Larry’s Treasure: Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C

Did you hear about the treasure buried in the Spokane area?
About a month ago I was driving out in the valley
and I saw a big billboard that said
there was a $10,000 treasure chest buried nearby.
The billboard gave a web address,
and each day a clue was posted to help lead you to the treasure.
You could even see a livestream of the big X on the ground
where the treasure was buried.
Now before you go out looking for it,
the treasure has already been found.
It was real.
There really was $10,000 buried in ground just outside Rockford.
A father-and-son team found it after about five days of searching.

I mention that because in today’s gospel Jesus talks about treasure and money bags.

Money has been part of the human condition for a long time,
in many different forms.
First people would barter—trading livestock or sacks of grain—
but that was bulky, heavy, and hard to carry.
Then came metal coins,
easier to store but they could still weigh down a purse.
Paper money made our treasure even lighter,
and checkbooks meant you didn’t have to carry cash at all.
Plastic cards made it even easier.
And now digital payments let us access our money from our phones,
protected by passwords and fingerprints.
And what the heck is cryptocurrency?

As money has evolved, so have the various ways we work
to make our “money bags” more and more secure.
In the old days Pirates buried treasure in the ground on remote islands,
and apparently we still like searching for the X that marks the spot.
People hid money under mattresses.
Nations built vaults like Fort Knox.
Now that our wealth is mostly digital,
we have things like two-factor authentication.
Whether it’s the kinds of money we have,
or the ways we’re trying to secure it,
we’re constantly thinking about our treasure.

My friend Larry was a guy who thought a lot about treasure, too.
Larry was a colleague of mine,
and he was in charge of all the assets at his organization,
all of its treasure, you might say.
It was one of his primary responsibilities.
But one day there was a hostile takeover at the top,
and the new boss was ruthless.
He got rid of all the higher-ups.

Then he demanded that Larry hand over everything to him.
All the assets.
Every piece of property.
Every last coin.
He wanted all the treasure, you could say.
That treasure was his sole focus.
But as we hear in today’s Gospel,
“…where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”
His heart was on all of that treasure.

Which brings us to the questions Jesus invites us to consider today:
“What do I treasure most?”
“Where is my heart right now?”

Jesus tells us, “The Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.”
An “inexhaustible treasure.”
He says, “Get a bag ready, a bag that will not wear out.”
Why a bag that will not wear out?
Because God keeps giving and giving and giving,
and you don’t want to miss any of it.

God’s treasure is given constantly.
Every new day is a treasure.
The oxygen we breathe.
The warmth of sunshine, the food on our tables,
the love and support of friends and family,
the work we’re able to do,
the roads we travel on, (even during construction season!),
and countless other blessings we barely notice–
all of these are part of God’s treasure for us.

And God’s treasure doesn’t only arrive in bright, happy packages.
Some of the deepest treasures come wrapped in challenges,
in moments that stretch us,
in times when we can’t see the whole picture yet.
God is present in both the sunlight and in the rain,
in the gentle breeze and in the stagnant or smoke-filled air.
The treasure is there for us,
we just need to open our “money bag” to receive it,
to gather it in.

One practical way to do this is to make a regular practice
of reviewing each day in prayer,
noticing what treasures God has given you lately,
how he has “filled your bag.”
You’re probably familiar with one of the most popular of those practices,
what St. Ignatius of Loyola called the Examen.
If you’re not familiar with the Examen, not to worry.

As most of you know, I am an educator,
and school is approaching,
so I feel it is my moral obligation to give you some homework.
When you leave here today,
I invite you to take a handout of instructions for praying the Examen.
Or you can also look up an Examen online
or in apps like Hallow or Pray As You Go.

Now, I have no way of checking your homework,
but God will know. 🙂

Doing a practice like this daily will help us
when our heart gets locked on other treasures,
and when we miss out on seeing the real treasure.

But that’s not what happened to my friend Larry.
Larry’s heart was right where it should be.

When the new boss asked for all the treasure,
Larry asked for three days to gather it up,
and the new boss agreed,
after all, he wanted everything.
So Larry went to work.
He gathered up all the assets,
but instead of giving them to his new boss,
Larry did something else with it.

Larry gave it away to those who were in need.
All of it.

And on the third day,
Larry returned to his boss.
The boss was ready, greedy, impatient.
“Where is the treasure?” he demanded.

Larry stepped aside,
and through the doorway they came:
the poor, the blind, the sick, the suffering.
Larry pointed to them and said,
“These are the treasure.”

Well, of course the boss was furious,
and he had Larry axed.
Literally.
Well, not axed exactly,
but placed on a grill over coals
where he died a martyr’s death.

For Larry was St. Lawrence, Deacon of Rome in the 3rd century.
As deacon, Lawrence was responsible
for all the material goods of the Church in Rome.
And it was the Emperor Valerian who had come to power,
and ordered the deaths of all bishops, priests, and deacons,
and who had had Pope Sixtus killed,
and who had demanded all the treasures of the Church.

And St. Lawrence knew that the treasures of the Church were the people,
especially the most vulnerable.
St. Lawrence refused to give the material treasure to Valerian,
and he paid for his defiance with his life.
This weekend is the feast of St. Lawrence the Deacon, August 10,
the anniversary of his martyrdom, his heavenly birthday.
Valerian might have taken Lawrence’s life,
but his treasure?
His real treasure?
Safe.
Where no thief could reach or moth destroy.

Today we are called to check that our bags are prepared
to receive the treasure that God has in store for us,
and to look at where our heart lies.