I wonder how it feels to be thought of as a treasure for which someone will give all that they have and are. I can respond to that wondering from my own personal experience as I was a child who invited Jesus into my heart but who, as a teenager, felt I was unworthy of his love. At that time if I had known them I would have identified with the confessions written by Lancelot Andrewes in which he admits to being the chief of sinners, an unclean worm, a dead dog, a putrid corpse saying I have sinned, I have done perversely, I have committed wickedness; Lord, I know the plague of my own heart.
Fortunately, a youth leader talked this through with me one evening and showed me Romans 5.8 - God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. I came to realise that God loved me; loved me so much that he gave up his own life for me. I was the treasure and he was the one who sold everything in order to purchase me. I was the pearl of great value and he was the merchant who sold all he had to buy me (Matthew 3.44-46, 52). Later, I had an experience of uncontrollable laughter for what seemed like hours on end as I became aware of the weight that had been lifted from me and the love that had filled me.
Most sermons we have heard preached on these parables will have told us that our salvation is the treasure and we are those who have to give up all we have to possess it. Those sermons pitch us back into guilt and uncertainty; have I done enough by giving up enough or have I compromised and forfeited salvation? Those sermons have it all upside down and back to front.
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 and the pearl for which he seeks because to him we are of great value; treasure, though we may not know it. In the Eucharistic Prayer shortly we will hear that 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.
I wonder how it feels to be thought of as a treasure for which someone will give all that they have and are. For me, it felt as though a weight had been lifted from me, that love had filled giving a sense of joy – of uncontrollable laughter – welling up within and overflowing. I wonder how it feels for you.
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Andrew Rumsey - Pilot Light.
