SUNDAY SERMON: Hidden Treasure
By Rev. Stephen Baldwin
NT: Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52
The allure of hidden treasure runs deep. Once when I was a boy and we lived in Organ Cave, the kids in the neighborhood found a chain in someone’s yard. Somehow, we came to believe it came from an airplane which had crashed nearby in the woods and was filled with hidden treasure. We were convinced that if only we could put the right clues together and find the location, we would all be rich and never have to work a day in our lives!
I have no idea where the notion came from, or why I still remember it years later, but it persists. The allure of hidden treasure runs deep. In television shows, books, and stories across the ages.
Today’s reading from Matthew is a story about hidden treasure, albeit a very different kind. And to tell you the truth, the story is so short and simple that I’d never given it a second thought until this summer.
I’ve always read the short story to mean that a man stumbles upon hidden treasure, buries it in a field, and buys the field to protect his future. End of story. But Abraham Cho, a Presbyterian pastor and author, says there’s more to it.
“The parable is not just a story of dumb luck…It is also a story of questionable ethics. In first-century Israel, turmoil was so common that people stopped storing their most valuable possessions inside their homes: too easy for marauders, occupying soldiers, or corrupt tax collectors. Instead, ordinary citizens buried their treasure in their fields so only they could find it. This practice was common enough that rabbinic sources specified that someone who found a treasure could not take it. That was the equivalent of theft.”
People in 1st-century Israel sound a lot like Appalachians to me. My grandfather Wilburn would have liked their rule about hidden treasures. He was so distrustful of banks, institutions, and systems, that he kept his life’s savings in a freezer in the basement. He wasn’t alone; many Appalachians have done the same over the years. And I imagine he would have applauded a religious rule that protected his protectionist ways. Back to what Cho teaches about this parable.
“The man in this parable is careful not to remove the treasure from the field. Instead, he exploits a loophole. He buys the entire field but fails to disclose the fabulous treasure hidden within it. To the original audience, it would have felt like Jesus was comparing the kingdom of God to a shady deal. That was exactly the point. You will know you have tasted the grace of the kingdom of God when your salvation feels so free you feel like you are cheating.”
Never, ever would I have given this passage a second thought. It seems so simple. Yet like most Biblical stories there is a rich context that holds so much more meaning.
The key phrase in the parable seems to be in verse 44, where the man sells everything he owns and buys the field “in his joy.” That costs him everything that has ever been valuable to him, yet he pays the cost “in his joy” for the hidden treasure is even more valuable.
What hidden treasure? The joy of God’s grace.
Jesus uses a variety of metaphors–yeast, mustard seed, fishing net, treasure, and pearl–all to make the same point in a way different people would have understood it. The kingdom of heaven should swallow you like you’re a seed and make you grow to untold heights, as if you’re bread filled with yeast. It should make you overjoyed, like you’ve stumbled upon hidden treasure. It should divide the keepers from the pretenders, like fish in a giant net. The kingdom of God should envelope your entire life.
And this change is not cause for anxiety or division or anger, as the world would have you believe. We all seem to be primarily motivated by anxiety and anger and division these days. Those messages fill churches. They motivate people more than anything else. But this change Jesus speaks of is completely different.
Frederick Nietzsche, for all his skepticism about faith once said, “I will believe in the Redeemer when the Christians look a little more redeemed.” Fair point, huh? Those who believe in redemption ought to look redeemed.
What motivates you? Anxiety, anger, and division? Those are very human emotions. They pass through us all. But Jesus calls us to something greater. He calls us to joy. It will cost us everything. And it will be the best decision we ever make.
May the bliss of joy reshape your life, so that everyone you encounter knows that you have been redeemed by a gift of grace that’s so powerful it can’t be earned. It’s only accessed as a gift of the kingdom of heaven. Amen.
