My treasure

Part II: the Gospel seen through: Do androids dream of electric sheep? (Blade Runner).

Photo by Jouwen Wang on Unsplash

After arguing with his wife, Rick Deckard went up to the roof of their building. There, Rick kept what he considered his most prized possession: a mechanical sheep.

In the world Rick lived in, owning an animal was a status symbol. War had wiped out most of life on the planet, so caring for animals had once become the law, which later evolved into a sign of humanity.

It was a sign of empathy that distinguished the best humans from the worst (those who did not care for animals).

Of course! There’s something about this story that doesn’t add up, isn’t there?

Rick’s sheep wasn’t a real animal; it was a mechanical replica.

The thing was nobody knew that.

In that world, the manufacture of both human and animal mechanical replicas was a highly developed technology. So, those humans who didn’t have enough money to acquire a real animal could opt for a replica.

That was the case with Rick. And it was something that caused him conflict.

That morning, on the rooftop, Rick ran into his neighbor, Bill Barbour. This man had the great fortune of owning a beautiful mare, who was also pregnant.

When Bill told Rick about this situation, Rick felt very envious. The book says:

“[Rick] He wished to god he had a horse, in fact any animal. Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way gradually demoralizing one.”

After an exchange of arguments and Rick’s desperate attempts to buy the mare’s foal when it was born, he confessed to his neighbor that his sheep wasn’t real. It had been real at some point, but due to his carelessness, the sheep had died, and he had to replace it with a mechanical replica.

Bill could do nothing but feel compassion for him.

So, in his desperation, Rick said these words:

“Rick: ‘God,’ Rick said futilely, and gestured empty-handed. ‘I want to have an animal…’”

And here I’ll stop for today.

Because this is where the book becomes real for us once again.

Ultimately, Rick’s problem wasn’t that his sheep was mechanical. The real problem was what the sheep represented to him.

In that world, animals didn’t just represent life. They symbolized status, identity, a way to demonstrate your worth to others. Owning an animal was a sign of humanity, sanity, and stability.

And although Rick possessed something that seemingly fulfilled all those criteria, deep down he knew it wasn’t real. He knew that what he was basing his identity and his worth on in the eyes of others was lifeless.

And that troubled him.

It bothered him enough to make him want more. Enough to feel envious. Enough to feel incomplete, dissatisfied with his life. It even bothered him enough to do whatever it took to change it.

And I don’t know if you see it too, but that feeling doesn’t really sound so crazy to us.

Obviously, in the world we live in, we don’t base our identity on our relationship with animals, although, interestingly, many of the greatest idolatries throughout history have included animals as their deities. Nor have we reached a point where our empathy for them defines our worth as human beings.

However, we do look for other things that, in essence, fulfill the same role.

Things that make us feel valuable, that make us feel like we fit in, that we are accepted, or that we are complete.

Things that are perhaps not based on self-satisfaction, but rather on the image we project to others.

The problem is that, just like in the case of the mechanical sheep, many of these things, although they look good on the outside, are not alive.

And therein lies the real problem.

When our value is based on things that have no life, sooner or later that shows in our heart.

Jesus said it this way:

“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” (Matthew 6:21 NLT)

Jesus made it clear that having the wrong treasures leads to our hearts being in the wrong place.

What we treasure most controls us, whether we admit it or not.

And that’s the question this scene from Blade Runner reminds us of:

Where is our treasure?

What gives us identity? What makes us valuable?

Because we can have many possessions, look good physically, have influence, we can even convince ourselves and others that everything is fine in our lives; but if our treasure is in something that does not give us life, it will never be enough.

We will always want more. We will always feel that something is missing.

The author Richard Foster wrote:

“We must understand that contemporary society’s lust for wealth is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. ‘We buy things we don’t want to impress people we don’t like.’ ... It is time to wake up to the fact that conforming to a sick society is sickness itself.” ¹ [own translation]

And although he was speaking specifically about the use of money, I believe this idea can be applied to many other areas of our lives.

We often seek value, identity, and belonging in things that seem right or desirable, simply because everyone around us pursues them.

For example, we become “friends” with people we don’t really like because we have a need for belonging and acceptance that we somehow must fulfill. We study degrees that we’re not passionate about because we must fit in somehow and “be useful” to society, and so on.

And then we put our treasure into those things, because it seems to be the right thing to do. The normal thing to do.

But when we don’t question where we put our treasure, we naturally tend to put it in places that are not very healthy for our heart.

And that is precisely what Jesus wanted to teach us when he spoke about treasures. He wanted to make it clear that our hearts will naturally always follow what we consider most valuable.

If our treasure is placed in what others think of us, our hearts will be enslaved to their opinions. If our treasure is placed in possessions, our hearts will suffer the anxiety of always wanting more. If our treasure is placed in how perfect our lives seem, then we will always live with the fear in our hearts that it will be discovered that it isn’t.

And I could go on with a much longer list… power, pleasure, physical beauty, etc.

But the point is that all those things are temporary. They change. They wear out.

In fact, in the book, while Rick was talking to Bill, he mentioned that every so often they had to come and service his mechanical sheep, because at any moment it could break down and everyone in the building would know that he was a fraud.

But Jesus, just before saying that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also, said:

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19-20 NLT)

Jesus wasn’t saying that earthly things have no value. He was saying that they weren’t meant to occupy first place in our hearts.

Because our hearts were not designed for the things of this world.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says:

“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT)

In this verse, the Word of God explains why nothing in this world ever truly satisfies us. Because we were created with eternity in our hearts.

That is why no possession, achievement, or any kind of human approval can fill our deepest need, because they are fleeting things.

And the truth is that as long as we’re in this world, it’s something we’ll continue to struggle with until our last day. Just as Ecclesiastes reminds us: our desire for eternity is something we cannot comprehend.

But Jesus gave us the key to dealing with this. In Matthew 6:33 Jesus said:

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” (Matthew 6:33 NLT)

This is the key. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else.

When the Kingdom of God becomes our greatest treasure, our hearts finally find the place they were created for.

And then, that’s where everything else will take its rightful place.

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Here you can read Part I of this series on the Gospel as seen through: Do androids dream of electric sheep? (Blade Runner).

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If this Pensamiento resonated with you or blessed you in any way, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Also, if you’re going through something and need prayer, please feel free to send me a private message.

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If anything you read blesses you, encourages you, or draws you closer to Jesus, then my work was worthwhile. But if you’d like to support me in continuing to write, you can buy me a coffee. God bless you!

1. https://www.faithward.org/es/donde-este-tu-tesoro-alli-estara-tambien-tu-corazon-donde-este-el-tuyo/