All groups and organisations like to come up with a saying or a catch-phrase that will sum up and express their aims and objects in life. For example, the phrase 'you are what you eat' sums up the philosophy of the health food people. The phrase aims to propagate a lifestyle rather than to convey reality. The bible too is full of phrases and sayings that function in a similar way. Today's primary gospel story is the parable of the treasure, followed by the secondary if similar parable of the pearl. When the man finds the treasure, he will go through hell or high water to to secure it. When he recognises the worth of the treasure, he acquires a whole new scale of priorities in life. This parable story is linked to a previous gospel saying of Matthew: 'Where your treasure is, there too will your heart be.' This surely is Christianity's most accurate and apt summary. This sums up neatly the formative influence that values can -or rather should- have on our lives. Put in vegetarian terms, we are what we value. Lifestyles can be literally transformed by a change in one's value system. An appropriate example this weekend is of course the Olympic contestants. With the discerning judgements extolled in our first reading, they discover this treasure within then. They are prepared to make huge sacrifices to cultivate it and to bring it to the surface. Education, social life and sometimes friends and family are sacrificed at least for the time being.Priorities have to be readjusted, lifestyle changed utterly, if this precious treasure is to be revealed to all. And these are the lucky ones. How many millions of others purchase the field and spend their lives digging for a treasure that doesn't actually exist.
But perhaps the parable is best illustrated and its message seen most clearly when a couple become parents for the first time. They discover this new treasure. They are overwhelmed by it. They are changed irrevocably by the new reality. Their priorities, the way they view life, is altered radically. Nothing will ever look quite as it did before: dangerous driving, prospects of global warming, environmental pollution now attain a new urgency. They now develop a longer viewpoint, a wider perspective. The future, bounded before by their own expected life-span, now embraces the life-span of this new child. Their viewpoint extends to another generation. Not just a way of thinking but a whole life-style has to be altered in the face of this newfound treasure.
Of course the specific treasure of the parable is the Word of God. Since the coming of Christ, the son of God is now concealed behind the mask of every human person. Our task as Christians is to find that hidden treasure, to find it and him within ourselves first of all, and then within our neighbours. This is now the hidden treasure. But the hidden Christ within us will not be recognised unless we transform our lifestyles. We are constantly called upon to reexamine our values and to readjust our lifestyles accordingly. But, to a greater or lesser extent, the treasure will always remain hidden. We have to dig for it anew every day of our lives. There will always be a gap between the ideal and the reality. The forgiveness of God is the bridge between them.
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