Matt 13:44-46

Over the road from my parents’ house in Birkenhead was a bush reserve. It connected with other reserves and runoff waterways behind the suburban homes. And you could bush walk, following the tracks of kids and other adventurers, for some two hours, past Northcote College, all the way down to Lake Road. It was an enormous wonderful playground for me and my mates. There we would build huts, climb trees, explore, and let loose our imaginations. And occasionally we would find treasure.

One day, I guess when we were about 10, my mate Peter and I found an old rusting baked beans can, buried beneath a tree, that was filled with half crowns. The change to decimal currency had happened some years before (1967), and these large coins could no longer be used to buy sweets or comics at the Dairy. So, they were monetarily of no use to us. Not that we minded. We were thrilled with the notion of, like young Jim Hawkins in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, finding buried treasure.

I don’t know what happened to those coins. We probably told our parents. And they probably tried to find who they belonged to. Of course, if we’d held on to them, they’d be worth something today.

We built all sorts of huts in that bush. Probably the Hilton of huts was when my dad, through one of his mates, got the wood from a car packing case (in the days when cars came from overseas in wooden crates!), and one Saturday morning the kids of street, plus some parents, carted the wood into the bush and used it to build, some three metres off the ground, a large hut in a big willow tree. My dad was handy with a hammer, saw, and other tools.

Somehow in the complexity of father-son relationships I always was mindful of my father’s shortcomings, and rarely saw, appreciated, and thanked him for his strengths.

And that’s the thing about treasure. You think it’s some coins, wealth, buried and discovered, that might make you rich. Whereas the treasure of your imagination and the treasure of your relationships (friends and parents) is the wealth hiding in plain sight.

As an aside, though I didn’t know it at the time, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, maybe reflecting his Scottish Presbyterian heritage (and then his deviation from it), is more than a boy’s adventure story. It’s a moralistic tale about unchecked greed ultimately leading to destruction, and true treasure found in moral growth and loyalty rather than material riches. 

I want to ask you now to be silent for a couple of minutes and think about your experiences of treasure. Then I’ll ring the bell, and if you wish, you will have the opportunity to briefly share a thought with us all.

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“Heaven’s imperial rule is like treasure hidden in a field: when someone finds it, that person covers it up again, and out of sheer joy goes and sells every last possession and buys that field.”

Treasure buried in a field was not an uncommon first century banking practice. And similarly, there were many reasons why such a treasure might be forgotten or unguarded. The one burying it dies. Or forgets the exact spot. Or the family is forced by circumstances to move away.

And similarly, the myth behind this parable was a common one. Like in Proverbs2:1-5, if you diligently and whole-heartedly search for something, then you will be rewarded. This is common-sense wisdom, seek-and-ye-will-find stuff.  

But there is problem in this story that Matthew, and some modern-day commentators too, choose to overlook or justify. This is the problem of who owns the field, and therefore who owns the treasure. The person who found the treasure did not own the field. Is it a case of finders keepers (losers weepers)? Poachers love that saying!  First century legal opinion, in effect, said, ‘Find a coin on a public road... sure keep it. But find coins on someone else’s land… No, that is not yours.’

The hidden treasure which, as in the myth, should be a reward for diligent seeking, seduces the finder in their euphoric joy into a course of action that has an illegal and immoral outcome. They steal someone else’s property.  

So, it’s a parable subverting the seek-and-ye-shall-find treasure myth. Or maybe it’s asking us to think about what really is treasure? If your treasure is silver or gold, the means you are using to acquire it can take the shine off it. Even land you in gaol.

In the Bible the acquiring of riches is not an ultimate good. Indeed riches, like with the protagonist in this parable, can corrupt your moral compass.

William Wordsworth’s wonderful poem, well worth memorizing, is also about treasure. Simple treasure: Daffodils in the breeze. In his poetic imagination, dancing. And the waves too joining in the dance. And the joy this scene brought forth in him – “A poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company.”

And then the memory. The power of memory, ‘to flash upon that inward eye’, when ‘in vacant or pensive mood’. (And we might add, when feeling sad, or overwhelmed, or lost…). The memory of beauty and its joy reach down to the heart and is revisited. “Then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.”

Wordsworth says that at the time of seeing the daffodils he had no idea what a treasure this was. The treasure of nature. The treasure of unhurried time. The treasure of experiencing the simplicity of nature’s beauty and being moved by it. The treasure of then taking this memory, adding it to your kit of memories, and then experiencing it all in the mind’s eye, again. And again. And again.

And isn’t this our experience too. That when we look back, with the aid of memory, conversation, or photographs, we recall the treasures that were our blessing. The splendour of nature. The places of surprise. The serendipity of moments. The friends beside. The family bonding. The things we did. The things we felt. The things we created. Joy, joy, so much joy.

The second Matthean parable today, like the first, is also subversive of the common treasure-seeking wisdom.

“Again, the empire of God is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that they had and bought it.”

The myth behind the story is about total dedication or sacrifice to gain what you really want, ‘the pearl of great price’. ‘Merchant’ was a class of the wealthy, and therefore he or she had to give up a lot. And Matthew, Thomas, and many modern commentators concur with this myth and interpret the story as giving up false riches, false ideas, and ideologies in order to follow the truth of Jesus.

But, again, there is a problem here. The merchant has sold ‘all’. ‘All’ is not hyperbole. So now he or she has no means to live. They are broke. And there is no government benefit to assist them. If to buy the pearl they have sold everything, then they will have to sell the pearl or else they will be destitute. Thus, the thing of great value, the pearl, has no ultimate value.

So, the message of this merchant and pearl parable is subversive. It says that ultimately the empire of God is of no monetary value. What you give up everything to possess has no monetary value.  

And if you treat the whole parable as allegory about spiritual riches, I would suggest the same holds true. You gave up privileges and pastimes to gain a spiritual wealth that has no bargaining value. It can’t be traded for spiritual rewards. It can’t get you a favoured seat in an afterlife. It won’t make you an ‘influencer’ with God. (Though I’m very aware that some fundamentalist brands of Christianity say the very opposite).

And you can imagine the response of Jesus’ audience: ‘You’ve gotta be kidding! You mean there’s nothing in it for me!’ ‘Seek God, find God, but not have any tradeable gains as a result??’

The empire of God, the vision of Jesus, is about the treasure called love. And this treasure is more about perceiving than possessing, more about giving than gaining, more about loss than profit. The empire of God has a topsy-turvy economy.

And so, we must readjust, recalibrate, our views on what is treasure and where itis to be found.

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