Bishop Fulton Sheen in his autobiography, Treasure in Clay, wrote about an experience he had when he was traveling around preaching:
“I stopped to ask a few boys for directions to the Town Hall where I was giving a lecture. They told me where the Town Hall was and then asked, “What are you going to do there?”
“I’m giving a lecture on heaven and how to get there. Would you like to come and find out?”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” one boy said. “You don’t even know the way to the Town Hall.”[1]
So if someone were to ask you how to get to the kingdom of heaven, what would you say? Today’s parables have some surprising answers.
Every day we experience the first parable: we are just going about our business when we hit a snag. I can almost hear the farmer, “Dang it! Martha? ‘Nother stone!” Many of us when we hit a snag in our day, may have stronger language than that. What’s amazing is that the farmer, in taking the time to remove the obstacle from the path, recognizes the “obstacle” for what it is…treasure! Now in an ethical sense, what the farmer does next is a little fishy. In Roman law, as in our own, treasure belongs to the owner of a field in which it is found. The ethics are not the point here. The point is the great joy and great singleness of purpose that grip the farmer. If we are the farmer, it suggests that the kingdom of heaven can be found in the snags and interruptions of our day. But how often in our days we hit a snag, do we look for the “treasure” that may be hidden in it? How often do we seize the opportunity God has placed before us? Are we willing to throw everything we have into that opportunity? We are the treasure seeker, and the Kingdom of Heaven is a treasure we weren’t looking for, but we run into or run over the Kingdom in the course of our ordinary lives.
Some of us have experienced the second parable. Today, I think Jesus might have said that the kingdom of heaven is like a garage-saler. How many of you have seen the TV program, “Antique Roadshow?” My favorite part is when someone brings out a piece of junk and discovers that it is worth a fortune. One of my favorites was a young woman who went to a garage sale and saw three paintings that looked seemed a bit faded, but had an unmistakable flair for color and style…unmistakable to her anyway. She asked the seller what they wanted for them and they said $20 each. She walked back to the car, scrounged for every last dollar and fighting down her excitement, went back to buy the paintings. She had recognized that the paintings were done by one of the great artists of the 1800s and were worth tens of thousands of dollars if not more. The kingdom of heaven is like a garage-saler out looking for something valuable—you and me. Some people may not think we are worth much, but when God finds us, he recognizes all the best and most beautiful possibilities in us, perhaps things even we do not see. God is the treasure seeker and we are the treasure worth everything God had.
Which brings us back to how do we find the Kingdom of Heaven? Jesus has some good news for us today. If we are looking for the Kingdom of Heaven, we don’t have far to look—we probably run into or trip over the Kingdom of Heaven every day. If we are looking for the Kingdom of Heaven, we won’t have far to look—the Kingdom of Heaven is looking for us! We will recognize we have run into the Kingdom or the Kingdom has run into us because the Kingdom is wherever God’s rule is felt. The real question then is not whether we will find the Kingdom of Heaven, but whether we will recognize it when we do, and as one commentator writes, “When we find it (“fully grasp its infinite worth”), [will we] joyfully let go of all competing claims on our lives and make it our one great possession?”
The curious thing about the Kingdom of Heaven is that although we can try to see it ahead of us, it seems the only way to really see it is through the sign of the One who embodied Kingdom come: the sign of the cross. Here the Treasure Seeking Lord was willing to die to purchase us, His treasure. On the cross we discover that Christ is the steadfast, sacrificial treasure we have sought all our lives. Through the cross, we recognize the Kingdom of Heaven—the blind will see, the lame will walk, kindness will be done, compassion will be shown, beauty will be seen, love will be shared. Turn around! The Kingdom of Heaven is upon you!
[1]www.SermonCentral.com. Contributed by Tim Sherman.