One of my favorite movies of all time is the third in the Indiana
Jones trilogy, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This was
the one starring Sean Connery and Harrison Ford, who were searching
worldwide for the Holy Grail. The father had spent his entire life
amassing data from obscure libraries and research facilities around
the world. He had a sketch book and maps and clues pieced
together into a journal, which his son used to carry on the search.
As an aside, several people in this movie are on missions requiring
their singular focus. But one piece of advice Sean Connery gives
Harrison Ford is, "Now, Junior [Indiana hated it when his
father called him "Junior"], just remember, X never
marks the spot." He meant, there's never anything so obvious to
identify your destination: "This is it. This is the
place." And of course later in the movie, there's a great sight
gag related to that maxim.
I captured that phrase, "X marks the spot," for my sermon
today because X is the Greek letter chi, which is the first
letter of the name Christos, Christ our Lord. I hope we will find
this morning that an X in fact does mark the spot where Christ is and
where he wants us to be.
It is a fact that we're all searching for something. We come to
church because we're looking for love, and we're looking for God. We
look for satisfaction in life. We look for the best buy. We are
looking for that which will give our lives meaning. We are all on a
quest for that which will ultimately satisfy us. One of the tragedies
of American culture is how satisfied people are with so little - and
dissatisfied with so much - that they stop looking for what is
really, really important. There comes a moment in our life, when we
realize we're still thirsty, still hungry for that which would
satisfy our soul.
It is to those moments that Jesus speaks his words: "Everyone
who drinks this mere well water will be thirsty again, but whoever
drinks of the water I will give him will never thirst. Indeed the
water I give will become in you a spring of water welling up to
eternal life" (John 4:13-14).The buried treasure in the field of
Jesus' parable points to this living water today.
Our children, since they were very little, have looked forward to
Christmas morning and the famous treasure hunt that Daddy puts
together. Katy and Judy are not here today, so I can tell you the
secret of how this works. Late at night on Christmas Eve, sometimes
even after we've been to church, Andy writes the verses and the clues
that send the kids scrambling all over the house the next morning for
the one big present that's been hidden away for them. It is so fun to
see the joy and delight on their faces when they find what they've
been looking for. The focus of their attention, trying to
figure out those clues, is such a delight. Childhood offered those
moments of surprise and delight which I'm drawing upon, as I think
about the thrill this man in our parable today experienced when he
found something so good waiting for him.
Those moments of delight happen when we solve a big problem, or when
a good thing sneaks up on us, and - all of a sudden - the enjoyment
of it just overwhelms us. In the jaded world in which we live, in the
American culture in which we are immersed, we often miss the
significance of particular discoveries.
This almost happened to my friend Roberta Hestenes about ten
years when she was president of Eastern College near Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. She was relatively new as the president of this
Christian college, and one of the visions that she had was to start a
music department. Eastern did not have one, and the cost to do so was
a huge obstacle. Meanwhile, the student body was expanding and more
facilities were needed. They began to reclaim some of the
older, unused, and unrenovated houses and buildings on their
beautiful campus. As they started to clean out the basement of one
particular house, amid cobwebby corners and old furniture and stuff
stashed away everywhere, they uncovered an old metal cupboard with a
lock. They were able to open it up, only to find some papers and junk
in it - you know, nothing that looked very important, except they
didn't throw anything away "just in case." They took a look
and found some original, handwritten musical manuscripts that were
intriguing. So they sent them off to a scholar for an evaluation. It
turns out that what they had found were original compositional
manuscripts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! These yellowed, brittle pages
looked like junk, but were actually extremely valuable. The
manuscripts were put up for auction and sold for more than a million
dollars, enough to provide the first endowment for a new music
department at Eastern College!
Now Roberta could have missed the moment. The person cleaning out
that room could have missed the significance of that find, and, in
fact, it often happens that what appears to be worthless can be the
most precious commodity in life.
Jesus as storyteller capitalizes on a surprising moment, telling this
parable to tap into the most delicious of feelings, to describe what
it is like to discover the kingdom of God.
In Jesus' time, there weren't banks, safe-deposit boxes, or even
self-storage units available. If you wanted to save something that
was particularly valuable, you'd find an out-of-the-way place and
bury it. It's interesting that the man who finds the treasure
didn't just take it. This would be inappropriate for that culture.
But if he acquired the land, he could have whatever was there, in
which case "finders keepers"! And so he reburied the
treasure, didn't tell anybody it was there, and made plans to
purchase the property. In doing so, he traded in one set of
valuables, namely, his current assets, for that which he saw to have
much greater value. He recognized that his old asset portfolio was
pale and puny compared to the obvious riches that awaited him if he
would make that tradeoff. He recognized then that there was something
more to life than what he originally thought.
A transaction takes place when we receive the gospel. When we receive
the gospel, we receive something of such value that we are required
to put aside, to give away, to relinquish, other things of the
world that are not nearly so valuable. Jesus said we could not own
both the value of the kingdom of God in your heart and the value of
the world. You have to trade them off. But the joy and the delight of
the discovery is so wonderful, you don't even think about it because
Kingdom value is so overwhelmingly huge, it's worth it.
To illustrate: Barry Bonds has hit so far this season 54 home runs.
As we wait to see if he can create a new record, I am reminded of
Mark McGwire's record home run several years ago. You remember
the story of the ball, No. 62. . . .This was the record-breaking ball
that he hit out into the field. Tim Foneris, who at the time
was 22 years old, was a computer analyst who worked part time as a
groundskeeper for the Saint Louis cardinals. He is the one who
retrieved Mark McGwire's 62nd home run ball, and he became famous for
turning the ball over to McGwire instead of holding onto it and
selling it for perhaps as much as a million dollars.
A newspaper columnist by the name of Daniel Kadlec called this an
"honorable gesture." But then he used this 22-year-old as a
bad example of poor personal financial habits and wrote an entire
column giving pointers on financial decision-making. His three
points were 1) sleep on decisions before you act on them, 2) avoid
herd thinking, and 3) treat found money seriously." That was his
advice. Not surprisingly, Foneris wrote back to the columnist, and
here is his thoughtful explanation of his actions.
"First of all, despite what Mr. Kadlec wrote in his article, I
did not get $5,000 worth of stuff from McGwire. I did not ask for any
memorabilia, and I did not receive any.
According to Mr. Kadlec, my first sin was the impulse decision to
give the ball back to Mr.McGwire immediately. But my decision was by
no means on impulse. I had thought over what I would do if I ever got
a home run ball and had discussed it with my family and friends. Also
I can assure you that I was not influenced by herd thinking. What did
influence my actions was my family and my background. I have always
been taught to respect others and their accomplishments. I value all
people's achievements, big and small. In my opinion, Mr. McGwire
deserved not only the home run record for his work, but also this
particular ball. Life is about more than just money. It is about
family, friends and the experience you have with them. As for my
third financial sin of easy come - easy go, I believe some
possessions are priceless. To put an economic value on Mr.McGwire's
hard work and dedication is absurd. Being the person who received the
ball was a great blessing to me, and being able to return it to Mr.
McGwire was a real honor and thrill. I would not trade that
experience for a million dollars."
I love that story, because this young man had a very clear idea in
his mind of what was valuable, and he lived his life consistent with
that sense of value. That is precisely the sort of costly tradeoff we
make when we adopt or are adopted by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We
are trading in values of the world for that which is of a surpassing
and eternal value, and it is that value that we must talk about right
now.
How do you determine if something has value? I have been told even by
city officials here in Concord that Concord residents "really
seek out a good value." What is value? Something has value if I
need it. If I have a need, and something can fill the need, then it
has value automatically.
If it is one-of-a-kind, it has value. If, for instance, it's the only
authentic autograph Mozart wrote of that particular composition, it
is obviously valuable. It is unique. There is nothing else like it.
A particular thing may have sentimental value. I have this funny
little ceramic easychair with a cat sitting on it, right in front of
my kitchen sink. The ceramic has no intrinsic value, but it is very
valuable to me, because Roger and Mushy Simpson, pastor friends of
ours who now minister in Vancouver, gave that to me twenty years ago
when we visited them in England. I cherish it because I love the
people who gave it to me.
And then there's the the question of how much do you get back for
what it costs? You know how it is: you love it when you get something
for free, or you get double for your money, or whatever. That's
another way of calculating value.
So now we have to translate all that into an answer to the question
of how we find value in the gospel. So many people in the world today
act as if the gospel has no value at all, because they feel it is
irrelevant or they don't feel the need for it. But in fact the
Scriptures tell us that we have a very particular need. Romans 6:23
says, "For the wages [the consequences] of sin is death, but the
gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Salvation
is rescue from eternal death, and we all - all - have sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Every person has
the spiritual need for salvation. Consequently, the gospel - the
kingdom of God, salvation - is valuable to anyone who needs it,
which would be everybody.
Second of all, there is only one way this need can be met. Again, the
Scriptures say in Acts 4 that "salvation is found in no one
else, for there is no other name under heaven given to us by which we
must be saved" (Acts 4:12). People have asked me, "Well,
can't Jews be saved, or Muslims be saved, or animists in Africa be
saved?" I say, "Sure they can be saved." The question
is not, "Who can be saved?" The question is, "Who
saves them?" And there is only One who saves, Jesus Christ the
Lord. The treasure we have is the gospel of Jesus Christ given so
that all have the opportunity to be saved. Everyone is invited to
find salvation in the Lord, and to trade in their old valueless stuff
for its treasure.
So Jesus is unique and valuable. The gift of salvation we have
received comes from a very special person, Jesus himself, who died on
the cross for our sin as an expression of his love for us, giving us
the ultimate gift far more valuable than the little ceramic cat
sitting above my kitchen sink. The gospel of Jesus Christ is valuable
because the one who gave it to us is the king of the universe, the
Lord of all, the shepherd of my soul.
And the price? Are we getting enough for our dollar, so to speak? The
Scripture says money can't even purchase this. It cost me nothing
because there isn't anything I can give that who ensure my salvation,
but it cost God everything. It cost Jesus Christ his life, which he
willingly gave and poured out for me and for you. Whether you wanted
him to or not, he did that for you. So to you, it's a free gift. But
not without cost, a cost which Jesus Christ himself paid.
So I would say that the gospel has value. I would go so far as to say
it has incomparable value. There is nothing worth more than
salvation in Jesus Christ, and that's the point that Jesus was
making. The dear man and the person looking for that pearl of great
price found what had unsurpassed value.
Now what do we do with that? The story talks about the joy, the
rejoicing that the discoverers had in finding the treasure, the
surprise, the delight, the "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this -
this is too good to be true - I've won the lottery!" kind of
feeling. This is the "divine gift" side of the parable, as
the "finders" come to possess something they did not earn,
something they were hardly even looking for, it just happened to show
up in their life. God took the initiative to make known to us the
gospel in his son Jesus Christ, revealing himself and his love, his
motivation, his justice, and his truth through Christ's work on the
cross. This great gift came to us in Jesus, producing joy - the
indisputable evidence of the presence of God.
Joy enabled that person to turn around and to sell absolutely
everything he owned to buy that plot of land and to acquire
legally what he had discovered. Gospel writer Matthew appreciates not
only the divine side of the gift - the grace side of the equation -
but also highlights the "human responsibility" side of the gift.
You just don't receive it and say, "Oh, thanks, goodbye!"
No. In order to have it and keep it, he had to sell everything else
and exchange the proceeds for that of surpassing value.
The treasure itself is a gift, and once that gift is found, selling
or trading in everything else becomes a condition for having and
keeping it. Now this is a hard word for us, because we really want to
keep the best of both worlds (The Kingdom and the World), don't we?
We think, "Well, if I keep the gospel contained on Sunday,
sealed in its little box at church, and then go after the world's
values the rest of the week, that's okay." But Jesus
challenges that thinking! "No. That's not okay."
That's not really laying hold of the gospel with the single minded
focus of our treasure hunter.
Trading everything in to keep the salvation we have found in Jesus is
not a painful and begrudging thing, the parable says. In fact, it's a
no-brainer. The guy is so overwhelmed, he says, "Oh my gosh.
I've got to have this." He goes off, sells everything and comes
back. And that's when we know that salvation has really made its
mark, when we don't even give the tradeoff a second thought. We don't
fixate on what we're "giving up." We don't obsess on what
we might have had if we had not put our trust in the gospel, because
we know the gospel is where we belong. The kingdom of God is our place.
This is "the spot." And Jesus Christ, our Savior and
Lord, marks that spot with the Cross. Nothing else ultimately is
important.
It's possible that you might have sold everything you have for the
wrong thing. A passage like this challenges us to think about what
we've traded our life in for. Have we traded it in for the gospel,
for the grace of Jesus Christ and the truth of his Word, or have we
traded it in for some cheap imitation. . . Something we've
given value to, that really, intrinsically, has no lasting value?
I'm going to leave that question dangling for you personally, but
recognize that some individuals in our society have sold all their
possessions to support, for instance, a cocaine habit. I think of the
heartbreaking example of the daughter in the movie Traffic,
who had absolutely everything, every privilege one could enjoy, and
sold it all, including her body, and her mind, and all her assets,
for her next fix.
That is for most of us probably only an illustration, but we may be
doing the same thing to feed a different kind of drive or a different
kind of addiction, or a different kind of dissatisfaction in our
lives. We might have invested everything in our work and abandoned
our faith. We might have invested everything in our recreation to the
detriment of our spiritual growth. We may have completely missed the
treasure lying undisturbed in the field next door.
Today, I pray that you have eyes to see and ears to hear the simple
little message that Jesus gives us today: The treasure of the
gospel of Jesus Christ is buried where X marks the spot, where Jesus
himself marks the place with his Cross. He is greater than anything
else in your life, now or in the future. He is waiting to be
discovered. He is waiting to personally deliver the treasure that has
your name on it. Are you ready now to trade in the meager assets you
bring to the table for this gospel, the kingdom of God of surpassing
value? I invite you to make the trade.
Let's pray together.
Oh gracious God, the great vistas and majestic mountain peaks of your
gospel beckon us to something greater and broader than our everyday
experience. We recognize, Lord, that we get very myopic in our lives,
and we forget the surpassing knowledge of knowing you, of loving you,
of giving our lives to you. For those for whom joy is not the first
response to the gospel, would you please move in by your Holy Spirit
and replace the reticence or the concern or the doubts with this
overwhelming sense of your power and majesty and grace and love in
their lives. For those for whom the joy of salvation is fading, would
you renew a steadfast joyful spirit within us. And would you help us
to remember again the surpassing greatness of knowing you. Help us to
fix our eyes on you, Lord. Help us to see you, to know you, to sing
about you, to see your worth, to worship you with a whole and
undivided heart. And let that characterize our lives for your glory,
for you are the one to be praised. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.