Trash to Treasure   Matthew 13: 31-33, 45-52

This story appeared in The Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper on May 17, 1987. It seems that a rock hound named Rob Cutshaw owned a little roadside shop outside Andrews, North Carolina. Like many in the trade, he hunted for rocks, then sold them to collectors or jewelry makers. He knew enough about
rocks to decide which to pick up and sell, but he was no expert. He left the appraising of his rocks to other people. As much as he enjoyed the work, it didn't always pay the bills. He would occasionally moonlight, cutting wood to help put bread on the table.

While on a dig twenty years earlier, Rob found a rock he described as "purdy and big." He tried unsuccessfully to sell the specimen, and according to the Constitution, kept the rock under his bed or in his closet. He guessed the blue chunk could bring as much as $500 dollars, but he would have taken less if
something urgent came up like paying his power bill. That's how close Rob cameto hawking for a few hundred dollars what turned out to be the largest, most valuable sapphire ever found. The blue rock that Rob had abandoned to the darkness of a closet two decades earlier -- now known as "The Star of David"
sapphire -- weighs nearly a pound, and could easily sell for $2.75 million. Obviously, it would be worth even more today, 18 years later. (Story from John MacArthur, Grace to You Newsletter, April 15, 1993.)

About 5 years ago, I watched a TV show in the evenings called "The Antiques Roadshow." I only watched it for a couple of months, but it was quite an amazing show. The premise of the show was that its producers would move into an area of the country, organize local and nationally known antique dealers in a large civic center, and invite the local population to bring their antiques to be appraised. What was remarkable about this show was that people brought in their heirlooms and trash, pictures and knick-knacks that had hung on walls
for generations, curios and collectibles that had lain around a great-aunt's home in decades past, some memorabilia or orphan glassware found in the bottom of an old box in the attic that no one had seen for 50 years. Some people just wanted to know what their item was and the story behind it; others were looking
for a treasure in the midst of their trash. On every show, someone would be surprised by an appraisal of an item worth thousands and sometimes 10's of thousands of dollars. A few items were even worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. What most of us would consider trash once in a while turned out to be a valuable treasure.

How many of us like mustard on our hotdogs? How many of us like bread without yeast, that is, flat, not raised up so that it's light and fluffy? For most of us, mustard and yeast are important ingredients to making our food tasty. In Jesus' day, mustard was no more than a despised weed, while yeast was seen as a corrupting influence during the Jewish high holy day of Passover. So women scrubbed the house clean to make sure that not one particle of yeast could come into contact with the flat Passover bread. So for Jesus to claim that the
Kingdom of Heaven was like a mustard seed or yeast was an insult to the understanding of God and God's grand intentions for Israel. Compare the Kingdom of Heaven to a weed that is no earthly good, and to an ingredient that was corrupting, not holy in their sacred observances? Was Jesus blasphemous; was he profaning the holy? Why did he compare worthless garbage to valuable treasure?

Because what we get is not always what we expected. And sometimes we are hiding something valuable and don't even know it. All of us have grand ideas of how our lives should look, and of how our families should act, and of how exciting and meaningful our jobs should unfold, and of how peaceful and safe our communities should be, and of how perfect our church people should live. But that's not what we generally get. Or maybe we can't see the value that's really there. Our lives fall short of how we would like to live; our families
suffer disappointments; we don't like our jobs or our jobs have parts of them that we don't enjoy; our communities could be better, and our church still has room to grow spiritually. Somehow we haven't gotten the things we thought we deserved or were promised to us. So what do we do?

We have to take what we've been given and turn it over to Christ and let him make something good out of it. We have to take our botched lives, give them to Christ and let him transform them in the best way for both us and for God. We have to offer our families to Christ and let Christ guide us through the difficult times. In our jobs we have to let Christ show through so that as Christ uses them, something holy can happen. As we move in our communities, we have to allow Christ to shine through us so that others may see and hopefully
accept Christ in their own lives. And since all of us come to church as sinners, we need to begin with ourselves as the persons who need God's grace most; only then can we appreciate the struggles and transformations that others can experience in their own lives. We have to take a no-good weed like mustard and make a tasty condiment out of it for our food. We have take the despised ingredient yeast and use it in our baking to make sweet, delicious pastries and breads. Only Christ can take what looks like trash and transform it into
treasure.

In fact, only Christ can take the garbage of our lives and recreate our lives into gold and diamonds. That's what his death and resurrection did for each of us. He died so that you and I could be spared the punishment for our own sins. He took the garbage from our own lives and got rid of it through his death. From great sinners he has turned us into people of grace and love. From trash Christ has created great treasure. And because of his resurrection, we areable to receive and live that new life filled with the treasures of God's love
and grace.

There are several parables in our scripture passage this morning, each with their own meanings. But the one thing that comes through several of these parables is the value or treasure of the Kingdom of Heaven. A man finds atreasure hidden in a field; so he goes and sells all that he has to buy that field and thus takes possession of the treasure. Obviously, the treasure is vastly greater than his possession and more desirable. And then there is thebusinessman who deals in pearls and finds the greatest of all pearls and sells
everything he has to buy that one great pearl. Whether it was its value or its beauty, we are not told. But nothing else compared to that one great pearl.

Both the treasure and the pearl are metaphors for the Kingdom of Heaven, itself a symbol for an eternal perfect relationship with God that can be lived now. Notice that both men have to have the Kingdom of Heaven regardless of the cost. Nothing they now have is worth keeping in comparison to the Kingdom as represented by the treasure and the pearl. In comparison, everything they have is trash compared to the treasure and the pearl. They are willing to give up everything for the Kingdom of Heaven.

My friends. What is keeping you from receiving the fullness of God's love and grace in Christ that will put you into a perfect relationship with God from now until forever? I suspect it's because we hold onto things that stand in the way of knowing God and thus are meaningless, although we try to give meaning to them. We spend our time collecting things, accumulating things, making everything more glitzy and envious in other people's eyes, that we neglect keeping God and God's call to our lives first. Christ died so that each of us
could put God first in our lives. Christ's death removed all of the trash that clutters up our lives and keeps us from putting God first.

And that's what Jesus is telling us this morning. Jesus is saying that we need to get our priorities straight. We need to know what is treasure and what is trash. A lot of what we treasure in life is really trash. And what is really treasure is many times treated as trash and kept hidden or thrown away. You and I need to reorder our lives to put the most important things first. And the most important thing in life is accepting God's love and grace and then living it as Christ's disciples. Nothing else is important. Nothing else compares. It isn't until we are willing to give up everything else that we will be able to get the Kingdom of Heaven, God's love and grace. Only when we enter the Kingdom, that is, a new relationship with our creator and savior God, will we find true happiness and fulfillment in our souls. We will have found our treasure, our pearl of great price.

It's time to seriously question what's important and what's real. It's time to clean out the trash and grab hold of the treasure. But most importantly, it's time to let God transform our lives of trash into beautiful lives of treasure. When you go home today, take time to speak with God and ask for help in finding the treasure. It's there. And with God's help, you can find it.