The Liturgy of the Word opens this morning with a dream and God’s invitation to Solomon: "Ask something of me and I will give it to you." In other words, “What do you want?” It is surely the question all of us heard deep in our hearts when our search for God’s will in vocation began - “What” better still, “Who are you looking for? Who is grabbing hold of your heart and your deepest desire? Are you willing to give up all things to follow that desire?” It’s what Jesus will ask that blind beggar, Bartimaeus, who keeps shouting out to him. Jesus comes close, leans in and asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” A question that is almost laughable given the context. For what else could a desperate blind man want but to see? Jesus asks because he wants to hear; “Tell me, let me hear your voice.” And he wants Bartimaeus to hear the depth of his longing. Desperation is crucial. What do you want? It is the question we are meant to hear each time we try to pray, each time we seek to immerse ourselves in sacred reading, each time we quietly step into this church. “Ask something of me, and I will give it to you. What do you want? Who are you looking for? Why have you come here?”
This morning Jesus offers a story – a parable of buried treasure which emphasizes the immense value of what is discovered and the single-hearted response that this discovery calls forth. The unimaginable joy and fascination of the discovery change everything. And the poor day laborer in the story does not hesitate for a moment. Totally captivated by the great value of the treasure, he has discovered by chance, he willingly sells everything he has to acquire the entire field where it’s buried. And in his greed to possess it, he does not bother to tell the owner of the field what he’s found. He’s a sneak. He’ll go to any extreme. And the excessive cost for this poor man is totally eclipsed by the incomparable attraction of the treasure that he wants so desperately, a treasure that to him is worth everything, even his underhanded maneuvering.
This is a parable of the kingdom. And we are given a glimpse of what life would be like if God’s will were always the driving force of our lives in the world, what our lives together might be like if we could consistently, joyfully find our treasure only in wanting what God wants and letting go of whatever impedes us as we seek God’s reign.
Best of all, today’s parable is about Jesus himself; he tells us his story. He is the One who has found his treasure in always doing the will of his Father. For the sake of the joy that is set before him, he does not cling to equality with God; he empties himself, lowers himself and comes down to us out love, to be hidden in our flesh, buried deep in the field of our ordinariness, its drudgery, confusion, humiliations, sinfulness and death.
When in the freedom of self-knowledge, we are brave enough to go down to these dark, lonely places in our hearts, we find him there waiting for us. For Jesus has found his treasure there, in our messy truth. In love he has come down to meet us there. And as we become more and more fascinated with him and his way of love and compassion, we too will “be seized and overcome by the joy of the reign of God,” the desire to do only what God wants.
Discovering Christ Jesus hidden in the field of our flesh, with us in all things, we have found the heart of our desire. But to keep on the way to the kingdom toward him, with him, in him, we need a kind of ceaseless desperation, constantly digging and discovering more. In the end desire is all we have; it is our place of greatest openness to God in Christ. That’s why we’ve come here. We want to know him more and more. Our joy and our love for Christ demand everything. God’s reign demands everything. He is worth everything.
Yet repeatedly, embarrassingly my heart wavers and wanders into other possibilities, lesser desires that intrude and encumber and pull at my heart - what I miss, who I could be with, what I could have, should have, might have done, all of it like so much rubbish caught in the dragnet of my wavering heart. And then sometimes a voice, “Am I not more to you than all of that?” And then better angels may arrive to help me sift through the mess and discard all that will impede my clinging to him alone.
Finally then we remember the story of an old lay brother on his deathbed in the infirmary at Our Lady of the Valley, it’s Christmastime and one of the monks brings him a little plastic manger scene, hoping to console him. The lay brother is suddenly alert, raises his hand. “Take it away,” he says. “What do I care about that, I want to see him face to face. Soon, soon.”
As we choose to remain here, our response becomes clearer and clearer: “Lord, you alone make me dwell in safety; it is you who are my portion and cup, you yourself who are my prize, my treasure. Nothing, no one else can outshine your beauty and truth. My happiness lies in you alone.” Then at best our life becomes incessant desperation for him. When we waver, distracted, daunted by the monotony, the humiliations and are tempted to turn back, Isaiah cries out: “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.” It’s all right here for us this morning.
