Readings: 1 Kings 10.1-10; Psalm 37; Mark 7.14-23
The wisdom of Solomon and the splendour of his court leave the Queen of Sheba breathless. She seems to be besotted, for in spite of all he already has, she gives him many gifts from her own treasuries. We can imagine the scene from places we can still visit, places like Versailles or Windsor or the Winter Palace in St Petersburg or even the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. Kings and princes, queens and duchesses, popes and cardinals: they knew how to impress and had the resources to engage the best architects, the finest artists, the most gifted designers of clothes and gardens, the greatest composers of music.
By contrast is what comes from the mouth of Jesus in the gospel reading as he lists the things that originate in the human heart: evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. We can imagine that while the externals of courtly life were as described in the first reading, the human relations within those splendid walls were often marked, and marred, by what Jesus describes in the gospel reading. We see it often represented in films about the Tudors or life at Versailles or the Borgias.
It is not what appears externally that counts, then, what really counts is what comes from within human beings, from the heart. 'Our heart is given to the things we treasure': Jesus teaches us this, in his Sermon on the Mount. 'My love is my weight', says Saint Augustine, meaning the same thing, that I am given to the things I love. They are my passion, they are the things that may even take my breath away. So what is it that I love?
The important question is not what kind of palace can I construct with which to impress people but what kind of heart can I develop in order to enter into the fulness of human living which Jesus came to teach us: how to love in a way that is truly right and good. 'Set your heart on things that are above', Saint Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, following Jesus once again who tells us to lay up treasure for ourselves in heaven, not on the earth. It means to become rich in the resources of the kingdom of God which are the fruits of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.
In this way we live with a wisdom superior to that of Solomon, building our house on rock, rich in what really matters, the love of God, which, unlike the great palaces with their pomp and splendour, will never decline or weaken and will never fade away.
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