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Matthew 13:44-52
The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
The Parable of the Net
47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
51 “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked.
“Yes,” they replied.
52 He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”
We’ve noted in past Reflections that Jesus seems to have done about a third of his teaching in the form of parables and metaphors. In today’s reading, Jesus uses four short parables to talk about the kingdom of God – the kingdom he came to proclaim.
In the first two parables, Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field, and then that it’s like a pearl of great value. In each case, Jesus says that a person discovering it would be wise to give up everything they own in order to possess it. Obviously, nobody but God owns the heavenly kingdom, but Jesus seems to be making the point that a wise person would be willing to sacrifice everything else in their life to have a place in that kingdom.
The scholars say the fact that teachings by Jesus appearing together in Matthew doesn’t necessarily mean Jesus actually spoke them together. Matthew might have just thought they went together well. But in this case having these two little parables together really seems to work. In one case, a merchant is looking for pearls and finds one, but in the other case the person just stumbles across a hidden treasure he wasn’t even looking for. That seems consistent with my own experience with the kingdom of God, and with the experiences others have told me about.
Some people encounter God in the course of an intentional effort to find him. Maybe something went wrong in their life, and they were trying to straighten things out. Or maybe they were raised in the church and then wandered away. Or maybe they felt let down by the institutional church and then went looking for God in a new way. But some people find God as the result of searching for him.
But other people stumble over the kingdom of God when they’re not looking for it at all. They were happily living a life without relationship with God, and then all of the sudden, there he was. Or maybe they thought they were living a ‘Christian life,’ and then one day realized what God had in mind for them was completely different than what they thought.
The point Jesus is making, it seems to me, is that whether they find it on purpose or by accident, a wise person will see that having a share in the kingdom of God is more valuable than any other possession they could possibly have, and that there’s no worldly thing that’s worth holding onto if it means compromising your place in that kingdom.
The Parable of the Net makes the point that God will deal with evil when his kingdom is brought to fulfillment, so those of us who are following Jesus are not given the task of wiping out all the evildoers in the world.
As Jesus said in another of his parables – the Parable of the Tares – it’s inevitable that when the church tries to use force to wipe out evil in the world, some innocent people will be harmed as ‘collateral damage.’ Sometimes we have no choice but to take up arms against evil. The war against Hitler and his fascist allies is an obvious example. But Jesus makes it clear that he wants us to consider the use of force a last resort, not a ‘mission strategy.’
The last of the four parables parable in today’s reading makes an interesting point that’s easy to miss. Jesus talks about “every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven,” and likens those teachers to people who can bring out new and old treasures from their storehouse. A teacher of the law was a theological teacher in the Hebrew tradition. So if a person like that became of disciple of Jesus (like the apostle Paul for instance), he would be able to share insights from both the Hebrew scriptures and also from the teachings of his new master.
This raises two issues worth thinking about. First of all, it points to the fact that some Jewish religious teachers became followers of Jesus. Not all Jews were hateful enemies of Jesus who wanted him crucified.
And also, what Jesus says casts some light on a tendency among some followers of Jesus to dismiss the Old Testament as a bunch of ‘old Jewish stuff’ that doesn’t have much to say to us in the 21st century. Lots of Christians just browse around in the Old Testament for something that supports their views on pet issues, and generally ignore it aside from that. But Jesus seems to be saying that his followers should give enough study and thought to the Old Testament that we can make thoughtful judgments about what parts of it still apply to our lives and what parts don’t.
But what Jesus says here suggests that a full understanding of the life of faith takes a knowledge of his teachings as well as of the Hebrew tradition. And people who have both can be especially valuable to the work of the kingdom.
This reading seems to throw a bunch of varied ideas at us in a few verses, but it provides four different glimpses of the kingdom of God that can add a surprising amount of perspective to our understanding.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the way Jesus used metaphors and parables from our everyday world to help us understand the realities of your kingdom. Help us to continue to grow in our understanding, we pray, and give us the humility to recognize that it will always be limited at best. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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