YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)
Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
We got a bit sidetracked again yesterday; this time on the idea of prayer. Prayer is a very important part of the everyday practicing Christian’s life but like many parts of Christianity it is misunderstood and opinions abound along denominational lines regarding it. There are no easy ways to address these controversial points, so we will put forth our ideas which are most always grounded in the words of the Master or, we should say, our interpretation of His words. Measuring all things against the attainment of the Kingdom of God and not against any comfort or benefit or reward in Earthly terms, we have a unique perspective and a higher road that we follow and, according to the teachings of the Master, we should always be on the higher road and ever seeking to go higher. Our objective must be what He told us it should be in His saying “Be yet therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
Getting back to our journey through the parables and sayings of Jesus we come to the Parable of the Hidden Treasure. This parable comes before the one we covered last, the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price, and after the Master had dismissed the multitudes. Chronologically, Jesus begins here speaking to the Multitudes from a ship on the lake. He tells them the Parable of the Sower and then explains this parable, apparently privately, to the inquiring disciples. At this time the Master also explains to the disciples the nature of His teaching in parables and why saying: “….because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear , and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear” (Matthew 13:11-16).
The Master is talking to His followers, His disciples, those who are keeping the commandments and who have given up all to be with Him and to follow Him and this is why they can hear Him say to them that “blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear“. He tells them also that it is for them “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” and goes on to explain the idea that “whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” Now this last saying is the same as that found in Mark’s Gospel where it appears directly in relation to what we hear: “If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath” Mark (4:23-25). We should know here that these sayings are as much a parable or a proverb being told to the disciples as any that the Master has said and that He likely knows that only those in whom the teachings and the commandments are alive and working will really understand what it is that is being said. We should remember as well that in the word hear is also understanding, perceiving, considering and comprehending so that the depth of these statements can be seen as that much more profound (see In the Words of Jesus (IWJ) part 105) and that much clearer. If we follow Him, we get some understanding and with that understanding will come more understanding of the Master’s words. Conversely, if we have some understanding and begin to listen to the wrong things or not follow intently the Master’s sayings, we are likely to lose what we have gained. This is the simplicity of it: that when we follow the promptings of our Souls, our Christ Within, we begin to see the Light and understand some of what we are and what we need to do; then greater revelation comes to us and we can then grasp still more. This is the Path, this is seeking the Kingdom of God and this is how we find it.
Back in our chronology, the Master has spoken the above to the disciples on the ship and explained the Parable of the Sower (IWJ part 100) and this is done apparently in private. Matthew then tells us that “Another parable put he forth unto them, saying” (Matthew 13:24) and here we can assume that He is speaking to the multitude again because this is to whom parables were specifically addressed and because of what occurs a bit later. He tells them here the Parable of the Tares (IWJ parts 97 and 100), then the Parable of the Mustard Seed and then the Parable of the Leaven. It is here that Matthew tells us of the Master’s use of parables in his own words saying: “All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 13:34-35) (which saying I have erroneously attributed to Jesus instead of Matthew in previous posts). From here, after this last Parable of the Leaven, Matthew tells us that “Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him” (Matthew 13:36)
So here we are, in the house with the Master, just He and His disciples. Here now they ask Him to interpret for them the Parable of the Tares and then, after this explanation, He says this Parable of the Hidden Treasure which goes thus:
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field” (Matthew 13:44).
Now it could just be a random occurrence that this parable happens to come when Jesus is alone with His disciples or there could be a more profound reason; we should assume the latter as these are the words of the Master from whom we should see that no thing is left to chance. The commentaries on this parable are much like those on the last parable we covered (IWJ part 132) and which follows this one chronologically; it was also spoken to the disciples alone. The commentaries are of many words and seemingly miss the point by addressing ideas about the gospel and the old dispensation and even the factual nature of people actually hiding treasure in the ground in those days. Others go into the idea that Jesus purchased the world for the treasure which is in it, His people. These interpretations again take the relatively simple parable and interject ideas that likely are nowhere in Jesus mind when He spoke it.
What does this parable mean to us who are looking at it 2000 years later as aspiring disciples of the Master and who have ears and eyes and of whom the Jesus says: “blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear“? Our meaning should start with an idea of what is our treasure which is, of course, a very personal thing. Remember that the Master does tell us “For where your treasure is , there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34, Matthew 6:21). Jesus is comparing two things here for us; the Kingdom of God and a treasure hid in a field. The previous parable that was told by the Master to the people was the Parable of the Tares in which we have the field being sown with seed and then with the tares. Interpreting that parable we posited that the field was our consciousness into which the Soul plants the Good, the Beautiful and the True; the good wheat, and the ways of the world plant, the carnal nature, the tares which though they may look like wheat for awhile, it then becomes apparent that they are tares. The tares, ‘false wheat‘ are like many of the thoughts we may have, they look like they are of the Lord until we recognize that they are of a selfish nature and not of a Godly one. Think about what comes through our minds and our emotions as plans and as schemes; which ones are wheat and which are tares must be discerned and this is human nature at work. It is the work of the reaper, the Soul, to separate the tares from the wheat and this he will do so long as our consciousness remains attentive.
Maintaining the idea of the field being our consciousness, let us now look at this Parable of the Hidden Treasure. In the world the story is as the story is told by the Master. One finds the treasure in the field and then goes about to sell all he has to buy the field and thus obtain the treasure. One of the commentaries tell us that this would be a lawful thing in those days and perhaps this is Jesus’ reasoning behind this example. However, it is just an example that was given to the disciples concerning the Kingdom; an example meant to represent something spiritual to them. Now understanding the idea of treasure as that which is valuable to us and looking at this from a non-material perspective we can see that one’s treasure is that which is most important to him. This is the way the Master portrays treasure in His saying that we use above and in which we also find the idea of heart and this we have said previously is the same as saying our conscious selves. This is the way that Jesus uses these two words. We then have here a example of treasure in a field akin to treasure in our hearts or, in our field, our consciousness. In the parable the treasure is undefined; it could be a ruby or a pearl or a bag filled with each; it is for each man to define what he believes is treasure.
The same is true in our consciousness; what is a man’s treasure is defined by where is a man’s heart. What are we thinking of, what are we working toward, what is our goal in life; this is our treasure and this is where our hearts are. The Master tells us here that if the Kingdom of God is what is on our minds, if this is our treasure then, as the example, we will give up all to possess this Kingdom consciousness and to keep it. Did the disciples understand this parable? we do not know. We only know that they had no specific questions about it. They were following the Master, they were giving up all for the treasure which is the Kingdom of God and the Presence of God in their field of consciousness, their hearts. We should assume here that we are talking of more than just the twelve when we speak of disciples; though the chronology of the gospels it is unclear, it appears that this is around the time that, according to Luke’s Gospel, the Master sends out the seventy disciples. While this does not matter, we should understand that there were many who were followers of the Lord as disciples and we should not think that we today have to meet the unique quality of those twelve that were also named Apostles. Neither should be think of the word apostle as it is used by the church today as these twelve were a special breed whose presence with the Master was not an accident of birth but rather a part of the Plan. Considering this, they were still much like we are and the seventy likely even more so.
This is the simple message enclosed in a simple parable. Much like the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price, this is a parable that likens the value of possessing the Kingdom of God to possessing something of great value here on Earth. The Master tells us in both of these that the carnal man, focused on the carnal life, would be willing to give up all to obtain the great treasure or the pearl of great value and in this same way we, focused on the spiritual life, must be willing to give up all that we hold dear in this world in order to attain to the Kingdom and to possess it. Note that we do not sat must give up all; we say must be willing to give up all so we should see that the requirement is that we shed our attachment to the things of this world.
The Master’s saying: “….where your treasure is , there will your heart be also” should be accepted and used by all who desire the Kingdom and His Presence as a measure of our progress in our spiritual walk on the Path to God. What is taking up our time and our attention? Is it the things of God or is it the things of the lower carnal conscious personality?
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment. If you have not seen this before, this should be viewed as, like John and Jesus to the Jews, something new and different.
No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. (2 Timothy 2:4).
While beautifully put, the King James Version makes this saying a bit cumbersome to understand in the spiritual context. It does tell us that no matter what we do in life we need to pay attention to that and not to other affairs of life. We must be, as James tells us, singleminded. Putting this in a spiritual perspective we should see that if we are ‘soldiers of the Lord’ as chosen by the Lord, we can only please the Lord by NOT entangling ourselves in the affairs of the carnal life. On a personal level we should see that when we have heeded the call of the Soul and are striving toward the Kingdom, success will only come in our singlemindedness; that is attending to the things of God and not the things of the world remembering that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13)
