P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

REJOICING AT YOUR OWN RUMMAGE SALE

Selling furniture to raise money is just plain no fun. Yard sales - no fun. Hocking the TV - no fun. Jesus tells a parable about a guy who held rummage sales and even sold his used clothes and pet dog, and was deliriously happy about doing so. What was his motivation?

We borrowed a terrific story from a Wanda Vallasso's contribution to Leadership magazine a couple of years ago, and here's the same story again, but now with a different twist on it.

"A gem dealer was strolling the aisles at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show," she writes, "when he noticed a blue-violet stone the size and shape of a potato. He looked it over, then, as calmly as possible, asked the vendor, ‘You want $15 for THIS?' The seller, realizing the rock wasn't as pretty as others in the bin, lowered the price to $10."

Well, can you tell where we're heading with this? Remember that we're studying a similar story from the Bible where a common day laborer finds a huge treasure chest buried in a field, and he has trouble keeping the emotion out of his voice too. He goes to the owner, and trying not to let the thumping of his heart in his chest get too audible, says, "Uh, how much for that old field over yonder? I have this very casual, laid-back, ho-hum, no-big-deal interest in maybe kind of buying it. If it's all right with you." And every cell in his body is silently screaming: Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease!!!

So here's part two, courtesy of Wanda Vallasso. What happens with the $10 potato rock? She finishes the story for us:

"The stone has since been certified as a 1,905-carat natural star sapphire, about 800 carats larger than the largest stone of its kind. It was appraised at $2.28 million."

Okay, but now here's our Wednesday treasure-hunt question. Let's suppose that the gem collector, seeing this hidden natural star sapphire, marked at $15, hadn't been able to get the seller down to ten bucks. Would he have gone off in a huff, squealing his tires and saying to his wife: "That idiot! Wouldn't even bargain with me"? And abandoned this priceless opportunity?

Or let's put it this way. Suppose the price is ten bucks, and this buyer hasn't got the money on him. So he goes out to his car, and he looks for loose change in the glove box. He has to scrounge around in the back seat, trying to find a dollar bill or two. What a pain! Maybe he even has to drive eight miles back home and get cash. He grumbles the entire trip. What an inconvenience! What a waste of two-dollars-a-gallon gas! Just to score a two-million-dollar natural star sapphire. Maybe it isn't worth it. Maybe I'll just stay home and watch TV. Friend, does that kind of pouting sound realistic?

Or let's up the ante this way. Let's say you can get the two-million-dollar natural star sapphire, but it's going to cost you one million to get it. You've got to borrow major bucks. You've got to refinance your house, maybe even sell it. You've got to invade your IRAs and hit up your relatives. All of that is unpleasant, stomach-tightening work. Is it worth it? Do you complain as you work to raise one million in order to have two million?

Well, here's the Wednesday lesson for us to absorb together as we go back to Matthew chapter 13 and our lucky field hand. The Bible talks explicitly about the happiness this man experienced as he raised the money he needed to buy that field. Here's the Clear Word paraphrase:

"The kingdom of God can also be compared to treasure buried in a field. When a man finds it, he covers it up, goes home and JOYFULLY sells everything he has to buy that field."

The Message paraphrase attaches the joy to the finding, not the fund-raising, but says much the same thing:

"God's kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic — what a find! — and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field."

In our Monday parable, where old Jed Clampett's brother, Jeremiah, wants to buy the two acres with the hidden oil reserves on them, he has to sell his two cows, his four goats, and his one Studebaker. He slices his own financial portfolio down to nothing but a few pats of butter in the icebox and one featherless chicken. And he's happy to do so! He's happy to sacrifice. He rejoices in his temporary poverty, because he knows he's about to sell his oil rights to the O.K. Oil Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a cool twenty-five mil.

We pulled an Internet sermon off the web, appropriately titled The Kingdom of God Is Like . . . . Father Thomas Keating, in chapter 14, "The Parable of the Hidden Treasure," makes a point about the arduous process of raising the ten dollars or mortgaging the house, or whatever, in order to get to the pot of gold.

"In the mythologies of the various world cultures," he writes, "the hero is always put to a test before he gets the treasure, the beautiful girl, the Holy Grail, or whatever the reward of the heavy trial. The hero has to slay the dragon to get into the cave or wherever the treasure is sequestered. All of these myths suggest that we do not access the greatest treasures of life without seeking for them ardently and passing through enormous tests. Having been through the appropriate test, we can then handle the treasure."

Now, friend, I know that we're treading on the dangerous ground where Christians always get blurry vision. Isn't salvation free? Isn't grace simply credited to us? What's this about slaying dragons and buying expensive fields and cashing in our stock portfolios in order to obtain salvation?

Well, the answer is what the answer has always been, and the Lord has plainly told His would-be followers:

"You will seek Me and find Me . . . WHEN you seek Me with all your heart."

That's in Jeremiah 29. And you know, all the way through the Word of God, we find this reality: Salvation is free, but to know the Jesus who provides it involves sacrifice and work. Making friends IS work. Calvary is an unlimited, no-strings-attached gift, but you have to prayerfully study the science of Calvary. Grace is offered to all, but it involves having a daily relationship with the generous Provider of that gift. The treasure's in the field, but you have to take possession of the field. The Apostle Paul almost puts a sell-the-house spin on it in Philippians two, when he exhorts his Christian friends:

"Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Now, that sounds terrible! But he quickly adds the good news: "For it is GOD who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose."

So the buried treasure of salvation is free . . . but you do have to "scrounge up the $10 in loose change." You have to go to the rock exhibit where the hidden sapphire is on display. You have to buy a parking permit and take the time to go through the exhibits. No one is going to just drive to your house – especially if you're a person who despises and disdains precious gems and jewels – and say out of the clear blue sky: "Here. I want you to just have this $2.28 million." It doesn't work that way.
Maybe you recall this line from Proverbs, where even the brilliant King Solomon concedes that spiritual insight doesn't just fly in the window of your house. Here's what he writes in chapter two of Proverbs:

"Cry out for insight and plead for understanding. You need to search for wisdom" — now notice the metaphor he chooses — "search for wisdom as if you were hunting for silver or some other hidden treasure. In the process you will learn what it means to reverence the Lord and will find the wisdom that comes from God."

But let's address this final question: Is our search for salvation, for "free" grace, a journey of joy, or a fretful fiasco of fear and trembling, as Paul puts it? The Christian church says: "Read your Bible every day." Oh dear. "Go to church each weekend and be a part of a Christian fellowship." Oh dear. The preacher says: "Please put some of your money in this offering plate, so that you can learn to depend on God's mercies, and share this good news with others." Oh dear. Where's the joy in that? Are we mortgaging our house happily, or grudgingly? Do we wince when we hold a spiritual yard sale and get rid of the things that are keeping us from fully trusting in Jesus?

Well, if you lose sight of the treasure, you may struggle to be happy about it. Spending $10 to get a natural star sapphire is great; spending it to get nothing isn't so good. I can tell you, though, that there are a lot of Christian "rock hounds" – count me as one of them – who have found that Jesus Christ, the Cornerstone, is well worth seeking, "with all of your heart, and all of your might, and with all of your mind, and with all of your money." And please keep in mind as you make up the fliers for your own E-Bay auction, that Jesus Himself IS the treasure! We are "laying aside the weight that so easily besets" in order to get with Him. And friend, when you're searching for Jesus, not only is getting Him pure joy, but the searching is pure joy too.