St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Treasure 28.7.21

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matthew 13.44

One Sunday in January 1927 this passage from Matthew 13 was the subject of a sermon by my predecessor as Rector of Horsted Keynes Frank Stenton-Eardley. It was an exceptionally profitable sermon. One of the congregation from nearby Broadhurst Manor went home, dug in a field there and unearthed a hoard of sixty-four gold nobles. This gold, deposited 500 years before, is now in the British Museum. [Picture of gold nobles by Paul Hudson]

The guy who found the treasure remembered the Rector’s sermon when his spade clinked the treasure. What does today’s former Rector suggest you might find memorable about the same Scripture?

The two parables of the treasure and the pearl remind Christians of the need to put supreme value on building our longing for God and his kingdom.

It is not what you are or have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes but what you would be wrote the mystic author of that Medieval classic, The Cloud of Unknowing.

What would you be? Where’s your heart set? 

God wants his aspirations to be of supreme value to his children and we can’t attain these without alertness and determination, two virtues that come out of the parables of the treasure and the pearl in our gospel reading from the end of Matthew Chapter 13. 

Like the Horsted Keynes labourer, if we proceed about our lives with wise mindfulness we don’t have to go far to find God and his riches. The purpose of scripture, of sermons and bible study, is to school us to be alert to the possibilities of God breaking into our situation, as the clink of the spade on the gold alerted the farm worker schooled by the Sunday sermon in January 1927. 

The treasure parable of God’s kingdom is a reminder to recognize the treasure that’s already there in our lives and the joy it's discovery brings. Over the summer we’ve got great opportunities to rediscover the joy of family as the demands of work and lockdown lift from us. 

If this parable is a reminder to be alert to God’s moments the parable of the merchant is a reminder to be spiritually determined. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.  Jesus emphasises in this parable how being his follower takes you on a determined spiritual search. The cost of this will be eclipsed by the outcome but there is a cost.

To be better disciples of Jesus we need opportunities to discipline ourselves so our personal agendas give way more and more to his. This cannot occur, Jesus cannot reach into our lives, without prayer, scripture and the eucharist. 

May the Lord build that determination for him as well as the day by day, hour by hour alertness to the treasure we don’t need to go on holiday to find since it lies buried and awaiting us where we live.

Trinity 15 Mark’s Gospel 16th September 2012

Today we return to Mark, Year B’s Gospel source back from a few weeks of John and today’s Gospel from 8.27-38 is the hinge of Mark.

First 7 chapters show us who Jesus is. Now we move into why God sent him and what it means to us. Time on all three headings.

Why I like Mark:

• Short to read
• Action packed
• Earliest Gospel 40 years after resurrection copied by Matthew and Luke. Only Paul’s letters are earlier. Papias 130 AD: Mark being the interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great accuracy
• Mystery of uneven ending - the original may have got lost from the end of the scroll to be replaced by other texts in Chapter 16
• Clear purpose set forth in Chapter 8 to show us who Jesus is, why God sent him and what it means to us.

Who Jesus is

27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ 28 And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ 29 He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
• A crucial paragraph. In Mark 1-7 we’ve followed how Jesus’ identity emerges through miracles, healings and teachings. In February I preached on the miracles of Ch 2, and two weeks ago on his attack on lip service in Ch 7. Today’s the hinge: ‘Who do people say that I am?’
• Variations in how people see Jesus – then and now
• ‘You are the Messiah (Saviour).’ Peter’s role (Papias) of voicing what was the truly the case. Wisdom given Peter by God (Cf Matthew 16)

Why God sent him

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
• As Messiah Jesus didn’t and still doesn’t fulfil Jewish expectations
• A suffering Saviour sent to rescue us from sin.
• The world isn’t as it should be because we’re not as we should be. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.
• God’s Son was sent to earth to show us our sin and to show us his own heart and bring us, in Victor Hugo’s phrase, to ‘life’s greatest happiness’ which is ‘to be convinced we are loved’
• God made us for friendship. Sin made a barrier to this. Jesus died to destroy the barrier so restoring friendship with God.

What it means to us

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
• A church member in hospital offering their pain for all who’re there is focussed outside of themselves with Jesus for all
• Faith is ongoing choice for God and his provision in Jesus
• In baptism Jesus’ principle of losing life to gain it is impressed on us
• v38 Jesus is alpha and omega