The Pearl, the Treasure and a Quarter in the Snow: A Homily

Jesus said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a 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.  

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Once when I was a kid, maybe 10 or 11 years old, I was walking home from School one day in the middle of February.  And it was cold, so I was all hunched up with my head down, which is probably why I spotted it.

It was a bright, shiny quarter in the middle of the road.

Now, I got to say, this was back in the days when a quarter was still worth something.  I mean, they still had the penny back then, and a quarter was a whole entire 25 of them.  The convenience store in town sold gummy-bears for a penny each, so, I mean: you do the math.  That was a bag of 25 sweet, chewy gummy bears just waiting to be purchased, right?

There was only one problem.  Like I say, it was in the dead of February, and that quarter was frozen into the ice.  This was in small town Alberta, so they didn’t salt the roads, and this street wasn’t used so much, so the ice was smooth and clear and hard, and you could just see that quarter there—all 25 cents worth of it—shining up at me.

But I couldn’t get at it. 

Now, I hate to say it, but that quarter became the obsession of my little 10-year-old life, and every day for the next week, I’d go home by that road to check and see if the quarter was still there.  And it always was.  We were in the middle of a cold-spell.  And it was always just out of reach.

Until one day, there was a Chinook.  A Chinook is  a really warm wind that blows in from the Rockies right in the middle of winter, and the temperature can go from 20 degrees below to 5 above in a matter of hours. 

So you probably know what I was thinking about all afternoon at school, as the snow banks outside the classroom window kept melting and melting?

That quarter.  Cause I knew that come 3:30, I’d be on my way home, 25 cents richer than I was before.  I was already imaging the 25 gooey gummy bears I was gonna buy with that 25-cent treasure.

Maybe you know how this story’s gonna end?  Because the bell rang, I dressed in my coat and boots as quick as I could and practically sprinted to the spot.  The asphalt was all shiny and wet from the Chinook, not an inch of ice in sight, and I walked out into the middle of the street and ...

My quarter was gone.

Maybe I wasn’t the only 10 year old that had his eye on it, but someone, apparently, beat me to it.

I always think of that story whenever I read that parable about the buried treasure in Matthew.  Because Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven—life with him as Lord, leading us and directing us and showing us how to live—Life with God in charge—is sort of like that quarter frozen in the ice.

Well not exactly.  Exactly what he says is: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which, when a man found it, he sold everything he had so that he could buy the field; or it’s like a merchant looking for fine pearls, and when he found one of great value, he sold everything he had so he could buy it.” 

Of course, as a 10-year-old boy, I didn’t have much to my name that I could have sold.  Even if I’d sold all my Lego sets and my video games, I’d still wouldn’t have had enough to buy that road with the frozen quarter in it.

But that’s not really Jesus’ point, anyway.  Jesus’ point is that life with him is worth everything, and whatever it takes to enter into life with him, and to hang on to life with him—it’s worth it. 

Like a treasure buried in a field, and once you know it’s there, you’ll do everything you can to get your hands on it.

Or like a quarter, frozen in the ice, for a 10 year old kid; and once you know it’s there it starts to occupy your every waking moment because you want it so much.

I’m saying this, partly because  sometimes you can be following Jesus for a long, long time, and you can sort of forget how beautiful, how precious, how valuable a thing we have in him.  I mean: the love and life and presence of God, his goodness and mercy following us all the days of our lives, the promise that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Forget the retirement savings fund, what we may or may not have in the bank account, the 25-cent piece frozen in the road, if we’ve got that, we are rich beyond compare.

But I’m also saying it because sometimes it’s tempting to wonder if life with Jesus really is worth it?  I mean: life with Jesus as Lord sometimes means saying no to things we’d rather say yes to, or saying yes to things we’d rather say no to.  It means making the effort when it would be easier not to.  It means sacrifice sometimes, and hanging on to some things so we can let go of others.  And sometimes you can sort of wonder: is it really worth it?  Is he really worth it?

And if that’s making sense to you, then I hope you’ll get it when I say that: Life with Jesus as Lord is worth everything.  And on that day, when we stand with him in glory, and he rewards all the sacrifices and effort with a beautiful, loving, tender, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  On that day wel’ll know:  whatever it took, it was worth it.