As I understand it, many magic tricks use misdirection. We are compelled to pay attention to something, while what really matters to the trick working happens where we aren't looking. Some plays in football work the same way--the quarterback has tossed the ball to a player who is expected to run with it, while the quarterback has run down the field unnoticed--since quarterbacks don't usually do this--and nobody is covering him and he's wide open when the other player throws him the ball. And these two examples, from magic and from football, can serve as metaphors for life, where something happens other than where our attention is focused.
That is a piece of what is going on with this parable Jesus tells about someone finding treasure hidden in a field, and then hiding it again, and then selling everything and buying the field where the treasure is hidden. Obviously we are focused on the treasure--after all, it is treasure deemed worthy of selling everything this person owns in order to be able to get it. We don't get specifics as to what this treasure is, but we have those childhood memories of maps where "X" marks the spot where the buried treasure is, so of course the treasure is what excites us, what stirs our imagination about what it could be--and where our attention is focused when we hear this story.
But maybe Jesus is employing some "misdirection" here.
What would we do if we found a treasure that had been hidden? Would we re-hide it, in the same place, and then liquidate our assets to get it--not just it, but where we re-hid it? Wouldn't we just hang onto it, or if we had to re-hide it, not put it in the same place--a treasure that isn't ours, and a field that also isn't ours or we wouldn't have to then sell everything to buy it? And why, for treasure that is hidden somewhere connected with the field (buried, or hidden in a building on it--it's vague enough that we can't assume specifically), would we buy the WHOLE field, rather than just where the treasure is hidden? Maybe that wouldn't require that level of commitment, the selling of EVERYTHING we already had. .
The treasure may be the misdirection. The field may actually be the point. After all, the treasure is hidden IN THE FIELD.
Think about what Jesus is talking about--the Kingdom of Heaven--that place where God's will is done--where what God wants is what happens--that which we pray will be on Earth just as it is in Heaven. That place where ALL receive their daily bread, not just me. This treasure is not for ME and ME alone. This treasure is for US--for the whole world, what is represented by the field. Far from being a parable about getting rich quick, or securing personal advantage, or working a scam, this is--as so many of the parables about the Kingdom that Jesus tells are--about much more than individual advantage, or even individual salvation. A parable about the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, is about community, because no kingdom on Earth has ever included just an individual, and throughout human history the best kings are the ones who cared about the people in their kingdom, not just about themselves. The treasure is IN THE FIELD. The hidden thing of immeasurable value is for THE WORLD.
GOSPEL Matthew 13:44
44 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.