Introduction: Treasure?
A woman went browsing through an antique store. While she was there she found a piano she fell in love with. It was a magnificent old mahogany upright with beautiful carvings across the front. Inside the top was a beautiful hand detailed painting along the back along with the serial number and name of the original maker. It had been made in 1901. It had a warm full tone and she thought all it needed was to be tuned. She brought it home and called a piano restoration specialist to come to tune it. It didn’t take him long to determine that the pinblock had been "doped." He explained to the woman that old pianos "die" when the pinblock dries out and will not keep the pins tight when tuned. When this happens some sellers will make a last ditch effort to sell it: they dope it, which means they lay the piano on its back and pour a mixture of anti-freeze and water around the pins to swell the pinblock. Sometimes it will add some life to an aging piano; in this case, it ruined it. The woman was so disappointed and angry that she put the piano outside and made a sign for it that said "Free: 500 pounds of firewood". Her treasure turned to trash.
Have you ever had something like that happen to you? You find something that you love, and shortly after you get it, you know that it is destined for the trash pile. I know I have. Sometimes they are not too costly, but at other times, it is downright painful. A few years ago Rosemary and I were looking for a used car, so I went to a dealer in Bloomsburg PA. You can guess at the results, can’t you? I fell in love with a Nissan hatchback. Rosemary was unsure about it, so we brought it to our mechanic to have him check it. He told us it was a “sweet deal”. Rosemary still wasn’t sure, but I had the assurance from someone in the know, so we bought it. One month later we learned it had a cracked block, and we had to decide, do we sink another thousand dollars to fix it, or throw out the couple thousand dollars we just spent to get it? Another treasure, trashed. How many of you have corners in your garages and basements and attics were there are those so-called treasures you can’t throw away. Yard sale lawn mowers that can’t cut grass, a china set where most of the plates are cracked and chipped, clothes you swear you are going to lose weight so you can wear them again. We all do.
The pursuit of ...
We pursue many things hoping to gain a wonderful treasure in our lives. We pursue an education, a career, a mate, a family, as well as our hobbies, and toys and recreation. A nd sometimes we get caught in a dilemma, and we have to ask ourselves, “Is what I have really such a treasure?” The apostle Paul was a man who once faced this difficult question. Paul had every privilege a man of Israel could hope for in the first century. And
he pursued things he thought would be of great price, every benefit, every treasure, every good a Jew of his day valued. He was born into the most prestigious class of Israelites, he came from a family of priests, he was raised in a faithfully religious community. Paul was a man eager to gain all that was available to his people. And he had all the connections he needed to see his dream come true. Paul labored to live as a pious Jew and keeper of the law. He graduated Hebrew U. with high marks. He became a Pharisee, a priest of high
distinction. He even became a zealous defender of the Jewish faith and tradition. Then half-way through his life Paul had a hard awakening. Paul was traveling to the far corners
of the Roman world, letter in hand, to root out a crazy sect called Nazarenes. They were
a people so confused, they thought a carpenter from nowhere was the Messiah, and they
were causing such problems in Judaism that the faith was threatened. Everything a true
Jew treasured was being swept away by these so-called christians, and Paul was going to
confront that threat. But it was Paul who was suddenly confronted on the road to Damascus.
“Suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground, and heard a voice out of heaven saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you Lord?’ I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts9:3-6)
Suddenly, everything Paul had valued was called into question. Everything he had lived for, his status, his career, his privileges, turned out to be a waste of time and energy and life. Paul now realized that he had been heading in the wrong direction and now all his treasures, all his good gains were trash.
Trash?
That’s the trouble with so-called treasure, it can fool you. Things we think are valuable are not. The things we labor for do not satisfy, the things we pursue only wear us out. And yet when we stop, when we take a good look around, we suddenly discover what really is valuable. Those things we thought were worthless trash turned out to be priceless. During the Depression, a woman cleaned houses to make ends meet. One of her clients was the widow of a clipper ship captain who’d been on the China run. The lady often threw away things her housekeeper thought were perfectly fine. One day, this woman found a Chinese vase resting in the trash can. She asked about it and her employer said “that thing, take it.” The cleaning woman brought it home, and used it for many years. Sometime in the fifties, someone convinced her to show it to an expert at the Buffalo Museum of Fine Arts. The man told her, "If it’s a fake, it’s over 200 years old, but still quite valuable. If it’s real, it’s over 2,000 years old and priceless. I’d really like to display it here at the museum. But what’s all this black discoloration inside?" He nearly had a heart attack when the woman replied, "Oh, it’s probably from the cut flowers I put in it in the summer." "You... you mean, you actually put FLOWERS AND WATER in this vase?" he stuttered, horrified to the core. "Well, of course," she replied, "it IS a flower vase, after all." Where one woman saw but a common vase, another discovered a priceless treasure.
How many of us have little unappreciated treasures. Things that when others see them they think, “what in the world are you keeping that for, get rid of it.” Rosmary has a prayer book from her grandmother It is yellowed, it’s brittle, it’s written in Italian. She don’t keep it because it has any monetary value. She keeps it because it invokes memories of her gandmother and therefore to Rosemary it is valuable beyond measure. I have an old sweater that was was my grandfather’s. It is so worn it looks dirty coming out of the washer, and it is full of holes. I still remember when my father flew home from Illinois from the funeral. The first thing he did was to gather us all together and to hand out to each of us specific items that had belonged to my grandfather for us to keep. When I was handed his tattered old gray sweater I went ballistic. I started yelling that we were acting like grave robbers. I didn’t want a sweater, I wanted my grandfather. But I still have that sweater and Rosemary learned quickly that you don’t throw this sweater out, no matter how bad it looks. She probably hasn’t seen me wear it in the 15 years we’ve been married. But to me it is a priceless treasure because it was grandpa Dawson’s sweater. What appears to others to be trash has become a sacred treasure to me. The gospel of Christ is like that. In 1 Corinthians we are told that the gospel is foolishness to the world, an insult to Jews and an absurdity to Greeks, but to those who are being saved it is the glory of God. A hidden treasure trove in what the world considers rubbish.
The unsurpassing worth...
The apostle Paul discovered this on the road to Damascus and came to say, “I count all things as trash compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” From his confrontation with the risen Christ Paul made a complete turn around in his life pursuits; He let go of everything else, tossed them on the dung heap, and sought only to gain Christ. He let go of knowledge learned at Hebrew U, to seek the knowledge of Christ. He let go of his Pharisitical power and authority, to become a slave and servant of Christ. He let go of his claim to righteousness in the Law, in order to receive mercy in Christ. He let go of his labors to purify Judaism of heresy, to spend his life establishing the faith founded in Christ. Paul did some recalculating of what was valuable in life and he came to this conclusion. “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Paul spent the rest of the days of his life pursuing true treasures, laboring for that one thing that truly satisfies, “forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead,” Paul writes “I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” And at the end of his lifetime of ministry Paul could say “It was worth it”.
Conclusion
“I am already at the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that Day, and not only me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” When we, as christians look at our lives we count as sacred a variety of experiences rituals and rites as well as certain items within our lives and our church that remind us of important moments in our lives when we sensed the presence of God. They become sacred memories. Reminders of pivital moments that we don’t want to forget. So we hold on to them and refuse to let go. A problem arises, however, when what we consider to be sacred doesn’t jive with those around us. So we argue, we fight over what to keep and what to let go off. Where does the baptismal font go. When do we offer communion and who can receive it. What color should the carpet be. And most of this goes unspoken, you’re just expected to know what to keep your mitts off and if you don’t someone is sure to let you know. For anyone new in the church it can be like walking through a mine field, at any moment someone may go off on you. But the apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 2:16-17
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.
As Christians you and I worship a risen savior. Where Rosemary’s prayer book and my sweater remind us of loved ones who have died and gone. Those things held sacred by Christians all point to the Christ who has returned from the grave. Rosemary holds on to her prayer book and I hold on to my sweater, because that’s all we have left of those we loved and who have died and left us. But with Jesus we have no need to hold on to any form of religious step-child, for we have the risen Christ who wants to take hold of us in the here and now. In today’s Old Testament reading Isaiah challenges us not to get locked onto the good old days, because God is about doing new things. God is about making a future, not enshrining the past. And so we must be willing to let go of those things that once were good, in order to recieve the better thing, the newer things that God is doing. As Paul stated it,
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”
As our church continues to grow each and everyone of us will be pressed to let go of things that we consider sacred. But God only calls us to let go of those things that will keep us from the deeper riches that He has waiting for us in Christ. Press on then towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.