Heavenly Treasure

Back in 1979 following the breakup of my marriage, I was reading a rather dreadful, glossy, supposedly Christian paperback in which the author was glorifying the fact that four Christian denominations had been represented in his bomber over Vietnam and all got along wonderfully well! Not a jot of a mention of those below on whom they were happily dropping bombs!! However God in His wisdom chose this occasion to baptise me in His Spirit and give me some words of tongues. That was of course for me. Any observer would simply have seen me drop to my knees and cry. I cannot reproduce the tongues in print but the translation was clear: I treasure you. Later I was able to conjugate the verb and it took on a wider meaning than love and care, including forgiveness received given and sought. So on the way home I was able to go through a list people in my past whom I had harmed or upset and receive what amounted to absolution for my sins. The Good Lord reminds me of that when any of those sins return to haunt me. Later sins were absolved in 1991 when He provided an amazing opportunity to go to formal confession but that is another story. Here I want to concentrate on Treasure:

The sentence I treasure you conveys a wealth of meaning without the confusions surrounding the more usual I love you. And God Treasures us more clearly defines His relationship with us than the phrase God is Love which can be misleading and invite the honest response He has a funny way of showing it. Also Love is a word used in our everyday language to cover feelings ranging from the soppy to the sublime. Even so we do not need to be told that the love of those close to us and the love we are able to show to those around us is something to be greatly treasured. Knowing that is part of being human

Then as a Noun
In the last few decades since the introduction of modern translations of the Bible Love has replaced the word Charity to translate the Greek word Agape in the New Testament, which St Paul completely defines in 1 Corinthians 13. In passing, it is of some significance that when the Prime Minister Tony Blare read that passage at Diana's funeral (extremely and memorably well), he read from the old King James version but substituted love for charity. I would have preferred to substitute some derivative of the word Treasure, but the English Language does not have a suitable one. The verbal noun (or is it a gerund?) Treasuring is rather clumsy but think about it as you read the passage. I have also removed the 16th century verb endings.

Matthew Chap 6 Vs 19,20

The Lexicon attached to my Online Bible gives the Greek word as thesauros which can mean the place where treasures are kept i.e. a treasury or the treasures kept therein. So despite the fact that the Prayer Book uses the singular Treasure in Heaven, I rather like the plural since it fits well with what follows:

These words of Jesus are much more than a rejection of materialism, the saying You can't take it with you covers that (Psalm 49 v17). Treasures in Heaven is, I believe, that which we can take with us. And its acquisition is then one purpose of Life.

Cloning is now in the news. If one wanted to turn a clone of me (that is a body with exactly the same genes) into an actual copy of me, it would have to somehow be given my memory. Not just those memories which I can bring to mind and verbalise, but the whole history of my experiences which is presumably somehow stored in my mind (or perhaps brain) and makes me what I am. In other words add a copy of the nurture to the copied nature.

The same is true if I am going to have an existence after death. In the creed we say we believe in the Resurrection of the Body. But a spiritual (or any other) body which is recognisably me, perhaps developed from a record of my genes in the Book of Heaven, is not enough, it would have to be recognisably me in personality too, otherwise there is a serious philosophical difficulty in regarding the result as ME at all. Therefore I have to take my memory with me. Given that "going to heaven" also involves a transformation, there would have to be a losing of some "bad" memory and nurture and the enhancing of "good" memory and nurture. Perhaps this is what Judgement means and the division into Sheep and Goats of which Jesus also spoke. So, I suggest, building up Treasures in Heaven is collecting, through life, those memories and experiences which are to be kept when we finally go to heaven. And, to refine that thought, this does not exclude things, objects, pictures, music and any other thing of good report as St Paul calls them. Obviously we cannot take with us any of these; we can take a memory of them, but what really matters is not just the recollection but what the experience or ownership of such things did to our souls. Thus I am not talking just of happy memories but those things which moved us, which might be happy but can equally well be sad. An obvious example is of the funeral of Diana already mentioned: Very sad, but, for those who experienced it, possibly, literally, life changing.

This quality, the "Wow!" we say when we are moved by something, is the first criterion I would put on recognising Heavenly Treasures. The second criterion is whether the memory has value now, living in the present. Has it taught us something worthwhile, thrown light on how we live or improved our present life in some way?

Similarly this Real Treasure, Treasures stored in Heaven, Treasures stored for Heaven, do not tarnish because the means by which they were provided goes sour. For example: Treasured memories of a friend, who later betrays the friendship, should not be abandoned. If they were real at the time, their value is eternal. This is not true of Earthly Treasures which moth and rust corrupt..... So we have a third criterion.

Treasure on Earth and Treasures in Heaven