There was once a poor old man who lived in a little hovel in the country, a very long way from the nearest town.  One night after he'd gone to bed without any dinner, he dreamed that a pot of gold awaited him in a secret spot under the bridge leading into the biggest town in that region, which was Prague.  He rose the next morning in a lather of excitement, and immediately started out to find the treasure.  It was winter.  The man was very hungry.  He had no money, and his shoes were almost worn out.  But after seven days and seven nights, he finally reached the bridge he'd seen in the dream.  But it was guarded heavily, for the city was at war.  Though he could see the spot where, in his dream, the gold rested, it seemed impossible to complete the mission without causing a commotion.  Faint with hunger, the man cried out in despair.  'You there', said a guard, 'what are you doing here?'  'I'm here to collect some gold I saw in a dream', said the man.  'It's just under the bridge'.  The guard laughed.  'You shouldn't believe your dreams old man', said the guard.  'Last night I dreamed of a pot of gold behind the hearth of an old hovel in the country, but you won't catch me chasing dreams!'  The old man could barely contain his excitement!  Immediately he headed home again.  And after seven days and seven nights, he found that pot of gold behind his very own fire-place.

I like that story.  It tells how we must usually go on a difficult journey in order to discover the riches which lie untapped and dormant within our own hearts and spirits, riches we never knew were there.  The journey into authentic Christianity is very much like that, I think.  God's treasure, you see, is already here for us to enjoy:  God's peace, God's freedom, God's joy. God's unconditional friendship and love.  These riches are already ours by virtue of being human beings, children of the Most High God.  They are the original blessings of the garden and of Eden.  The trouble is, most of us don't know ourselves to be rich.  Most of us don't know ourselves to be royal heirs of the heavenly King.  Most of us don't see ourselves as beloved ones, the apples of God's eye.  Most of us, it seems, are blind to such things.  Instead, we see ourselves as poor and impoverished.  We think we've been hard done by, that life owes us something more than we have.  We look at what others have and conclude we are paupers.  'If only I had what she has', we say, 'then I'd be happy'.  So, filled with the vision of some kind of paradise on the other side our particular fence, we leave our hearts behind and begin on a quest.  The quest for that treasure we wish we had.  The treasure which can make everything nice.  Which can make things the way they ought to be.  The 'quest for the Holy Grail' is alive and well in modern day Australia, I think.

But the moment we take a first step on that quest, we are immediately found in the sin of trespass.  Now, allow me to clear up a spot of nonsense about this.  Trespass in the biblical sense is not at all about getting caught on someone else's property without permission.  That's an invention of the English common law in which God has displayed, I think, very little interest.  But when Jesus says 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us', he's talking about a rather tragic lack of  judgement  about what's good for us.  'Trespass', in this sense, is about making a really big mistake which has rather depressing moral consequences.  Like leaving one's own pot of gold behind in order to chase someone else's.  Like being blind to the fact that you even possess a pot of gold.  Here Jesus is praying that God will overlook the sheer stupidity of these decisions, and give us another go at discovering how rich we really are.

There's a rather remarkable paradox at the heart of Christian faith.  It's by forgetting we are rich and going on a wild goose chase that we remember where the true riches lie.  It's by finding ourselves lost in the darkest of woods that we regain a yearning for the surer path.  It's the squalor of the foreign country that causes us to recall the goodness of home.  Even sin, it seems, is in the plan of God.  Human beings, it seems, can only come to God by turning away from God.  In that turning, in that heartbreaking experience of loss and affliction, we turn again to find God waiting for us.   T.S. Eliot knew of this when he wrote:
 

We shall not cease from exploration
 And the end of all our exploring
 Will be to arrive at where we started
 And know the place for the first time.
       (from Little Gidding)

Finally, then, hear this word from God:  my love is all you need.  Return from all your striving and sit with me a while.  Learn of the freedom which comes when you cease to desire any thing but me.  Be surprised by my joy, even in life's darkest places.  Drink of my love, which is sufficient to drive out all your fears and concerns.   Come, sit with me awhile.  Find the treasure in your heart.

In the name of God:  Maker, Christ and Spirit.  Amen.