One day, as I was some paying bills, I realized I’d lost my wallet. Then, my daughter Amelia, with some whining, asked, “daddy where’s my toy?” So, even though I was panicking about my wallet, I started looking through one of our toy chests only to discover my wallet next to a doll from a Disney movie. Of course, I was ecstatic! And, even better, under my wallet I saw the toy my daughter wanted. I gave it back to her, and she beamed. She hugged me, smiled, and went back to playing. Now, if we were this happy over finding a wallet and a toy, how much happier would we be if we had found the kingdom of heaven?
The parables in the Gospel we heard are about finding something of great value, the kingdom of heaven. This is the presence of God in our lives. Both the man who found the treasure and the merchant discover something previously hidden from them. For us these parables say God is hidden in daily life and in our hearts, waiting to be found. God is not only in sacred places like our church building, or our chapel. The one Jesus called Abba, Father, is just as present in our homes, in our families, and in our souls. God is hidden in everyday moments like vacuuming the house, looking a cashier at a store in the eyes, washing the dishes, paying our bills, or eating dinner.
The point of these parables is to find this hidden treasure, God, which we do by digging with desire. The man who found the buried treasure likely had to dig it up. He had to go below the surface. To find our treasure we need to go below the surface, we have to go within. This means leaving the surface, and going deeper than our thinking, deeper than our normal state of mind. This means praying deeper than words and thoughts will ever allow. It means being quiet within and just being with God. The point, then, is to set aside some time to go within and to be quiet with God every day.
But, we don’t want to go within because the superficial is so easy and so manageable. Depth can be messy and out of our control. We prefer the surface. We like it. Television and movies keep us there by focusing our minds on physical images. We talk about appearance, relationships, money matters, and home improvements. It’s so easy to get stuck there. None of these things are bad, though. God is still in all these things. We simply plunge below them to see the God who is hidden there. In the words of the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, living without finding God “is just like a man who has wine in his cellar and, having neither drunk nor even tried it, does not know that it is good.”
To dig deep within our souls, though, requires desire. The merchant searched, which means he had to really want that pearl. We have to want God. To be honest, though, we want so many other things. Both the man who found the treasure and the merchant sold all they had to buy their prize. The question before each one of us is, do I want God? What do I want more than God? That’s what I need to sell. Each sold “all he had,” referring to all the things we think we need to be happy: enough money, professional success, a perfect body, the need to be liked, or just to drive as fast as we want on route 29.
We don’t need them. They get in the way of real happiness. Once again, it is not so much that these things are bad. Rather, we have to a tendency to think “if I don’t get this I won’t be happy.” We nail down our happiness to these ideas. Sell them. Sell them by recognizing these ideas of happiness and then refocusing your attention and your desire on God alone. In other words, the next time you get snagged on needing enough money, for instance, accept how you feel then pray. Also, remember that there’s joy in this selling because the prize, God, is better than everything!
The good news is God is present within us, in our lives. But there’s more good news. God doesn’t wait around for us to find him but goes after us through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. God is just as determined as the man buying the field with the buried treasure or the merchant in search of fine pearls. Again, Meister Eckhart says it so well: “Never has a person longed after anything so intensely as God longs to bring a person to the point of knowing him. God is always ready but we are very unready. God is near to us but we are very far from him. God is within us but we are outside. God is at home in us but we are abroad.” Even when we have trouble selling everything or digging deep within ourselves, we should never worry or give up because God is incredibly close to us, and is looking for us, too.