name we do happen to know, died in the same concentration camp, and steadfastly refused to hate the guards who had beaten her and eventually beat her to death. Her dying words are both simple and profound; listen to what she said: "We must tell the people what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still." How's that for seeing beyond - not in visions, but in the ordinary, in harsh life. That is incredible. "There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still." Now as far as we know, both these women were Jewish, and yet that view, that way of seeing life, I would say is authentically Catholic. It's authentically Eucharistic. It is pearl of great price. It is treasure in the field. Amen.