7/31/22 “A Treasure Hunt” by Nancy E. Petty
A Treasure Hunt
Luke 12:13-21
Have you ever noticed how one word can bring up old memories? The simple word treasures immediately transports me to memories of my childhood visits to the dentist. As a child, like most children, the dentist was not one of my favorite places. Sorry Gary Oyster and all the other dentists out there. While I still wouldn’t call it a favorite place to go, long since childhood I have come to value and appreciate my dentist and his wisdom to “floss the ones you want to keep.” But back to my childhood dentist visits. There was great conflict in me when my parents would announce that it was time for a visit to the dentist. On the one hand, fear would totally consume me. What if I was outed for not brushing well enough? What if I had a cavity? What if this was the visit that included the dreaded drill—just hearing it buzz in the next room over could start the tears flowing? Or what if I needed another tooth pulled. That’s way too long of a story to go into now. So much fear, so much anxiety. But on the other hand, there was the treasure chest that awaited all the “good” children who successfully made it through their examination. If only I could make it through the scraping and tapping and drilling and pulling and flossing, I would get to dig through the big brown treasure chest that sat in the lobby overflowing with “treasures” that only a 6 year old could appreciate. The rule was that you could only take one item. I would sit at that treasure chest as long as I could, frustrating my parents, struggling to choose which ten cent toy I would pick as my treasure. Although I am not proud of it, on more than one occasion, I was caught trying to secure more than one treasure. At age 6, I wasn’t interested in sharing all those treasures with the kid waiting in line behind me. Oh how I loved digging through that treasure chest until I found just the right treasure to take home to add to all my other ones.
As I read the parable of the rich fool from Luke’s gospel, I felt a similar but different conflict as I did when I was child going to the dentist being caught between fear and the big brown treasure chest. What does that conflict look like as an adult? Storing up treasures for myself in this life verses being rich toward God and therefore my neighbor. I’m not tearing down small barns to build bigger ones to store my crops like the rich farmer, but I am watching closely my 401k and the equity in the property I own. And I will confess that my cupboard is a bit more stocked with canned goods than before the global pandemic that saw grocery store shelves empty. As people of faith, there is a tension we hold in this life between how much we possess for ourselves and how much we share with others.
A good friend and spiritual mentor named this tension when she told me that on her application for seminary she responded to the question, “Why do you want to go to seminary?” by writing: “I want to understand how I can have any money in my pocket and still be a Christian?” It was a poignant way of naming the tension that confronts us in Jesus’ teaching today. “For certain, Jesus’ words in the parable of the rich fool challenge us, especially as some of the wealthiest citizens living on this planet. And I don’t mean the 1%, I mean the majority of Americans who have clean water on demand, electricity 24 hours a day, and the privilege of being surprised when grocery store shelves are empty. “Watch out! [Jesus says] Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Or as he said in another of his teachings: “Where your treasure is there also is your heart.”
Naturally, when we wrestle with this question of greed and the abundance of our possessions we think of material possessions. We think of our bank accounts, our 401k’s, our property investments, the things we own. And all of that is important to work through. But today the parable of the rich fool is nudging me think a bit broader. While it is true that we often think of our possessions in terms of material things, tangible things, our possessions are not limited to just material things and things we can see and touch. There are other things we possess. And this morning it is these other possessions that I am thinking of: hope, faith, trust, love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace, joy.
As I have sat with this parable this week, I have wondered if sometimes we get in our own bubbles and we store up these things for ourselves. We store up our hope for a democracy that will protect us instead of sharing a hope for a democracy that will protect all people. We store up hope that will guarantee our wealth instead of sharing a hope in an economic system that seeks economic equality. We store up a faith, a theology that reflects our image instead of sharing a faith that reflects the image of God. We store up a faith that says my God is righteous instead of sharing a faith that proclaims an all-inclusive God of justice-love and grace. Because we are not totally sure that there is enough love to go around, we build bigger barns to store up God’s love for us instead of opening our barn doors so that God’s radical love can flow from us into spaces and places and people longing for love. We store up what we deem to be acceptable because we have a hard time understanding queerness or alternative life paths that challenges our convention.
Maybe our text this morning is asking us where our greed lies not just in our material possessions but when it comes to hope and faith, trust and love, acceptance and forgiveness, grace and joy. Maybe our text is asking us to think about how we want to be rich toward God and our neighbor when it comes to sharing hope and love. When it comes to sharing forgiveness and grace, and joy. In what ways are we storing up these treasures for ourselves instead of sharing them with others? As I see it, our text is inviting us to go on a treasure hunt—to search our hearts for the treasures we are storing up for ourselves and then consider what about our living might need to change in order to share more faithfully with others.
The folly of the rich man in our parable is not that he worked hard to make sure he could take care of himself and his family. No, his foolishness and recklessness was that he only thought of himself. Our security is not in storing up for ourselves. It’s just the opposite. Our future is secured when we share what we have with others.
And that includes sharing hope, faith, trust, love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace, joy—these things cannot be stored up. They must be shared. When stored up they wither and die in us and in our world. They become stale. They cannot be preserved in a Sunday group or a sanctuary or in a holy book. They can’t be held in secret within our hearts. Hope, faith, trust, love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace, joy—they are meant to be shared. This is what it means as a people of faith to be rich toward God.
This week, I have thought a lot about that big brown treasure chest that got me through many dentist visits as a child. A few years ago for my birthday, Karla gave me a treasure chest, literally. It’s sitting there on the communion table. She filled that small treasure chest with pieces of paper on which she had written things that she wanted to share with me—life’s little treasures. Things like walks, backrubs, special dinners, going to play putt-putt. Every week or so I would pick out one of the pieces of paper and we would we would share in the treasure. I wondered this week if it is a time for each of us to have a treasure chest in our homes. In that chest we would have pieces of paper with ideas on how to share hope and faith, trust and love, acceptance and forgiveness, grace and joy. And each week we would pick out one of those pieces of paper and spend that week sharing with others that treasure. In other words, we would spend the week on a treasure hunt being rich toward God and our neighbors. Maybe I sound as foolish as the man in our text suggesting that grown adults have a treasure chest. But sometimes, in courageous ways, our faith calls us to be foolish.
The good news of the gospel this day is this: Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. Life consist in sharing your treasures with others. Consider what is in your treasure chest and share generously living life rich toward God.
