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.

St Wilfrid, Haywards Heath & Holy Trinity, Cuckfield Distraction 21.7.21

 As he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up (Matthew 13:19)

Distraction - this is what came to me from today’s Gospel - and guilt about it. Our Lord’s interpretation of this passage given later on in Matthew 13 names spiritual distraction as the theft of fruitful living symbolised by the birds eating the heaven sent seeds. Besides being a phenomenon of lockdown, distraction in its spiritual sense is, as Simone Weil describes it, ‘the root of sin’. Taking attention away from love of God and neighbour is to lack understanding and let ‘the evil one come and carry off what was sown in your heart like the one who received the seed on the edge of the path’. 

Because we’ve had so much time to ourselves distraction from such an aim and focus has been inevitable. One of the penalties for many of internet engagement is the continual flow of tempting options to view or engage with that can distract us from attending to God and other people, even if the internet, as at this moment, can bring us close to both.

The spiritual writer Simone Weil wrote: Concentration is the essence of prayer… distraction is the root of sin. This saying came back to me after reading the Gospel image of the seed falling on the field edge inspiring me to write a poem entitled ‘Distraction’ which I will now read. It has four verses:

In a moment of distraction I read

‘Distraction is the root of sin’.

It is certainly a short fall.

Losing sight of the ball

can lose you the game.

A poem though is a distraction

from the prose flow of life,

affirming a higher level,

reminding me I can stand

in mind above that flow.

Other thinking and acting

takes me lower.

Knowing what I ought to do

I am taken from that

by sinful distraction.

To live in the present moment 

serving obligations

yet attending to the high call 

of God and neighbour

will keep me on course.

My poem takes up how distractions can be both welcome and unwelcome. I’d never have written this homily unless I’d been distracted into a poem from the focus required in writing. 

One church member unknowingly helped me prepare this sermon telling me of his own struggle with distraction, working from home with a young child, knowing what he ought to do whilst lacking focus and enthusiasm to get on with it. We talked about the wonder of living in the presence of God and the importance of devices that help keep us in God’s presence at all times not just at worship and in prayer. 

My device to counter spiritual distraction is repeating the Jesus Prayer at all times, unless I get distracted! I want to invite you to join me in repeating it three times and then, it's easy to memorise, do continue on your own into the silence after the homily:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.