Go for the Gold

So here’s the story … Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is like a man ploughing a field. His plough hits something. He bends down to see what it is. He brushes aside the dirt … and lo and behold … it’s a treasure chest!

He lifts the lid up. The hinges creak. He can’t believe his eyes. The chest is filled with gold and jewels!

He looks around to see if anyone’s watching him. He buries the treasure back in the ground.

He leaves his plough lying in the middle of the field and runs home. He gathers up all his possessions and heads for the local flea market. He sells everything he owns to get as much cash as he can.

He goes to the home of the owner of the field, and with as much nonchalance as he can muster, he says, “Ahh … I’ve been thinking I wanted to get myself some land. How much do you want for that rocky, worthless, barren field out there? Call me crazy, but I'd like to buy it."

Now some of you may be a little concerned about the business ethics of doing something like that, but in the mind of Jesus, the kingdom of God belongs to people such as this … people who are willing to … go for the gold!

Risk, connive, get that field, grab the treasure!

Maybe I should agonize over the shady ethics of this parable, but I need to tell you, the few verses making up this story that we read this morning are some of my favourite verses in all of scripture … seize the day … seize the moment … don’t let the opportunity of a lifetime slip through your fingers!

Maybe that’s why, as a kid, one of my favorite books was Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island."

I must have read that book ten times! Of course, I identified with Jim, the kid in the story. But thinking back, I really loved the adults in "Treasure Island" too, because I didn't know any adults like the characters in Treasure Island … grownups who went all in … risked everything … for nothing more than some map scrawled on a piece of paper.

The adults I knew stayed home, kept their heads down, went to work in the morning and then they came back again in the evening. My Mom stayed home with the kids. My Dad worked for the same company for 35 years.

But in "Treasure Island," they risked everything … they lied if need be … they had great lives and exciting deaths.

When I started out at university, I was considering a lot of possible career moves … none of which included becoming a Presbyterian minister.

But then, at the encouragement of my home congregation, I attended a conference being held in Guelph by the national Presbyterian church. It was called Congress ’79 – it was held in 1979.

Well, I found a lot of the talks very interesting and inspiring, but I wasn’t blown away by them.

But then, on Saturday night, I was invited to sit in with a bunch of young ministers … to have a glass of wine and listen to them talk about their lives and their ministries.

One of them was starting a new church. He was talking about how they were reaching out to so many young people and families in the suburbs of a large city. They didn’t have an organ. They used guitars and sang songs like the ones you sing at camp.

Another one spoke of missionary work in Africa. Living in the neighbourhood of lions and elephants, reaching out to people who had never heard the good news of the Christian faith.

A third one had been involved with the civil rights movement in the American south. He’d been harassed and persecuted by the Ku Klux Klan. He'd had a cross burned in his front yard. A friend of his had a brick thrown through the windshield of his car, because he’d been speaking out against racism … and all of this as a result of their commitment to the Christian faith … all of this as they responded to the call of God in their lives!

And in my lowly status as a university student working on his BA, I thought to myself, "Wow! This sounds great! I didn't know that being a Presbyterian could be this much fun!"

Back then, anybody with a bus left to find adventure or buried treasure … well … count me in!

But, it doesn’t take very long to lose that wild streak … does it?

You get married, you have children … at 27 years old, you find yourself ministering to an aging congregation in Northern Ontario. You have student loans and car loans to pay off. You have diapers and baby food to buy.

And before you know it, you’re thinking to yourself, if Jesus were to come by and say, "Hey, there's buried treasure around the next bend in the road,” I would likely have said, “Yes, but does this include health insurance? Do you guarantee my sacrifice will be worth it? Do we have seat belts?"

A few years ago, a friend of mine - an Anglican priest - was looking to buy a motorcycle.

A salesman, sees him looking over one particularly nice motorcycle, says to him, "Now, this bike can go from zero to a hundred in 5 seconds. Nothing can touch you when you’re on this, baby!"

Then the salesman asks, "So … what do you do for a living?"

My friend answers, “I’m an Anglican priest …”

The salesman does a double take and tries out a new sales pitch, "Well, let me tell you, this is also a very, very safe motorcycle you got here."

You know, there’s a saying which has haunted me all my life – ever since someone told it to me when I graduated from High School. It’s a warning against losing our zeal for life and adventure …

This person said to me, "Remember one thing as you go forward from school into life: Even if you win the rat race, remember … you're still a rat."

He was telling the truth. There is this virtually irresistible tendency of life to move relentlessly from adventure … into tame predictability.

One day you're a fiery, young person ready to grab the world by the tail – to seek out new challenges and adventures … “to boldly go where no one has gone before!”

And the next day you're some old guy, slouched in an easy chair, complaining about how the “young kids are ruining the world.”

One day you're a teenager, excited about the prospect of leaving home, abandoning your parents, and going to university, where you can party until late in the night, and do and think whatever way you like … and your parents can’t do a thing about it. And then the next day, you're just a university student, grinding your way through the lectures, trying to accumulate enough credits to graduate.

And then there’s Jesus saying, “The Kingdom of God belongs to those with the courage to throw caution to the wind, and gamble everything on buried treasure!”

I’ve spent the last 42 years as a Presbyterian minister. We’re not exactly known as “wild and crazy guys!” And the churches we serve are usually conservative, cautious and concerned with survival and maintaining the status quo.

Would I be willing or able to risk everything for the proverbial treasure hidden in the field … heck! … would I even recognize a treasure for which I would be willing to risk it all?

Life is short. Is it possible the only thing worse than not reaching our goals, is to set our goals so low … it’s way too easy to reach them?

We can be a success at life in the eyes of the world … but what about adventure … treasure … carpe diem?

Maybe we sell out too quickly. We settle for too little. We make nothing more important than money … and in so doing … we miss out on the buried treasure.

One day … two thousand years ago … Jesus stops by the side of the road. He’s talking to people about discipleship. He’s explaining to them the cost of following him.

Jesus says, “If you follow me, you may be rejected by your own family. It could be … your friends and neighbours will turn against you. There might be jail time … beatings … worse. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

And guess what? There are still some people … maybe it’s only a few … but enough to make a difference in the world, who, despite the warning of Jesus, drop everything they’re doing, leave family and friends behind, walk away from the prospect of worldly success, overturn the tables of the money changers … and follow him … follow him …

So … maybe the next time Jesus comes by with a fantastic offer ... too good to be true. When he sidles up to you on the church pew and says, "Come on with me. We're going to go look for buried treasure in a field. We're going to a place where there are pearls worth more than all the jewels in the world. We're going to a place where the king invites the poor and the lame to sit down at his banquet table with him. Come on, you have to come now!"

Maybe we’ll forget about all those people who say: "It's better to be safe than sorry." "Be careful!" "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Maybe we’ll go with Jesus and discover a wonderful new adventure in faith!