Buried Treasure
What is most precious in our lives, even if it is sometimes hidden from view?
What is the invisible source of our capacity to “be well” and “do good”?
When we find and claim our “buried treasure” what is it “good for”?
These are the questions which guide my talk today—
may they illumine our vision, warm our hearts and inspire us to do good.
My approach to such basic questions is grounded in stories—when I’m in search of guidance—I often turn to stories. My approach to life is “narrative driven”. Today I share three stories of “buried treasure” in hopes that they may inspire us to “do what needs to be done”by combining our resources to serve the Common Good.
The first story is Native American. I heard it told by Robert Bly at a men’s conference many years ago. I do not know it’s ultimate origins. This is how this story begins:
“Before the first white settlers arrived on Turtle Island, our elders sensed they were coming. They were able to see from afar that this pale race would someday swarm like ants over this continent often taking what they wanted and sharing only what they had no use for.
A question arose: what should we do with our treasures? With our great spiritual gifts?
Many answers were debated, but finally the elders agreed: we would hide our spiritual treasures in the hearts and minds of the new-comers—“they would never think of looking there.”
There are several gifts of this story whose origins are still unknown. First, the tellers of this story already know that the “hidden treasure” cannot be bought and sold, it is not a “material” treasure. The “treasure” that is most precious cannot be seen directly, we glimpse it by indirection in a life well-lived in someone whose life is worth admiring in the traits that most mature cultures have learned to value:
truth tempered by kindness compassion empowered by courage generosity grounded in wisdom.
Second, these treasures greater than gold or silver can apparently be transferred from one heart-mind to another by an unknown process. Sometimes the transfer occurs by face to face interactions through stories or conversation. Sometimes it comes with helpful hints such as how to enrich crops by planting a fish in the fields. Behind the story there is a canny judgment of what the pale invaders would be like:
our fascination with what can be bought and sold can sometimes blunt our capacity for disciplined introspection and kindness towards those who we judge to be not-like us.
At worst, our greedy extroverted civilization is prone to “hardness of the heart”—an astonishing capacity to NOT notice the harm we do when we are “grabbing all the gusto (and land) we can get”.
There’s a second story of “Buried Treasure” familiar to many of us who grew up in Christian churches from main-line to born again. It is parable told by or attributed to Jesus. Like many of his stories it is meant to shock us into awakening into a sudden change of heart-and-mind that opens a door to the good life or what Jesus called “the Kingdom of Heaven." Jesus wastes few words:
“Once there was a woman
who found a treasure buried in a field. What should she do?
She sold all that she had
to buy the land
so claim the treasure hidden from view.
One way into this parable of Jesus is to focus on the verbs. What did this lucky woman do?
She found. She sold. She claimed.
These 3 muscular verbs show one path to a good life—when we find something that is truly good we must be willing to sell or sacrifice all that we have in order to claim what is of greatest value.
There is a hard truth here, the necessity of sacrifice and letting go of something that we thought was good in order to claim something of greater value. If you’ve been on the journey
from addiction to recovery or have loved some one on this dark road you know how difficult it can be to give up the “third beer” or the “7th shot” or whatever spins your wheels in order to claim something of enduring value; our own sober life, the every-day embodied miracles of love and work, family and friends, giving and receiving.
Sacrifice is never easy, the road to a good life is often paved with blood, sweat and tears. But the rewards are durable; a life that is well lived, work that uses our gifts in service of others and helps pay the bills, a faithful marriage to the person we truly love, with or without the approval of those they think they know better about how our lives should be lived.
Like every parable of the good life, this one leaves some questions unanswered. For example, does the lucky woman who finds the treasure have any obligation to the original owner? Should she share the wealth? What happens after we claim our buried treasure? What’s the “rest of the story?" This parable is a kind of introverts dream that focuses on the inward journey of discovering value without the outward journey towards community.
That’s where a third story comes in a Jewish tale of buried treasure which I learned from a Jewish storyteller named Reuven Gold. Like many of the stories from the Jewish tradition, this parable is grounded in the social self what Martin Buber calls the inter-active field of “I-Thou” relations.
Once there was a good man named Zousha.
One night Zousha had a powerful dream: he traveled to a neighboring Christian village and there entered the house of a Christian family who were sound asleep. He was drawn to the basement where he found buried beneath a packed dirt floor a great treasure.
When Zosha awoke,the dream followed him through-out the day. Wherever he looked, he saw the house in the Christian village and its great hidden treasure. The very next day Zousha set out on a journey to the Christian village to see if he could find that house with its buried treasure.
When he came to the river dividing the two villages it was mid-day. Zousha sat down under the shade of mighty oak to gather his courage and enjoy a bite of lunch. Before he could begin, Zousha saw a tiny speck on the horizon that kept growing larger. He soon recognized that a man was approaching from the Christian village. He waved to the man showing with his open hand that he carried no weapon and came in peace.
Soon the two men were sitting side by side under the great oak tree. They laid out their lunches and shared the food: bread, cheese, olives and a little wine. After lunch, they began to talk about the lives, the families, their trades and their villages. Eventually Zousha said,
“My friend, I must tell you about the strange dream I had recently.”
Zousha told of his dream about his new friends village and the treasure he had found buried in the basement of a house. His companion’s eyes grew very large the neighbor had been visited by a similar dream and each man, would you believe it, had dreamed of a treasure hidden in each other’s house.
How great was their joy and amusement as they turned toward home to reclaim the treasure hidden in their own house!
In a sense, this Jewish story answers some of the question raised by the parable of Jesus: what do we do after we learn of buried treasure? The Jewish story provides several answers
again hidden in the verbs. We must undertake a journey to where we think the treasure is buried. We must be willing to pause to reflect. When we meet a stranger on the road
we must welcome them with a sign of peace.
And under the shady of a mighty oak, we must be willing to
sit side by side,
break bread together,
tell stories
and even share our dreams.
The solitary spiritual quest for “buried treasure” is fulfilled in community. The “kingdom of heaven” dwells “between us” as well as “within us”. Where the treasure within and the treasure between meet—that is where the “Kingdom of Heaven," where the Good Life begins.
The place where peace-and-justice meet in shalom becomes visible when the gifts within are multiplied by sharing. When we hoard our gifts and view all neighbors as victims or rivals we will be held captive in a world of relentless competition and never ending scarcity.
When we share our gifts, they are multiplied and we can take our place at a table of bounty and delight. The power of synergy to multiply resources is illustrated by these three parables:
- each completes the other
- fulfills the others
- answers questions beyond the horizon of any single story.
May it always be so when those from different tribes with differing stories meet.There is still one question which no story or sermon can answer for us. Each of us must ask the question for ourselves and let it resonate in the temple of our hearts and minds. That question is
What is your buried treasure?
What for each of you is the storehouse or root of your capacity to be well and do good?
I invite you to turn your attention inward. As you breathe in, ask yourself a question as your breathe out, just notice what responses arise. The question might be:
What is my greatest treasure? What is it good for?
If you choose, continue that process for 60 holy seconds: turning the question as you breathe in, noticing the various responses as your breathe out. In the days and weeks to come, may we all have the courage and compassion to find and claim our treasures and to share what has been entrusted to our care, so we can build moment by moment, day by day, gift by gift our beloved community.