The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026)
Have you ever noticed that two people can look at exactly the same object and see something completely different?
Someone cleaning out an attic may see an old chair ready for the curb.
Someone else sees a priceless antique.
One person walks past an abandoned building as if it isn’t there.
Another person sees a sagging structure begging to be brought back to life.
The difference isn't the object. The difference is in the one who recognizes its value.
The marketing world actually has a name for this. It is called perceived value—the worth something has in the mind of the person who sees it.
As unlikely as it might seem, that idea of recognition lies at the heart of today's Gospel.
In the first parable, Jesus uses the image of a treasure buried in a field. As the laborer is digging—we might think of planting a fencepost or digging a well—they discover hidden wealth buried in the ground. The laborer immediately recognizes what has been hidden beneath the soil all along. What everyone else saw as an ordinary field, he now sees very differently.
A detail that might get lost in this short parable is that the person working in the field is not the field's owner. This would mean that they are most likely a laborer and not a person of wealth. To buy the field would demand both sacrifice and commitment. And yet, they're willing to take on that burden because they know they are receiving something of even greater value.
The character in the second parable comes from the opposite end of the social spectrum. Instead of a humble laborer, Jesus introduces a wealthy merchant who discovers a pearl “of great price.” One day he recognizes that he has found the one pearl for which every other pearl loses its value..
The laborer and the merchant could hardly be more different. One has very little. The other has much. But in the end, both arrive at exactly the same place. Both recognize something that others have either missed or had never even seen.
Recognition changes everything.
And so, we see that Jesus isn't asking the disciples to admire the laborer or imitate the merchant's business decisions. He's teaching them to see the Kingdom for what it truly is. Once they do, everything else begins to fall into its proper place.
That doesn't mean there is no cost. There is. In fact, Jesus never minimizes the cost of discipleship. But when someone finally sees the Kingdom for what it truly is, what once seemed impossible suddenly becomes the only reasonable response. They no longer dwell on what they are leaving behind because their eyes are fixed on the treasure before them.
Even in the third parable we heard, recognition remains the issue. The fishermen gather every kind of fish, but the final discernment belongs to God alone. Until then, we are called not to decide who belongs in the Kingdom, but to recognize that God's grace is still at work in ways we cannot yet fully see.
The parables we hear this Sunday are really only metaphors. After all, the “product” Jesus is “selling” can't actually be bought or sold. The Kingdom of Heaven is pure gift. And yet, like every gift of great value, it asks something of us. We are invited to surrender ourselves to God's grace. We are asked to take up the cross of discipleship. We are called to place the Kingdom before everything else.
I have always loved the way Saint Gregory the Great reflected on these parables. He wrote:
“The Lord looks at your heart, not your fortune; he considers the love that prompts your offerings, not their amount... The kingdom of God costs whatever you have.”
That insight is a gift. The Kingdom does not cost everyone the same thing. Peter and Andrew left their nets. Zacchaeus gave away half his possessions. The widow offered two small coins. Another, Jesus tells us, may give only a cup of cold water. God is not measuring the size of the gift. God is asking whether we have discovered something we love more than ourselves.
Because once our eyes have been opened to the Kingdom, the question is no longer, "What must I give up?" but rather, "How could I possibly cling to anything less?"
Perhaps that is why Jesus speaks of both a laborer and a merchant. Their lives could not have been more different. Their possessions were certainly not the same. But the invitation of the Kingdom reached both of them, just as it reaches each one of us.
Every day we make decisions about what is worth our time.
Our attention.
Our money.
Our energy.
Our lives.
The Gospel invites us to see differently.
To look at the ordinary fields of our lives and recognize hidden treasure.
To recognize the quiet ways God is already at work—in our lives and in the lives of those around us.
To discover that the Kingdom of Heaven is worth more than we ever imagined.
Because once someone discovers the Kingdom, sacrifice no longer feels like sacrifice. Nothing we leave behind can compare with what God has placed before us.
O God, protector of those who hope in you,
without whom nothing has firm foundation, nothing is holy,
bestow in abundance your mercy upon us
and grant that, with you as our ruler and guide,
we may use the good things that pass
in such a way as to hold fast even now
to those that ever endure.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Prepared for St. Pius X Parish in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
