The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure buried in a field. A man was so busy scrolling through his Instagram feed that he walked right over it without ever knowing of its existence. However, he did see some great memes that made him laugh.
Taken from the book “Not the Parables of Jesus“
Something that we so easily miss in the original parable (Mt 13:44) but is so obvious in this take:
No-one finds treasure hidden in a field by accident.
We actually have to look for it. The Kingdom of Heaven doesn’t fall into our laps.
You want the greatest treasure? Then you need to be searching.
Take Moses, for example. It wasn’t until he turned to look at the bush (Ex 3:4) that God spoke.
I wonder if God hides himself so that we become more hungry and thirsty for Him so that we seek Him out more?
I wonder if God holds back to increase our desire for Him?
In fact don’t we have this constant desire inside of us that can’t be fulfilled, as much as we may try, by anything other than Him?
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”
Prayer of St Augustine
Let us not fill our lives with distractions that we never notice the hunger gnawing at us encouraging us to seek and so to find (Mt 7:7) the answer to our deepest desires.
Not the Parables contains more than 40 different takes on the original parables to snap us out of our over-familiarity and to open our eyes to the truth of the Gospel.
Half tongue-in-cheek, half right between the eyes
Often fun, sometimes poignant, and occasionally painful; these parables reveal our cultural biases, hidden assumptions, and the lies we believe.
