Today’s Gospel text covers 5 of 8 parables found in this one chapter of Matthew.  I choose to speak on two of them – the two that have to do with buying and selling.  It is at this point in the chapter that we have heard of Jesus leaving the crowds, moving into a house, and speaking to his disciples.  Well, we are his disciples today – let’s hear what these parables say to us.

One of the most bitter sorrows in life is to wish very much to do something, to do it, and then to discover that it was not worth doing.  That kind of thing happens to people.  They come to the end of their road and look back, with vain regrets, at a wasted life.  

None of us want to do that.  We have only one life to live.  And, in our best moments, we all have a deep desire to do it in the right way.

Today’s parables tell us about two men who turned that desire into a reality.  Both of them found the best that life could offer and managed to make it their very own.  One of them was more than likely, a tenant farmer, and the other was a pearl merchant.  Now, the farmer made his discovery quite by accident.  He was plowing the field one day, when suddenly there was the sound of metal on metal.  His plowshare had struck something solid.  And there before his very eyes, was a box of buried treasure.  The pearl merchant, on the other hand, made his discovery by deliberate design.  He was searching for fine pearls and his quest paid off.  And he found the most beautiful pearl that his trained eyes had ever seen.

Now, as I have said, each of these brief stories deals with a commercial transaction.  But both of these stories were told by a man who cared little or nothing for the wealth of this world.  So, we can be sure that Jesus was not telling people how to hit the jackpot and become overnight millionaires.

What, then, did he have in mind, we ask, when he spoke of buried treasure and one really valuable pearl?

I believe that he was using these coveted items as symbols of what he called “the kingdom of heaven”.  And in his system of values, that was the most important thing in life.

It was a vision of the world the way God intended it to be.  Jesus wanted that more than he wanted anything else.  The kingdom of heaven was, to him, the true riches of life.

Now, I ask, what are the true riches of life for you and for me?  What do we value more than anything in the world?

Some would argue that it is money.  But I don’t believe that, not really.  It is true that we live in a consumer society.  And most of us seem to have an insatiable appetite for the things that money can buy.  In fact, we work our fingers to the bone and borrow ourselves into bankruptcy, or almost, in order to possess the latest gadgets.  I am aware of this.

However, I still insist that for most of us the true riches of life are not material things. If someone could look deep into our hearts, and see what is there, I suggest that it would not be money, nor anything that money can buy.

With most of us, it would be people.

Now, I have not forgotten that we are Christian, and in church, we are told that the most important thing is God.  But I also remember how Jesus loved God – and how Jesus loved people.  With him, it seemed impossible to draw a line between the two.  

Based on the evidence, I am inclined to believe that love for God and love for people lay side by side in the heart of Jesus.  And I also believe that it would never have occurred to him to drive a wedge between the two.

So, let’s be real about it, folks, human relationships are one of the truest riches of life.  And you and I would be utterly impoverished without them.

In this regard, then, we reflect a definite kinship with God.  In fact, if we look into the depth of God’s heart, what we find there is not the law, not some institution, no, not even religion, but people.  In the very heart of God, I understand to be the most important thing in the entire universe, and it is human relationships.

God knows us and loves us, and wants us to know and love God, in return.  God also wants us to love one another.  Jesus spelled this out when he spoke of the two most important commandments.  The first, he said, was to love God with all of our hearts, and the second was to love our neighbor as ourselves.

How could it be stated any more clearly than that?

The most important thing to God, then, is human relationships.  And, deep on the inside, where our true values lie, I believe that is also the most important thing to you and to me.

Another, of the true riches of life, is the little things – the everyday, ordinary things that we tend to overlook.

Edward Wilson was an English explorer.  In fact, he died with Scott in the Antarctic.  But while he was alive, he was a man of adventure, who also had a special appreciation for the commonplace.

I am told that he once made this entry in his journal:  “A happy life is not made up of tours abroad and pleasant holidays, but of little clumps of violets noticed by the roadside, little joys, little whispers from the spirit world, little gleams of sunshine on our daily work.”

Now, no one would ever think of including such items as these on a financial statement.  But the chances are that they enrich our lives far more than some of our, so-called assets.

It would be impossible for us to make an exhaustive list of life’s true riches.  You would have your list, and I would have mine.  The important thing for both of us is that we find them, and recognize them, and be grateful for them.

Our problem is that so often we get the true riches confused with the false.  And, we keep on plowing the field, instead of recovering the buried treasure.  We keep on searching the markets, instead of claiming the one really valuable pearl.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers studied 169 randomly selected local people for two years, tracking their use of the internet and its effect on happiness and relationships. Sponsored by computer and software companies, the researchers were confident that the greater variety and richness of relationships established over the web would decrease social isolation and increase wellbeing. 

Both sponsors and researchers were startled and disconcerted by the results. They found that the more internet relationships were established, the more time spent on the web, the more lonely and depressed people tended to become.   

I suspect that is because they left behind the ones they love, and the ones who loved them, who were sitting in the very next room!

Or, take, for instance, the Welsh poet David Whyte, who humorously, yet seriously, suggested the following when he said: “When people struggle through the weeds, pull back the moss, and read the inscription on my tombstone, I don’t want them to read:  ‘He made his car payments.’”  

I suggest that most of us want the inscription written on our tombstones to let people know that we loved them!

With that in mind then, it is my earnest prayer, that God will give each of us the wisdom to find life’s truest riches – and, more importantly, may God give each of us the insight with which to recognize them when we see them.

Amen.