Deacon Dave Etters
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The Kingdom of God is worth everything. In this Homily Short, Deacon Dave Etters explains how encountering Christ transforms our lives and invites us to place Jesus at the center of all we do.
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And from these two parables, we see that there are two basic things here. The kingdom of God is priceless. It is so valuable.
And the second thing is that these people, these two men who found the treasure, had given up everything to obtain it. It is a radical, discovering the kingdom of God, being discovered by Christ, and discovering Christ is so radically transforming for our lives. Being transferred from the kingdom, the dominion of darkness, and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son, Jesus, in whom we have forgiveness.
When God gets a hold of your life, if we take it deeply and seriously, it’s transforming and we reorient our whole life and order it around him, his kingdom. Well, what is this dominion of darkness that we speak of here, other than Satan’s domain of sin and death? When Jesus was led into the wilderness, the devil took him up to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence and said to him, “All these I shall give to you if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan.”
Jesus did not correct the devil and say, “You can’t do that.” He acknowledged a certain sense of his dominion. This is serious, deep truth.
There’s no middle ground. But the good news is the kingdom of God. We have been transferred to the kingdom of God where we have freedom, and the kingdom of God is a radical new order. The reign of God is justice, peace, love.
That’s the kingdom of God. How does the peace of Christ, his kingdom, rule our hearts? It’s by seeking his kingdom first, a conscious effort, a decision, the will to put Christ first in all things. It comes by our encounter with him where we fall in love with Jesus.
In adoration, we bow our lives before him. And then from there, we order everything in our life around that center. That is how a king rules—central.
And as we prepare our hearts every Sunday, every weekday Mass, every Mass, we prepare our hearts in the Eucharist. We pray the Lord’s Prayer and we say these words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In other words, Jesus, rule and reign in me.