Year A Proper 12

Have any of you seen the recent Indiana Jones movie with Harrison Ford: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? How about any of the Indiana Jones movies? Still, my favorite is the first one: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or how about the National Treasure moves with Nicholas Cage. While they are fun and over-the-top adventures, they share a theme of finding a great treasure—and we are fascinated. Wouldn’t you love to find a real treasure map?
How about that t.v. series: Antiques Roadshow. People bring their family heirlooms and found treasures to the experts to find out their worth, their value. While some are disappointed to find out that their treasures have little value, others have remarkably rare and valuable things, and we can share in their joy and surprise.
Larry and I used to sell a lot of stuff on ebay. There was a time when Larry had some health problems, and this was something he could do. And then when my company in Centralia closed their doors, I sold stuff while finishing my bachelors degree and before seminary. So we used to go treasure hunting: to rummage sales, auctions, flea markets, and thrift shops. We learned a lot as we went along, learned from our mistakes. There were things that we thought were valuable, but they really weren’t.
Some things we had pretty good idea regarding the value, other things were great surprises:
Larry’s Children’s book
St. Barbar.V.M. relic
We had some fun treasure hunting, and it was exciting at times to see what things sold for. I still get the urge to stop at all yard sales and look for treasures!
In today’s gospel, we heard that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet. We’ve been hearing about the kingdom of heaven for the last few weeks. The kingdom of heaven is like seeds sown all over the ground. It’s like a man who sowed good seed in his field. These are all metaphors, designed to capture people’s attention. It’s impossible even for Jesus to explain exactly what the kingdom of heaven is, and so he tells us what it is like. In today’s barrage of parables, what seems to be consistent is the smallness, the hiddenness of the kingdom of heaven.
In the parable of the mustard seed, we find that a great shrub grows from the tiniest of seeds, so small that it takes 400 or so to weigh one gram. It was the smallest known seed in Israel, but it produced a nice shrub, great for nesting birds. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed—“the proverbial smallness of the mustard seed as a metaphor that describes the kingdom of God would have shocked the crowd. Israel always believed that when God’s kingdom was established on earth it would be great; they were not prepared for an insignificant beginning.”[1] It sure wasn’t what they wanted, what they expected Just a little, insignificant seed.
The parable of the yeast likewise takes something small and ordinary—even perhaps despised because of the evil connotation of leaven, of yeast—and turns it into an example of the presence of the kingdom. Not only was leaven symbolic for evil, in the parable it was a woman who kneaded it into the dough—women’s work was so despised that this example really would have captured the attention of the listeners. “Jesus uses yeast to symbolize the positive, hidden permeation of the kingdom of heaven into this world. The Jews rightly understood that the arrival of the kingdom would mean the transformation of the order of things in this world. But Jesus’ arrival did not bring the expected immediate, external, dramatic change.”[2] The inconspicuous and even perhaps despised beginning of the kingdom was in direct contrast to what it would become. It does not come with power and might, but with the inner transformation of the hearts of individuals. In spite of small and even invisible beginnings, the kingdom of heaven will permeate the entire world and will ultimately have great results.
Then there is the man who finds treasure hidden in a field, who buries it again, goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. This treasure lays there unnoticed, hidden. The man isn’t necessarily even searching for it, but he happens to find it and sees its value. The emphasis here is not that he was perhaps a bit devious, but that he recognized the value of his find, and went and sold all that he had in order to obtain this treasure. “The emphasis here is on the supreme worth of the treasure that is unseen by others. It is worth far more than any sacrifice one might make to acquire it. . . . No sacrifice is too great to live in God’s will and experience a disciple relationship with Jesus as Master.”[3] Remember the story of the Rich Young Ruler? He went to Jesus asking about how he could enter the kingdom, how he could have eternal life. Jesus asked him if he had kept the commandments, and the man assured Jesus that he had kept them all. And Jesus told him then to go and sell everything he had and give the proceeds to the poor, and then he would have treasure in heaven. And the man went away sorrowful because he had many possessions. He wasn’t willing to give up his earthly treasures in order to obtain the kingdom of heaven (Matt 9:16ff). The value of the kingdom of heaven is worth far more than our earthly treasure, worth sacrificing in order to obtain it. But the moral of the story isn’t so much about sacrifice, but about the joyful surrender of obtaining the kingdom of heaven. Paul said, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Phil 3:8-9a).
The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who is deliberately searching and finds a pearl of great value and he went and sold everything he had in order to buy this valuable pearl. This man was diligently searching, and when he found the pearl he knew its value. “Moreover, as an expert, the merchant knows that even if he sells all that he has, the pearl he possesses surpasses all his former accumulated wealth.”[4] This story again emphasizes the utmost value of the kingdom of heaven. There is nothing more valuable in the whole world.
Finally, the kingdom of heaven is like a net, hidden beneath the surface of the sea, capturing all that is before it. It catches both good fish and bad, and at the end of the age, the good will be separated from the bad. On that last day, the day of judgment, the kingdom of heaven will be cast like a net over the whole world and no one will escape final judgment. All will be sorted out into good and bad, those who believe in Jesus and accept his message, and those who reject Jesus and his message. It’s up to Jesus and his angels to judge these people—we don’t know enough to be able to judge, to be able to sort the good from the bad. We can’t see people’s hearts.
As Christians, as disciples of Christ, we sometimes take for granted that which we have received. We are truly children of the kingdom of heaven, and that is the greatest treasure in the world, far greater than the crystal skull, the lost ark, or the national treasure. It is greater than the greatest find on Antique Roadshow. It is in fact the only treasure with eternal value.
The parable of the hidden treasure emphasizes that the kingdom has a value that far outweighs what anyone looking on an open field might have expected. The parable of the costly pearl emphasizes that the well-trained expert will discover, upon finding the reality of the kingdom, that nothing is comparable in worth. Whatever cost a person expends is nothing in comparison to the benefit of belonging to it. Salvation and the righteousness of the kingdom is a greater treasure than all that the world has to offer, and it is the source of greatest joy. . . .When we recognize fully the value of life in the presence of the Savior now and life eternal, all of the sacrifice we make cannot compare to the joy of experiencing its present reality.[5]
This is the treasure worth searching for. It is worth any price. It is worth investing all that we have, making a commitment that is total because this treasure is beyond price. This treasure is. . Priceless. Amen.
[1] Wilkins, Michael J. The NIV Application Commentary: Matthew. Zondervan p. 483.
[2] Ibid, 483-4.
[3] Ibid, 487.
[4] Ibid, 488.
[5] Ibid, 505.