The Parables of Jesus
The Value of the Kingdom
Matthew 13:44-46
June 7, 2009
Here in a brief three verses Jesus gives us two parables. Although they are not identical both teach us about God’s kingdom in similar fashion. They are intended to teach us the value of God’s kingdom. These parables immediately follow the parable of the wheat and the tares, which explained why God’s kingdom was present even as evil was not completely overcome.
Listen to the words of Jesus:
"The kingdom of heaven is like 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.
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
The kingdom is like a hidden treasure and the kingdom is like a fine pearl. The response of the person that suddenly finds this treasure of a kingdom: he or she does whatever it takes in order to obtain it.
Note first of all that the treasure is not eternal life nor is it Jesus. The treasure is the kingdom. Jesus doesn’t say eternal life is like or that the Son of Man is like… Jesus emphasizes throughout these parables and especially here that the kingdom is like a treasure that has been hidden in a field but suddenly uncovered. The kingdom is like a pearl seen in the market place by a merchant. This merchant has been looking for pearls all his life and suddenly finds the pearl that he has searched for throughout his entire life.
The Treasure and The Pearl
Although the settings and the details of the two parables are slightly different, there are a couple of common ideas that can be gleaned from both of these parables.
• The kingdom has immense value
• The cost of discipleship is enormous
These are the two main ideas of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is like nothing else we will ever encounter. There is no one like our God. It is of such great value that it is worth the sacrifice of anything and everything.
So this man inadvertently found a treasure on someone else’s land. Perhaps this man was a tenant farmer. He farmed the land for someone else. He was plowing the field and the rains came and there was this earthen clay pot containing a huge treasure of gold or jewels or such. That happens still today. We’ve all probably heard of dead sea scrolls found in a cave, which is another place to put your treasure. I recently read about some gold tablets that were unearthed that contained some ancient code.
My grandfather owned some land near Mad River in Ohio. It was near the sight of a big battle between Native American chief Tecumseh “Blue Jacket” and George Rogers Clark. Every year his neighbor would plow up his field to plant corn and after the rain would find four or five arrow heads that would emerge from the ground. The Indians used to camp all through out the area. People still find buried treasure in the Middle East.
So maybe this guy was a tenant farmer. What he was doing there is really not that important. That is the thing with parables. They don’t need to have all the details worked. They may depict a realistic situation but it doesn’t that it is an actual situation. For Jesus it is simple: the man was there.
In the Jesus’ culture, whatever you find on your land is yours. He found this treasure but he couldn’t just take it because people would ask questions and he would have tell them where he found it, which was not on a piece of land that he owned. It was quite common for people to bury there treasures since they had no federally insured banks. So like a pirate, you would count off paces from some marker and bury your treasure. And just like today, the owner of the land owned everything in and on the land.
I saw on CNN last year, where a contractor was hired to remodel a house. When he tore into a wall, he found a bunch of cash, several hundred thousand dollars, that a previous owner had put there and had since died. The contractor tried to claim that since he found the money, it was his. But he had no claim of ownership since he didn’t really own the house. He was just employed to do some work.
So this guy in the parable scraped together everything he owned to buy this land knowing that the reward was much, much greater than all that he had combined. After he bought the land, this man owned the treasure. Obviously, the treasure wasn’t the current owner’s otherwise he would have known about it. It probably belonged to someone who had long since died.
Jesus says the kingdom is just like that. We lay down our lives. We take up our crosses because the kingdom and the reward of God and the inheritance that we one day will receive is more immense than anything that we can imagine.
Roy Whetstine was a rock collector who two sons each had given him five dollars to buy a rock for them at a rock show. One table had a Tupperware container with a large potatoe-sized rock surrounded by a lot of agates. The sign read: “Any stone $15.” Roy picked up the big rock and asked, “You want fifteen dollars for this?”
The man replied, “No. I just put that there to fill up the space. You can have it for ten since it isn’t as pretty as the agates.”
Roy bought, got a receipt, and tried to calmly as possible walk away and get into his car to leave. He had just purchased the largest known star sapphire—1509 ct.—valued at 2.5 million dollars uncut and about 10 million dollars cut.
So many of us spend out time looking at pretty agates distracted by this world and cares of life that we failed to see the sapphires of God’s kingdom.
Roy was a real life example of the merchant looking for fine pearls except Roy basically paid nothing for his treasure. It didn’t really cost him that much. Jesus’ example shows a man that takes everything that he has traded for and everything that he owns and uses it to get this one pearl. This single pearl that he has been searching all over for. It is the one pearl that he only dreamed of one day finding. In fact, this one pearl was more spectacular than any of his wildest dreams.
Both the merchant and the treasure finder express uncontainable joy at what they have found. The cost (everything) was really nothing compared to what they had found. They didn’t give up everything grudgingly but willingly sacrifice everything. They showed no “buyer’s remorse” but were totally overwhelmed with joy at what they had finally received.
Jesus while teaching us about the immense value of God’s kingdom also has the underlying message at the great cost of discipleship. Following Jesus is not some add-on to our spiritual life. God’s kingdom is not just something extra that we tack on to what we already have.
If you ever have bought a new car, you will hear a sales pitch. It really is the bread and butter of the car dealers. It is where they make their profit. You will hear about undercoating. They will tell you about the paint protection. They will tell you about the fabric protection and stain blockers. They will tell you about the extended warranty. Now you have GPS services and satellite radio. All of these are available as additional purchases, “add-ons,” for several thousand dollars extra. The profit margin is huge on these features.
I wonder how often our spirituality and our walk with Jesus and our “membership” is really just an add-on. It is like the car dealer saying, “Oh and for just an additional twenty dollars a month, we can add Jesus as your co-pilot to your new vehicle. Anyone can afford twenty bucks a month. Not sure you can do that. We’ll just add it on anyway. When you are ready, you can start paying. Just try Jesus. Besides if you are in a car accident (heaven forbid), the insurance benefit is more than you can imagine. So you see, it really doesn’t cost you anything.”
Or maybe our version of the kingdom is like buying a computer. You see the deal online or at the store. You decide that is the computer for me but then you are told about the upgrades. For just fifty bucks, you can upgrade your RAM from 3 gig to 4 gig. That way, you’ll never have problems running out of memory. What does this extra do for you? Most people have no idea. It just another upgrade just to make sure and it is only $50, right?
“Upgrade your spirituality with Jesus. Here is what Jesus will do for you. You get three that’s right three not one. It’s called the trinity. You get the three-in-one. And it doesn’t get any better than this. And if you call now in the next ten minutes we’ll give you this beautiful family bible that will look great sitting on your coffee table as a proud reminder of the great value of God’s kingdom. And one day you can pass this bible down as a family heirloom. And not only that but you add the additional bonus of a one year membership to the church of your choice at no extra charge.”
Is that really the cost of discipleship? Do we short change the immense value of God’s kingdom? Do we even have any idea how immense the value of God’s kingdom is?
Does God calls everybody to sacrifice greatly to follow Jesus? I believe that God does and that we often rationalize in order to justify our choices. You might not see it that way. But I can share with you our experience and I do this not to boast because if I boast it is in the Lord and what Jesus has enabled me to do and given me the privilege to do.
When we left our hometown to follow Jesus at seminary, Kendra and I left our family and jobs to move to Anderson, Indiana. We basically cut our income in half. But we didn’t even know what that income would be. For two weeks, I drove 2 hours one way to finish my job while Kendra looked for a job, which God did provide. God provided housing for us as well as another couple who moved to go to seminary at the same time. Housing that was very inexpensive but not in a horrible location or some roach-infested hole in the wall. It was small but it was nice and enough.
In seminary I learned about the value of using a budget to track expenses. Something that I use to this day. But the call to sacrifice wasn’t just a one time thing. We were called to New Castle after graduation where our salary put us below poverty level. If it wasn’t for the parsonage, we wouldn’t have made it. Even then, it was financially the hardest year of our lives because we so desperately wanted to give to others financially and through gifts but we just didn’t have any extra to give. God blessed, however, and things improved.
When following Jesus meant that it was time to leave New Castle, we first were candidating at a church of over 200 in another state. Considerable pay increase and isn’t that what pastors often do, we trade up. It was definitely tempting but God wasn’t leading there. We felt God leading here where the pay wasn’t overall as much as where we were at.
We don’t regret any of these choices. Nor do we wish a pat on the back. I only share this to encourage you and I know many of you have sacrificed to continue to count the cost of the discipleship. Through my experience with God, I believe discipleship is a lifestyle of great sacrifice not once but continual. It is a sacrifice that is nothing compared to the great value and honor of being a part of God’s kingdom.
I also wonder how many of us (myself included) would truly be able to sacrifice with joy at the level that so many people in other countries have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice in order to follow Jesus.
In communist Romania there was a very young man named Matchevici who had been put into prison because of his faith at the age of 18. Because of the tortures, he was very sick with tuberculosis. Somehow his family found out that he was sick and sent him a hundred bottle so streptomycin, which could make the difference between life and death. The political officer called him and showed the package saying, “Here is the medicine that can save your life. But you are not allowed to have packages from your family. Personally, I would like to help you. You are young. I would not like for you to die in prison. Help me to be able to help you! Give me information against your fellow prisoners and this will enable me to justify before my superiors who I gave you the package.
Matchevici answered, “I don’t wish to remain alive and be ashamed to look in a mirror, because I will see the face of a traitor. I cannot accept such a condition. I prefer to die.” The officer of the secret police shook Matchevici’s hand and said, “I congratulate you. I didn’t expect any other answer from you. But I would like to make another proposal. Some of the prisoners have become our informers. They claim to be Communist and they are denouncing you. They play a double role. We have no confidence in them. We would like to know in what measure they are sincere. Toward you they are traitors who are doing you much harm, informing us about your words and deeds. I understand that you don’t want to betray your comrades. But give us information about those who oppose you so you will save your life!”
This is reasonable. After all, these spineless fools are traitors and they deserve what they have coming to them. After all, this is to save my life and I could do a lot of good yet for God’s kingdom, right? For some of us, we might even think that this is a no brainer. Think about the person who has hurt you so badly. Think of the person who said this or did that. Especially if you knew that they weren’t a Christian, this wouldn’t be that bad.
Matchevici answered as quickly as before, “I am a disciple of Christ and He has taught us to love even our enemies. The men who betray us do us much harm but I cannot reward evil with evil. I cannot give information even against them. I pity them. I pray for them. I don’t wish to have any connection with the Communists.”
Matchevici went back to his cell and died there. He died there praising God as love conquered even the natural thirst for life.
It is easy to follow Jesus when there is nothing to lose. I wonder if we would have the same type of commitment to Jesus’ ways if we were really called to count the cost of discipleship. Would we really value the kingdom God above everything in this world including life itself? I wonder. I wonder.
