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What is your treasure? (16 March)

It always fascinates me to see what people class as valuable. This is often highlighted on tv shows such as BBC’s ‘Flog it’; individuals dig out those things which have been hidden in a cupboard for years, or have been passed down the generations, taking them along to be valued by experts before going to auction. The look on their faces is often priceless – either in shock at what it is truly worth or more often desperately trying to hide the disappointment of being told it probably won’t fetch more than £10-£20 (before the auction house takes it commission), when clearly they’d though it was worth thousands!

All of us probably have a sense of the value of treasure and of what we treasure most. It might not only be the hope of getting something valuable in the future; perhaps we treasure an object we already possess – a gift or something we’ve won. Our treasure might be a piece of jewellery we’ve been given, a birthday or Christmas present from a loved one. It might be an object of sentimental value more than monetary value, but it’s still our ‘treasure’, which we would hate to lose if everything was taken away from us or we were forced to leave our home, like the millions of refugees fleeing Ukraine at this time. A person – a spouse, parent, son or daughter – could be our treasure. It is something of ultimate value to us, beyond everything else we could ever have or want.

In Matthew 13:44, Jesus tells a parable about a man who discovers treasure hidden in a field. He covers it up and then, in his joy, goes and sells everything and buys the field with the treasure in it. Jesus explains that the field is the kingdom of heaven. It’s something so well worth having that the man gets rid of everything else so that he can buy the field. The story is a simple illustration of ultimate value and worth. The treasure is priceless, worth more than everything else to the man. Like him, we might have had the experience of finding treasure: buying things we have wanted for a long time or selling possessions to enable us to get something better. The parable reminds us of what is of ultimate worth to us: we will go to any lengths to get it. Jesus’ next parable in Matthew 13:45-46 has the same message.

So what is your treasure? What is of ultimate value to you? As Christians, our treasure should be the kingdom of God, or the rule of God in our lives: it should be worth more to us than anything else we could ever want. We should be seeking nothing else but the presence of God in our lives. We should seek the kingdom of God with the gusto of the pirates in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. We should guard our life with God as if it were the most valued possession we have.

In an earlier chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6: 19-21).

Eleanor Hull, author of the hymn, ‘Be thou my vision’ sums it up very well in the penultimate verse:

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Be thou my inheritance now and always,

Be thou and thou only, the first in my heart,

O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.