Buried Treasure

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 13:44-52                                         

July 26, 2026

Proper 12A                                 

Dear saints of our Savior~

        You really can’t go wrong watching episodes of Antiques Roadshow on PBS.  That’s the program where people bring in their antiques and heirlooms to be appraised by experts—to see whether they have trash or treasure—something that’s worthless or worth a lot.

        For people like me, with an untrained eye, it can be difficult to tell whether an item is trash or treasure.  What may look like a beautiful vase dating from the “Ming Dynasty” might actually have been made in New Jersey.  And what looks to me like a desert landscape painted “by the numbers” might turn out to be a one-of-a-kind masterpiece valued at six figures.  It’s exciting to think that something you own—something boxed-up in your basement or gathering dust in your attic—might actually be an extremely valuable treasure.

        Jesus knew that this drive to hunt for treasure is hardwired into most human beings; and perhaps that’s why He told two quick parables that build on this basic instinct to search for and seek out things of great value:  The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.  Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  In a day before banks and safety deposit boxes, it was quite common for people to bury things of great value.  Especially if an invading army was on the way, or if you were about to embark on a long journey, burying your treasured possessions was often the most effective way to protect them.

        The next parable concerns a pearl—but not just any pearl:  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.  In First Century Palestine pearls were just as valuable as gold.  If you were lucky enough to find one of great price, you would do all you could to acquire it.

        So, now that we know the earthly stories, what’s the “heavenly meaning” of these parables?  The prevailing interpretation of these parables down through the centuries has been that they are about discipleship—that the buried treasure and the priceless pearl correspond to the truth of the Gospel—that we are saved from the power of sin and death through faith in the crucified and risen Christ—that He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.  And, yes, this is pure gold!  This is a priceless treasure!  Just as the people in the parables sold all they had to acquire that treasure and that pearl, so should we spare no expense in following Jesus and acquiring the gold of the gospel.  Nothing in this world—not family, not money, not career—should compare with our regular reception of Christ’s gifts to us in Word and Sacrament.  Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.  When it comes to Jesus and His gifts, we should bear any burden, make any sacrifice, and pay any price to have those treasures as our own.

        But that traditional interpretation has a problem—a problem posed by our sinful condition. Our sinful natures prefer trash to treasure.  God’s Word tells us that our salvation in Jesus Christ should be our most treasured possession.  It says in 1 Peter that your faith is “of greater worth than gold.”  The First Commandment proclaims our priorities perfectly:  You shall have no other gods.  We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.  We “fear” a lot of things.  We fear the disapproval of others.  We fear viruses and parasites.  We fear losing our jobs and incomes.  But we do not fear God as we should.  We do not love Him or trust Him or seek Him as we should.  We do not treasure Him above all else.  We are like faithless Esau, quick to trade away our baptismal birthright for a pot of stew.  We are certainly not like the treasure hunters in the parable who gave up everything—all that they had—to acquire the treasure.  Have you given up everything for the faith?  Would you give up everything?

        If we take this interpretation to its logical conclusion, it’s not very satisfying.  If our discipleship hinges entirely on our pursuit of heavenly treasure—if it’s all about our quest for holiness—then all we are left with is our sin and our failure and our disobedience.  We are left with all trash and no treasure.

        But there is another interpretation of these parables—one that centers on Jesus, and not on us.  For the thing that the treasure hunter and the pearl merchant have in common is that they “sold everything,” they gave all they had, to “buy” their desired treasure.  There was an exchange.  There was a purchase made. There was a quid pro quo, a this-for-that.  Only one man actually gave up everything—including His very life—to acquire the object of His desire.  That man was Jesus.  He alone came to give His life as a ransom payment for the many (Matt. 20:28).

        In this Christ-centered approach to the parables, Jesus is the treasure hunter and you—you are the treasure.  You are holy to the Lord your God.  He has chosen you as His treasured possession.  You, dear baptized believer, are priceless and precious in the eyes of Jesus, who purchased and won you from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, that you might be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.  You aren’t trash; you are treasure!  You aren’t worthless; but worthy to be called a child of God though faith in Jesus.

        Without Jesus and without faith, we are lost.  When sin is the center of our lives, then we are not only lost, but dead.  We are, in fact, dead and buried, just like the treasure in the parable.  But we who once were lost have now been found.  Our sin has been answered for.  A loving Lord has rescued us from the trash heap and claimed us as His own.  You are not your own; you were bought at a price (1 Cor. 6:18-20).

        Jesus sought you and bought you.  You are precious and paid-for—blood-bought, baptized, and beautiful.  In fact, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us so.  Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

        On this side of heaven, however, God’s treasure remains somewhat hidden.  We are the Lord’s treasured possession, but we often feel like “buried” treasure.  We are buried beneath the world’s hatred—buried beneath the weight of our own struggles against sin—buried beneath the load of crosses that our Lord would have us carry.  But you belong to Jesus.  You are precious to Him.  And that changes everything.

        Many of the Lord’s treasured possessions are no longer with us.  We knew them, and loved them—parents and grandparents, spouses and children.  We treasured them for a time, but now they have gone to be with the Lord—with the One who treasures them so much more than we ever could.  Their earthly remains now lie at rest, buried in the earth—like treasure.  But on the Day of Resurrection we know what will happen.  Those resting places—those cemeteries—will be like fields of buried treasure from which the Lord with all His angels will raise up all the dead and will claim all that is rightfully His.  You are rightfully His.  You together with all the saints are the Lord’s precious, priceless treasure.  You are safe in His keeping until that blessed day.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

Present Suffering, Future Glory

Jesu Juva

Romans 8:18-27                                                  

July 19, 2026

Proper 11A         

Dear saints of our Savior~

        I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  That is 24 karat, 200 proof good news.  And that’s just the first sentence of today’s magnificent epistle reading from Romans 8.

        But before we unpack those words, let me first take you to the scene depicted on today’s bulletin cover. 

This photo comes from a museum in Florence, Italy. On the right and left sides of this passageway are unfinished, uncompleted sculptures from the studios of Michelangelo. The artist was working on them, but stopped in the middle of his work, leaving behind these works-in-progress.  The marble edges are rough.  The stones are crudely shaped. 

But emerging from these blocks of stone are the beginnings of figures.  Some have no faces.  Others are missing arms or legs. Michelangelo began these works but never finished them.  What they once were—rough slabs of marble—is gone.  Yet what they will be—beautiful sculptures—is not yet here.  As you stand in that hallway you realize that the past is gone . . . and yet not completely gone.  The future is here . . . and yet not completely here.  The figures are still encased and enslaved in stone.

But hey, we don’t have to go to Italy to see unfinished works of art; just go upstairs into our former sanctuary.  It’s not what it once was; and it is certainly not what it will be.  Dust dominates that space, along with heat and smoke and conduit and masonry ripped asunder.  We suffer through all that now; knowing it’s not worth comparing with the glory that is coming.

        In Romans chapter eight Paul invites us into scenes like these.  He wants us to see how we are ensconced right now in the middle of God’s great and mighty work. The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  Suffering and glory are held together in that one sentence; just like suffering and glory are held together in this very moment—in you.  Like rough-hewn stone, our present world is filled with suffering.  God originally formed a beautiful creation.  But our first parents sinned and brought suffering into God’s perfect creation.  God had warned them, “The day you eat of it, you shall die,” and now that punishment—that curse—is set in stone.  Human beings live and die beneath that curse every day. 

Now only God can free His creatures and bring about a new creation.  And that’s the glory that Paul has seen in Jesus Christ.  Like the firstfruits foretelling a future harvest, Jesus Christ is the promise of a new and never-ending life—a good and glorious life.  God has begun His great work in Jesus, and it’s just a matter of time before the glory of God is revealed in its totality—in you.

        Paul wrote today’s text to help the Roman Christians stand firm in the face of pain and persecution.  And His words also come to us to help you stand firm here and now.  In Christ, we have been made into the children of God.  This is sure and certain.  His death has destroyed the power of sin for you and His resurrection has brought you the promise of a new creation.  Yet, like those partially-completed  sculptures, what we are becoming is not fully seen or experienced here and now.    

Take a close look at God’s people, Paul says, and you will see a people imprisoned and suffering, groaning because they desire to be free.  The whole world is groaning as it awaits the new creation.  God’s people are groaning as they are locked in positions of suffering and weakness—unable to do the good they want to do, but doing the evil they want to avoid.  It’s enough to make you groan.  But the apostle Paul reveals one more thing.  He opens our ears so we hear one more groan.  It’s the groaning of the Holy Spirit, who is interceding for you.

        Paul writes:  Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Who would have guessed this?—that the Holy Spirit is interceding for us with groans too deep for words?  As you know, there are times when we are at a loss for words.  The sufferings of this present time are so strong that we cannot find words to express it all.  When you go to a child’s funeral, what do you say, even as your heart is filled with groans that words cannot express?  What do you say when the doctor’s diagnosis is terrible and terminal?  What do you say when baptized brothers and sisters—people you have communed with and prayed with—forsake the faith, reject God’s truth, and go charging down the broad and easy path that leads to destruction?  What do you say?  Human language is too limited to express our sorrow and speak that sorrow to God.  At moments like this, Paul reminds us to listen—to hear the groaning.  For the Holy Spirit takes our suffering and weakness, and transposes it all into perfect petitions of prayer.  He intercedes for you with groanings too deep for words.

        But the groans of the Spirit are not just groans of complaint.  No, those groanings are joined to glory.  The Spirit helps us see that future glory—even amid present suffering.  One of the interesting things about Michelangelo is how he approached his work as a sculptor.  He believed that he was liberating the figures from the stone.  Rather than carving figures into the stone, he saw his role as freeing those figures from the marble.  And though his “hallway sculptures” are unfinished, we can catch a glimpse of his larger vision.  We can see where he was going.  That plan was already there in the artist’s mind and, only through time and effort and the removal of stone piece by piece, did that vision slowly come into being.

        Beloved in the Lord, God is at work on a New Creation—a great and holy work of art; and you have been joined to that new creation by the power of your baptism into Christ.  God, the Master Sculptor, is at work on you, shaping your life, forming your faith, forgiving your sin, smoothing the rough edges, chiseling away all the wickedness and sin that still holds you in bondage, working steadily, in small and sometimes painful ways, moving you toward the glory which will one day be revealed. 

We often can’t see or understand God’s plan and design.  But the Holy Spirit is our Comforter and our Counselor.  The Spirit knows the mind of God; and the Spirit knows our suffering.  And the Spirit joins these two realities into prayer.  Groans and glory are held together by the Spirit for us in prayer.  When we stand before God like unfinished works of art, living in this world and longing for the life of the world to come—when we experience suffering and find ourselves unable to put all of this into words, the Holy Spirit speaks for us.  The Spirit voices our petitions to the Father.  

        Join me once more in the hallway depicted on the bulletin cover.  Note how the unfinished sculptures are displayed in a corridor through which people move from one place to another.  But at the very center of the photo, at the far end of the hallway—there stands a completed creation of glorious beauty—Michelangelo’s David.  No longer is this figure encased in stone.  But now he stands, in glorious freedom—the freedom of a man of God—a man after God’s own heart—a new creation.

        Most of us will never lay eyes on Michelangelo’s David.  But sooner than you imagine you will lay eyes upon the Son of David—our Lord, Jesus Christ.  He was crucified for our offenses.  He was raised for our justification.  For each of us, Jesus stands there at the end of earthly life—which is also the beginning of a new creation—the place where glory and beauty are finally and fully revealed.  Jesus stands there not as a stone figure, but a figure of flesh and blood—like you.  This Jesus is the friend of sinners.  He is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death only to be raised and resurrected in glory. 

Although we suffer in this world, we are heirs of the next.  Today we wait for it all—with faith and hope and love—that day when our groanings will be swallowed up by glory.  For we who stand in the shadow of the cross—we know that the sufferings of this present time aren’t even worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen