Proper 12: The Surpassing Worth of the Kingdom of God

Fr. David Griffin "Proper 12: The Surpassing Worth of the Kingdom of God"

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Readings for July 26

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Good morning. I’m going to begin with a question that I’ll address first to the children and then the adults. Was there ever something you wanted so bad, you felt like you would do almost anything to get it? What was it? And what did you have to do to get it? When I was a kid, there was a time when I put all my focus and energy into getting my hands on a Nintendo 64 and a copy of Pokemon Stadium to play on it. The console and the game were teased for ages before their release, and I filled that time doing as many paid chores as I could.

Now for you grown-ups, veteran shoppers that you are, I’ll ask it a little differently: think of the best bargain you’ve ever found. What did you have to do to get it? At a minimum, good bargains tend to require speed, right? If everyone knows about it, then you probably have a lot of rivals chasing after something priced well below its actual value. And if very few people know about it, you want to use this fact to your advantage by scooping it up before others find out. Who among us hasn’t hidden a product behind other things on the shelf, hoping it's still there when you come back?

In our reading from Matthew 13, we see a number of short parables that Jesus told, among which are the two about very expensive things: We find them in verses 44 to 46.

44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

This sermon is a meditation on these verses. They are deceptively simple. But they are one, among many, ways that Jesus sums up the Kingdom of Heaven and what those who seek it do when they find it. If we take away nothing else from these two parables, let us take away this: that (1) the Kingdom of Heaven is the most valuable thing you will ever find; and (2) if you truly understand what it is worth, you will do whatever it takes to get it.

But first, what is the Kingdom of Heaven or, as the Gospel of Luke has it, the Kingdom of God? Briefly, the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus proclaimed is not so much of a place, as it is an event, something that happens, and it happens once and for all. You could render it as “the rule” or “reign” of God. It refers to the point in history when everything that’s gone wrong with creation is put right by the Creator. When the Kingdom arrives, God will make good on all of His promises to His people. It will be a moment best described in the Lord’s Prayer; when the Kingdom comes, God’s will will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. God will show he has heard the cry of the poor, the sick, the downtrodden: these are the last, as Jesus calls them. The rich, the powerful, those of high status in this world: these are the “first,” in this age. But when God’s Kingdom comes, the first will be made last, and the last will be made first. But above all, the most “last” of all, the dead, would be raised to life again. The New Testament is, by and large, the story of how the Kingdom arrives with Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. That’s part one, the forgiveness of sins. Part 2 is the promise that the redemption of all things will be complete when Jesus comes back. All those who want to enter it, do so by trusting and following Jesus.

Okay, back to the parables. The first important thing to note is that one has to find the Kingdom of God. You do not make it. You don’t cause it. You do no work to set it up. The Kingdom is just there. It is an objective thing, quite independent of our striving, of our doing our best (or not), even of our church-going or praying or Bible-reading. It comes ready-made, like it or not. So on the one the hand, this aspect of the kingdom comes as pure gift. The event happens purely on God’s own initiative. Similarly, like a treasure or a pearl, you don’t come across God’s Kingdom and think, “hmm, it needs a little something. I wish it was a little more blue.” I was explaining gifts and gratitude to my kids recently. Sometimes when you offer a little kids something for dessert, they accept it with a thank you and enjoy it. Other times, they might actually get mad that you offered them cake instead of ice cream. So I explained, “I can’t remember a time you found a stick or a rock to play with and complained it wasn’t some other, better stick or rock. You treat those things as though they were the most interesting thing in the world in that moment; it wouldn’t even occur to you to be upset or disappointed. You just accept it because hey, free stick!” To their credit, they seemed to take in that lesson. If, then, we can appreciate the little things in life like that, how much more can we receive with joy the Kingdom God has prepared for us. So this aspect of the Kingdom, let’s call it its foundness, inspires in us thanksgiving. Freely we receive God’s gift of redemption.

On the other hand, God’s Kingdom is unique. The thing about buried treasure and pearls of exceedingly great value is you don’t come across them all willy-nilly. That’s part of what makes them feel valuable to people, is the fact they are so rare. Let’s do a little exercise: imagine for a moment something you had only ever heard or read about, or seen on a screen, but one day, seemingly out of the blue, there it was. What was that like? Maybe you watch birds but have never had the privilege of spotting a Northern Saw-Whet Owl [I had to look that one up, as I’m not a bird person]]. As someone who loves the science of plants, I get the same feeling when I stumble on a flower I’ve only seen in books. It’s like meeting a celebrity! The surprise factor makes the encounter itself even more marvelous. Likewise, the Kingdom of God is very rare. Indeed, there’s only one of it. This aspect of Jesus’ teaching might be concerning to some: what if I don’t find it? Is it really hidden, like the treasure and the pearl? After all, Jesus himself says in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and few are they who find it.” If this causes concern, I have two responses. The first is, well, we should all be concerned with the path we are on in life, and whether it is the right one. We have a full forty-six day season called Lent dedicated to that kind of reflection. So in one sense, I’d be concerned about those who are not concerned! But in another sense, Jesus is of course not looking to discourage anyone from finding the Kingdom; quite the opposite! So something else is going on here. I think a lot of what Jesus is saying has to do with the uniqueness of the Kingdom. There’s only one right way to get there. One must repent of one’s sins and turn to Jesus, by trusting and following him. But there’s an infinite number of wrong paths. In the parable, it’s precisely the uniqueness of hidden treasure and great pearls that makes the man and the merchant rejoice when they find them! So the Kingdom’s uniqueness makes the heart leap for joy when we find it. For this we praise and worship our God and King, Jesus.

Lastly, though the Kingdom of Heaven comes ready-made, without any contribution from us, you will put everything you’ve got into getting your hands on it. That’s another aspect of these parables that is easily missed: the man in the field and the merchant recognized what it was that they found. Have any of you ever watched Antique Roadshow? It’s all about this second-hand thrill you get when you watch everyday people learn that they found a million-dollar painting in their grandma’s attic. Now that they know what they have, you can bet that they’re going to take very good care of it. In these parables, the man and the merchant know from the start what they’re looking at. It’s the discovery of a lifetime. You can imagine the scene right now. They are arrested by the sight of the treasure, or of the pearl. It stops them dead in their tracks. After glancing over both shoulders to see if anyone is watching, they take another hard look at it once, twice, and a third time to make sure they are seeing correctly. Because if this thing they found really is what they think it is, their lives as they know it are over. Everything changes. These treasures dwarf the value of all the things they own combined. If these men are wise, which by all accounts they are, they will waste no time. They convert all their assets into cash to buy this thing. To do otherwise would be pure folly. Thus, Jesus is saying the Kingdom of God makes a claim on you and your life. It demands action, one way or another. In fact, it demands everything from you.

Jesus seems to have meant it pretty concretely too. He is constantly encouraging people to sell off their possessions and give to the poor. So the fact these figures in the parables sell all they own is no coincidence. When he is talking to the rich young man elsewhere in the Gospels, what does Jesus say? Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and follow me. He doesn’t require a mere attitude change; such a reading is one way we domesticate Jesus’ wild teaching. No, that would have been trivially easy for the rich man. On the contrary, Jesus taught that wealth has a way of staking a claim on our lives that competes with God’s. You can’t just keep serving mammon, or wealth, as long as you think the right thoughts about it. You have to sever ties with it. But let me make a clear distinction: one does all this out of joy and thanksgiving, the kind you have when you stumble on a hidden treasure that even the richest man on earth couldn’t afford, but here it is, yours for the taking. And the Kingdom’s incomparable value lays claim to far more than your possessions. It is so valuable that you will joyfully devote your entire life so that you might have the riches of God’s Kingdom. It’s that great a bargain.

Well, it appears that what took Jesus about 15 seconds to say has taken me about 15 minutes. But then, he always was the better teacher. If these parables mean anything for you or me, they should kindle in our hearts a sense of awe and wonder, to fill our souls with thanks and praise, that Jesus brought the Kingdom with Him and in finding Him, we have found a treasure beyond all accounting. And for all I’ve said up this point, the way He taught us how to get into the Kingdom was simple. He said: come, and follow me. In a few minutes we will do just that: we will come to meet Him at the table. There we receive Christ as pure gift, the manifestation of God’s Kingdom, whose worth knows no equal .