Hunting for Treasure

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

– Matthew 13:44

When we were eight years old, my twin brother and I moved into our mamaw’s house. She was our great-grandmother and this was the house that our mother had grown up in. When we moved in, most of the furniture was still there. Drawers full of scorecards from old Rook games and a Piggly Wiggly shopping list from sometime before we were born. Dishes and pots left in the kitchen cabinets and her old braided rug in the living room too. It was like moving into a museum. I loved it.

That first summer, my brother and I would make “treasure hunts” for each other: a list of clues or a map where X marked the spot. We found jewelry and my mama’s old teddy bear. It didn’t matter what we found; the hunt was always fun, even when we had to ask for an extra clue.

Did you hunt for treasure as a kid? When did you stop? Why did we stop?

The kingdom is like buried treasure. Jesus’ story is so short, just one verse long, maybe a better way to tell it is like this: The kingdom is like hunting for buried treasure. The kingdom is like giving every bit of yourself to find that buried treasure. The hunt is the treasure.

Remember those stories about dragons and knights? The true of heart on a quest to rescue the damsel or to bring the kingdom back to wholeness. Hearing these myths for the first time, most of us are struck by how true they feel. And that is because we are all on that same quest, our whole lives long. Searching for the part of us that needs rescuing and fighting to bring to wholeness that which is broken.

How would you talk about your search, your treasure hunt? What is the object of your quest?

Don’t have an answer? That’s ok! Most of us have grown up believing that the best faith has the best answers, as if there could ever be a splendid answer to the worst of life’s challenges. But how else to quest except to quest-ion? The question is the treasure. Just talk to Job: God never answered the man, God just came out of the whirlwind and said, I am here; you are not alone.

Every class we offer at Christ Church is a chance to continue your quest. I can’t promise you all the answers, but I can promise you that your questions are important. My mission is not to help you find out more information about God, but to help you cultivate a deeper trust in God. You are not alone in your questions. God is with us all in this quest. The quest is the treasure.

Lifelong quest. Lifelong questions. Lifelong treasure hunt.

The questing and the questions lead us home, lead us to the kingdom.

And besides, it’s fun.