Hidden Treasure

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

I've got a favorite interpretation of this parable that I came upon last year while studying the Gospel of Thomas. I'm sure I'm not the first person to read the parable this way, but this interpretation completely turned around the way I thought about this parable.

We, the people of God, are the treasure. It is Christ who found this treasure and sold all that he had to buy the field. Though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself. Someone has objected that we aren't treasure when Christ finds us, but we are in his eyes. That's precisely the Gospel.

There's something else here too that I heard tonight. When this person in this parable found the treasure, he hid it in the field. He could easily have carried it out of the field and kept all he owned, but he didn't. He hid it in the field. This is precisely the same image as the woman who hid the yeast in the three measures of flour. Christ finds us and hides us in the field and goes and buys the whole field.

Once again, what is our calling? We are yeast in the dough, treasure in the field, the light of the world. We are hidden in the world to change the world.