Weekly Mutterings.      Perhaps you’ve seen the TV program “Antiques Road Show” where people bring their heirlooms and garage sale treasures to be appraised by experts, in the hope they might have something truly valuable and rare. Someday I expect someone to show up with my old baseball cards or Lionel train, and learn they are worth a small fortune.

Today Jesus tells the story of a poor man who finds a treasure hidden in a field. He sells everything he owns in order to buy that field. Another parable follows about a wealthy merchant who finds an exceptional  pearl. He, too, sells all he has to possess it. Whether by a lucky chance or by a trained eye, these two men become richer than their wildest dreams. But this was no garage sale, and not an exchange of just a few dollars. Each of them had to trade in everything else in their lives. The surpassing value of their new treasures made all their other possessions trivial.

Jesus is teaching that the Kingdom of God can indeed be found, but only by those willing to pay the price. It must replace all other possessions and pursuits. But where do we look? There is no map, no big “X” marking the spot where we should dig. How do we find the treasure?

I think Jesus is suggesting that the signs of the Kingdom are hiding in the last place most of us would look – out in the open and right there in front of our eyes! Maybe the Kingdom’s treasure is to be found in the smiles of our children, or in the saleslady with tight shoes and an angry disposition, or even in the midst of afternoon rush hour traffic.

If we are searching for the hidden treasure of God’s Kingdom – and I hope we are – the place to start looking is within our own families, in our own backyard, in the familiar place where we work. It would be just like God to be there. And it is the only treasure worth giving up everything we have.