Dr. Samantha Gilmore
“You are the treasure.”
When I heard these words, I understood Mary’s question to the angel Gabriel for the first time because it had become my own: “How can this be?” It was a question not of doubt but of wonderment in response to such astonishing words
“You are the treasure.”
These words were spoken to me from the pulpit by one of my professors in seminary, the Rev. Dr. Paul Rorem. Preaching on parables about what “the kingdom of heaven is like” in Matthew 13, Rorem explained that we tend to think of ourselves as the treasure hunter in these parables. We are the ones who “go and sell all that we have” to buy the field that holds the treasure we have found. We are the ones who “sold all we have” to buy the “one pearl of great value” we have found.
Whatever degree of effort we put into embodying the treasure hunter in these parables, however, we inevitably fail. We don’t know in what field to look. We don’t even know what the treasure is. Even when we think we have found it, moreover, we never seem to be able to hold on to it.
Rorem then showed us another way to read these parables, one that revealed their good news. In truth, we are not the treasure hunter at all. God is.
“You are the treasure.”
God in Christ came down to “the field of this world” to search for God’s treasure. God was ready to give everything for “one pearl of great value.” For you.
This is one of those sermons that won’t leave me alone. Not because I am so good at accepting my true role in these parables but precisely because I am not. It is usually in the middle of a strenuous treasure hunt when I am anxiously and tearfully knee-deep in the dirt, when I have gone searching for all the wrong reasons, and when I have lost sight of what I am even looking for, that Rorem’s voice resounds in my ears. He tells me that in Christ, God has claimed this field I’ve been mucking around in. He tells me that I’ve been buried in this dirt. But in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I am being raised up to be treasured forever.
“You are the treasure.”
I look up, and with my tear-stained face and my dirt-stained hands, ask, “How can this be?”
He responds, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”
May my soul magnify the Lord forever.
