On Treasure
An accidental, non-religious sermon on not looking at the news
Happy Friday (to those who celebrate)! As many of you are aware, I’ve left academia to try my hand at independent publishing, and below is the first of short pieces I’ll be sending out a couple of times a month—on literature, translation, education, and other things, but definitely not politics (you’ll see why if you continue reading). If you’re interested, please consider subscribing, but otherwise, no worries and hope all is well.
ὅπου γάρ ἐστιν ὁ θησαυρός σου, ἐκεῖ ἔσται καὶ ἡ καρδία σου.
Wherever your treasure is, that’s where your heart will be as well. (Matthew 6:21)
On the evening of Monday, November 3, 2024, I decided to no longer follow the news—the inevitable news, of course, was what I wished most to avoid, but my self-imposed embargo extended by default to all news, since for the foreseeable future almost none of it could be extricated from that news. On Wednesday morning, much to the dismay of my wife, I awoke in an ebullient mood, and to her outright horror, cheerfully hummed “YMCA.” I realize this may brand me with infamy in the eyes of those who, if they do not wrongly attribute my happiness to the previous night’s outcome, might still find my mood utterly incongruous at a time when sackcloth and ashes are called for. Yet there was no denying my joyous feeling of liberation, even under the gloom that lay brooding over Brooklyn. I am not someone who perversely welcomes any disruption to the presumed order of things, nor was this a willful dismissal of a clown’s triumph or a retreat from the world like a faithless novice. It was, rather, escape from the ephemeral noise that signifies so little, an opportunity to recover all that the world has slowly wrested from our grasp.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (King James Version)
Like many old pearls, this bit of scripture has unrecognized value, hidden to swinish eyes unable either to look beyond its unwelcome encrustation of Christianity or, dimmed by unthinking faith, to see through its superficial luster. But it has hidden depth when taken simply as it is. Jesus warns his followers to store up their treasures not on earth, “where moth and rust consume, and thieves break in and steal,” but in heaven (to which moths are apparently not admitted). A literalist might understand “treasure” as physical assets, and certainly many people’s hearts are locked up with their material possessions, but our treasure is whatever we value. One of the beauties of this verse is that what first appears to be a simple-minded tautology (“you like what you like”), turns out to be a handy how-to guide to reveal what you truly care about, despite what you may tell yourself. Few of us will admit to valuing money over morality, but what do we worry about most? On what do we spend our time? Beginning in 2016, I spent much time on the news, too much time, without really wanting to, or at least not admitting this to myself. But that was where my heart was. The news has captured so many of our hearts and minds, by algorithmic design, and an algorithm, which reveals what is truly in our hearts, is just the modern-day version of Matthew 6:21.
News is nothing new: quid novi?, an ancient Roman would ask—“What’s new?” Or rather it is nothing, new every day (and “news” does indeed come from “new”). Yet every day it consumes us, even though we are said to be its consumers. Moths and rust will consume the treasures of this world, Jesus cautions, and our hearts along with them, if that’s where they are. “Consume” is an apt verb for hell-bound moths and corroding rust, but the Greek is ἀφανίζει, “causes to vanish,” “makes disappear.” In this context, you might even say “makes heartless.” News might add to our storehouse of knowledge about this world, but in doing so it diminishes us—πολυμαθίη νόον ἔχειν οὐ διδάσκει, said the early Greek philosopher Heraclitus (“knowing a lot doesn’t teach you to have any sense,” an evergreen sentiment shared by all who’ve spent time with academics). We ask the world quid novi?, and it never fails to reply; it will answer without end even if we do not ask. Its daily dinning drumbeat makes us, its obedient recruits, march forward in a nonstop parade, and so addicted have we become to our own addling we cannot halt and execute an about-face.
We should store our treasure in heaven, understanding heaven not in a Christian sense, but simply as whatever is not of this world, the world the news gives us, the world of the once and future president. Crazed street-corner descendants of John the Baptist like to remind us: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2) They mean, of course, that the end of the world is imminent, the second coming might arrive tomorrow. But “at hand” (Greek ἐγγίζω) can mean near in time or space, and although “repent” in a Christian sense has to do with sin, the Greek verb μετανοέω is really just a change of mind (νοῦς), turning one’s thinking in a different direction. We can choose a more mundane reading of John’s famous warning and, instead of fretting about the impending apocalypse, treasure what’s close to us, what’s not of the world the news often compels us to inhabit: “Think about it—everything that’s truly valuable is right there in front of you!”
Someone might understandably object that what I’m passing off as wisdom is only weakness, turning a blind eye to the injustices and horrors perpetuated daily or discounting the value of protest and activism. But I’m simply offering a different form of resistance in a world of new nothings, of nothing new, between the easy cynicism of despair and the buoyant platitudes of self-fulfillment. There are some who believe that if a large enough number of people join together in simultaneous meditation, they will usher in an era of world peace. I have my doubts, but if more people sat on their ass and turned their thoughts away from this world, could it really be any worse?