In ancient times, the end of world history drew the attention of both the Church and pagans like a magnet. In our own time, by contrast, a kind of tacit convention has arisen, and speaking about it has become somewhat improper. The ancients expected the end to come any day, while we prefer to pretend it will never come. So will it be tomorrow or never?

When the end will come matters only if you are concerned about whether you will have time to prepare for it. Subconsciously we calculate that for a while we can live as we please and then still have time to prepare for the end of the world. During exams, for example, you calculate: there are four days until the next exam, so you can spend two days having fun, one day recovering, and one day reading the textbook. Whether you expect the end of the world very soon or not at all soon is only a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one.

Jesus' words about the last day mostly lie outside this perspective. He emphasizes only that the heavenly Father alone knows that day and hour. The Gospel seeks to bring something else home to our hearts. The essence of what happens at the end, at the Last Judgment, is separation. In today's reading the Lord Jesus says: “and shall sever the wicked from among the just.” The Greek ἀφορίζω, aphorizō, means to separate, set boundaries, define. As He said in the parable of the wheat and the tares, both are left to grow together until the day of harvest, when they will be separated.

From a practical standpoint, what matters for us is this. On the last day the separation, the distinction between the righteous and the wicked—Greek πονηρός, ponēros, one who causes much trouble, bad—will occur as a matter of fact, and it is not clear that our opinions and wishes will be taken into account. But today we can choose on which side of that boundary we will stand. By choosing to trust Jesus today, we enter the day that follows the last, for “he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

What, one wonders, does Jesus mean when He speaks of a "scribe trained for the Kingdom"? What treasury is He talking about? And how is what He says connected with the Savior's parables about the Kingdom, in which He compares it to a found treasure and to caught fish?

Indeed, the meaning, for example, of the parable of the found treasure is quite clear: when the matter concerns something truly valuable, one can sacrifice everything for its sake, selling all and buying what gives access to this value. A person who knows and understands what the Kingdom is is ready to give up everything in order to receive the possibility of standing on the path that leads to it. Of course, to buy the field does not yet mean to receive the treasure; the field is only the place where it can be found, just as the path into the Kingdom is not yet the Kingdom itself in all its fullness. Nevertheless, to stand on the path means to make the first and most important step, choosing the right direction. The "scribe," that is, the theologian, "trained for the Kingdom," as we can see, must above all be able to set priorities correctly: he need not renounce his knowledge or his tradition, but it is absolutely necessary to make all of it serve the solution of the main task - movement toward the Kingdom. He will probably have to give up something, but if one pearl is worth more than all the rest of the merchandise, the exchange makes sense.

But simply standing on the path that leads to the Kingdom is still not enough: judging by the parable of the many caught fish, many may find themselves on this path and even at the threshold of the Kingdom, because the net is cast as widely as possible. The history of the Kingdom is above all the history of its revelation in our transforming world, and therefore in one way or another everyone will learn about it and come into contact with it - at least once in life, at the end of time. But such contact in itself guarantees nothing: different fish get into the net, but being in the net does not yet mean getting into the cherished basket; the bad fish is thrown back into the sea.

As we can see, the path into the Kingdom is truly open to everyone, but entrance into it - and therefore salvation - is guaranteed to no one. Christ's coming became for us the guarantee only of the possibility of salvation, whose realization depends in many ways on our own choice and on our own resolve - not only when we are just entering this path, but also when we are already walking it.

Is the Kingdom of Heaven worth everything we have? For example, the man in the parable goes and joyfully sells all he has and buys the field with the treasure. For him it is clear that treasures are buried in a perfectly ordinary plot of land, and so he gladly makes this deal: everything in exchange for everything.

The trouble is that for us, as for many of Jesus' listeners, the value of the Kingdom is not obvious. We would gladly sacrifice everything we have for a worthy cause - but where is the guarantee that it is worthy?

Our task is to find the treasure as well: to learn in practice that a treasure is buried in a poor vacant lot, one worth more than everything we can have. That is, to touch by experience what is more beautiful than all the other meanings of our life - and this is not easy. In any case, to find such a treasure one must search... or at least want to find it.