Shared Discovery
- St. Aidan's
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Proper 12A: Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
The Rev'd Cameron Partridge
July 26, 2026
Good Morning, St. Aidan’s.
Several years ago in the depths of the pandemic, I watched a movie called The Dig.[1] It tells a story of events that took place in 1939. A woman named Edith Pretty lived in Suffolk, in the southeast of England. The land on which her home was built had mounds in which she had long taken a keen interest. She had a feeling they held something important. Following this instinct, Mrs. Pretty hired a local archeologist, Basil Brown, to begin to explore. Working with others to dig and sift through the dirt, Mr. Brown was astounded when they came upon an ancient iron rivet. This piece of metal indicated that they had found a ship. Not just any ship but a large one, fit for a king. Carefully and hazardously – with their trench always in danger of collapse, as the movie dramatically shows along the way – they uncovered what looked like the skeleton of a massive ship, of Anglo Saxon rather than Viking origin. It was eighty-nine feet long – about twice the length of a standard school bus.[2] It was ultimately estimated to be from the 6th to 7th centuries of the Common Era. Scholars have since suggested that it may be the grave of King Rædwald, the first monarch of the East Anglia, which encompassed Norfolk and Suffolk.[3] His lifetime overlapped with Saint Aidan, though Aidan lived further to the north. The site of this ancient burial ground became known as Sutton Hoo. Much more than this one grave turned out to be present, and the land is now cared for by the National Trust, while the significant treasures discovered along the way – including an iconic, intricately made helmet – were donated by Edith Pretty to the British Museum.[4] Just as striking as the original discovery was what had to happen to preserve the find. What had been dug open now needed to be closed. And since World War II had begun, the treasure headed to the British Museum had to be hidden in the London Underground.[5]
This story came into my mind as I reflected on the parables shared in our gospel passage this morning. We heard several of them, highly compact yet evocative. They convey what the Kingdon of God – or the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew terms it – is like. Each of the small vignettes we are given say something distinct, yet a common thread is a combination of hiddenness and revelation. The mustard seed image, as well as yeast, convey that sense of hiddenness through size: they are tiny, yet they grow and expand. In the case of yeast, that expansion happens through active participation, the kneading of dough working together with the action of the living yeast. In the case of the mustard seed the seed itself is tiny not only in its own right – and to a human being, at least, compared to other seeds. But the hidden quality is also evoked by the comparison of seed to plant. The mustard bush grows so much larger than one might expect from such a small seed. How much more expansive and vast is God’s kingdom? We know in part, as the Apostle Paul famously writes in his first letter to the Corinthians (not our passage today); we see in a mirror, or through a glass, dimly (1 Cor 13:12). But not fully. Or as Paul wrote of hope in our passage from Romans last week, it is not fully visible – if it were entirely seen, it would not be hope (Romans 8:24). But there is this instinct we can identify, that we can cultivate in the eyes of our hearts, for the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the active in-breaking of God’s Kingdom – God’s Dream as Verna Dozier called it.[6] God’s Dream is partially hidden, yet it is also being revealed and cultivated in and among us for the transformation of the world.
Of course, the parable snippet that most immediately drew my mind to The Dig is the parable of the treasure in the field (Matthew 13:44). I have long been struck by this story. And I have had questions. What is going on with the sequence: one finds treasure in a field, then re-buries it and finally in joy sells everything one has in order to buy the field? Why buy the field for the treasure, if you had already found it in the first place? Why bury it once you found it if you were going to claim it? It would seem there is something hidden even in the parable itself. The combination of selling everything one owns and the joy of the field-claiming seems to point to it. So too with the parable of the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45). The kingdom, the divine dream, is meant to claim the very center of our lives.[7] Everything else is meant to point us in its unfolding direction, we might say, inviting us continually to dig it out. It is as if the treasure needs to first be identified, then turned to with a lifetime’s intentionality. I think of Edith Pretty’s insistence that something was in fact buried in her field, something that needed to be understood and shared. She would not take no for an answer, and when the project began to be overtaken by authorities who had earlier ignored her and disrespected Basil Brown, she insisted on protecting the discoveries and his unique contribution to them. They reburied what they had opened to protect and honor it, to bring a right focus to and reverence for what they had begun to discover. And they hid some of that treasure in the London Underground to save it in the face of the danger of war. But there was something in all of this that pointed far beyond the ancient ship and its remains—the treasure was not simply the objects. The field was not simply their location. It was the process. A parable of shared discovery, relationship, of identifying the holy together with joyful awe, and seeking to center their lives on its unfolding.
Friends, we have the privilege of encountering and participating in such treasure right here in this place, among this community. Last Sunday we saw it as we journeyed down Diamond Heights Boulevard and blessed the new apartment of Peter Farrfield and Linnea Sweet, longtime San Franciscans and Saint Aidanites who were able to return to this neighborhood at a time when housing costs are through the roof. We blessed their abode together and enjoyed delicious food prepared by Linnea. This treasure gave us a glimpse into the holy abundance of God’s reign. And then yesterday once again, the treasure of God’s dream was revealed to us in Jelly Jiang and Young Qiu who were married here in our midst. What a joy to gather in this space with their family and friends, with gorgeous music and delicious food, and with amazing storyboards of Young and Jelly’s lives as they have come to discover one another – to discover God in their midst, in their love. It is in the processes, the relationships – the “we will!” that we declare in response to the question of whether we will support these beloveds in the covenant they make with one another – through which we together turn toward that treasure in the field. With joy we turn and follow Jesus, leaving to the side that which hinders or distracts us from the reign of God’s love that is continually coming to birth. Yes, friends, even in the most difficult of times, when we do not know how to pray as we ought – as Paul writes in our passage today (Romans 8:26)– the emergence of God’s reign cannot be squelched. And as we struggle to find it, our prayer can be for the Spirit to intervene and pray in us, to ask for the opening of our heart’s eyes, the unstopping of our ears, the revealing of holy treasure. We can ask the Spirit to give us the strength and the hope to dig. And then, not isolated but together, in loving collaboration, to reverence the treasure that we do and will in fact find, to cultivate it like tiny, fragile yet infinitely expansive seeds, knowing that the kingdom of God is in fact, arising and growing among us. Thanks be to God.
[6] Verna Dozier, The Dream of God: A Call to Return (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1991)
[7] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew: A Theological Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 182.