Where your treasure is, there is your heart

Here's the reflection I shared during the Healing Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford this evening: 

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

What is your treasure? Where is it to be found? Where your treasure is, there is your heart.

The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

What is your treasure? Where is it to be found? Where your treasure is, there is your heart.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

As we reflect that we are precious to God – more precious even than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field – let us also think for a moment about the story told in the New Testament and who it is who gives up everything to gain something precious. The answer to that wondering is Jesus! Jesus is the one who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. Jesus is the one who gives up all he has – even to the point of death - to seek and save us; the lost, the hidden.

We are the treasure for which he seeks because to him we are of great value; treasure, though we may not know it. We are the pearl of great price for which he sold all that he had in order that he might buy us. As we hear each Sunday in the Eucharistic Prayer, the ever-present and ever-living God is with us, for we are precious, honoured and loved. We know this because Christ gave up all he had in order to be with us, even in death.

Once we become aware that we are God’s treasure for which Jesus gives his life, then Jesus becomes our treasure and our hearts become his.

What is your treasure? Where is it to be found? Where your treasure is, there is your heart.

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Iona - Treasure.