The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been focusing on the parables in Matthew 13. Perhaps it’s time, maybe overdue, to actually describe or define what a parable is, because it is a unique literary genre. Nathan used it in the Old Testament when he confronted King David over the adultery and murder of Bathsheba’s husband, in the parable of the poor man with the one lamb versus the rich man with many flocks. Parables were a form of teaching in Jesus’ day, so it was natural for Jesus, the teacher of all teachers, to rely on parables more than just about anybody else in His time.
The word “parable” in Greek literally means “to come alongside.” Parables were short stories told by Jesus in order to come alongside His hearers, His listeners, in order to teach them spiritual truths about the church, about the kingdom of heaven. By the way, that phrase “kingdom of heaven” is the dominant one used by Matthew in his Gospel; the other three Gospels use the phrase “the kingdom of God,” but they’re one and the same, and they refer to the church, both the hidden church and the church that one sees with his eyes. Parables liken the kingdom of heaven to common things on earth so that we can understand them, like seeds and soil, pearls, fishing nets, a woman making bread, or weddings. All are used as a basis to bring the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, alongside ordinary listeners, so that those who believe can truly understand.
Parables are intended to reveal mysteries of the kingdom of heaven to the faithful, while hiding the meaning of a parable from the unbelieving world. Jesus says in Luke 8:10, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'” That is, without true faith, a right understanding is nearly impossible. To the Christian who lives by faith, parables are great comforts and reveal great mysteries. That which is hidden from the world is seen by faith, by the believer. To the unbeliever, they simply liken parables to moral tales, morality stories, which really hides the meaning of the parables.
Today’s Gospel reading delivers three short parables in rapid succession, one right after another, likening the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, to a treasure, to a pearl-seeking merchant, and to a dragnet trolling waters for fish. Between the three of them, we will learn that the kingdom of heaven is hidden, that it’s costly, and that it’s universal. That word “universal,” by the way, really means “catholic,” meaning the whole world. The Christian church throughout the whole world is the catholic church.
So the first parable in the series goes like this: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” The first thing we ought to glean from the first parable is that the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, is hidden from plain sight. We don’t see it. With the exception of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, no one sees the kingdom of God on earth. It’s like a buried treasure that people walk around, walk by, walk over. They may even picnic on top of it, build buildings on it, plant grain in it, but they don’t know what’s under their feet is a priceless, glorious treasure. And the treasure in this case is the church: believers who by faith are holy and blameless in God’s sight, that is, they’re saints. But their saintliness is hidden from the world. In fact, the saints don’t even see their own saintliness. Their holiness is seen only by the Lord God Himself, through the person and the work of Jesus Christ, imparted in the preaching of the Word and the sacrament of Holy Baptism.
To the believing and unbelieving world, the kingdom and the things of the kingdom, including the people of the kingdom, look quite ordinary. Like Holy Baptism: it looks like just simple water and a few words. A preacher in a robe. Bread and wine. Boring hymns, liturgies, prayers. Ordinary people who look very unremarkable, and who time and time again fail to follow after Jesus. And yet the glory of this treasure is hidden, just like the glory of Jesus Christ, His divinity, was hidden under His humanity. Or our glory as creations in Christ is hidden under our old Adam, sinful flesh. “Hidden” is another way of saying “sacrament” or “mystery,” something that you do not see plainly and clearly or even easily. What is hidden must always be revealed. You know about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, because the Word of God has told it to you, and that’s the only route by which you come to see the glory and the hidden treasure of saintliness and of the church itself. The kingdom of heaven is present, but it has to be revealed, and it is revealed only to those of faith. You must hear of it and believe that it is in fact true. As the catechism teaches, the kingdom of God comes when the Word of God is preached and heard, believed and lived out by a person or a people.
The hidden treasure gives value, the second lesson, to the whole field. This means that this sinful and rebellious world only has value to the Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, by virtue of what Jesus Christ has done, and by extension, the church and Christians who live in the world. Without Christians, the church, and Christ being preached, and sacraments being administered, the world itself has no value in itself in the eyes of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This value must be imputed to the world. The treasure is so valuable in the parable that the man goes and he buys the whole field. He takes the whole lot: the dilapidated barn, run-down houses, collapsing shed, rusting equipment, whatever is there. He has bought the entire thing simply for the sake of the hidden treasure, the thing that other people cannot and do not see or know about. The only thing that pleases God in this world is the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, by which all things are reconciled to God the Father through His Son Christ. And it is only for Christ’s sake that the world has value. Everything has value in Christ, because of Christ, including you.
The second parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” Now, the problem with this parable is that we, the readers and listeners, get distracted by the pearl, and we hear the parable as saying something like this: “The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price.” But that’s not what it says. It doesn’t tell you that it is of such great price it’s too much to give up everything you have in order to have it. It is of great value; it is a pearl of great price. That’s all true, but that’s not the point of the parable. Pearls in the day of Jesus were exceedingly valuable; in the ancient world they were worth as much as three times gold. But the comparison is not to the pearl; it’s to the merchant who seeks after the pearl. He goes out looking for that one in particular, unique, valuable pearl among all the other ordinary pearls. Upon finding the one particularly priceless pearl, the merchant goes out, he sells everything in order to buy the one thing needful. The pearl is that precious to God. His church is that precious to God. And you are that precious to God.
The focus in the parable is on the merchant, not so much the pearl. It’s on the willingness to sacrifice all, to give up all, to sell all, to leave all in order to obtain the pearl of great price. Imagine a Middle Eastern pearl dealer working in the vendor market of the day. He bargains, he wheels, he deals, he looks for the best pearl at the best price. But then he finds the one, the pearl of pearls, the rarest of all, the finest of all, and he gives up everything in order to possess it. Now consider the most well-known Bible verse in all of the Old and New Testament: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.” God loved the pearl that was in the world in this way: He gave His only Son to obtain it. The kingdom of heaven is the seeking love of God. That’s what the kingdom consists of. He searches for that one pearl of infinite value, the world He created and loves, and finds it, and gives everything He has, His only begotten Son, in order to make it His. The church, the pearl, you, His treasured possession.
We, on the other hand, tend to do the exact opposite. How many of us are ready and willing to give up everything material in order to follow Jesus? There was a rich young ruler who came to Jesus, and when it was presented as a reality, a reality check, could he actually make the choice and do the thing? We’re told that he turned away and went home sad. Thankfully, this is not about you or me or anybody else making the right choice. It’s about God’s choice to seek and to save us, to find the buried treasure, and to seek out the greatest pearl of all value. It’s about the love of God in Christ doing all things necessary to rescue the world from sin, death, and the power of the devil. It’s about the God who hides Himself and works mysteriously in, with, and under the humble things of this world, like water, words, bread, and wine, to redeem the world.
The third parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.” The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, is like a big, wide, indiscriminate, catholic net that is universal, and it holds in everything that comes within its path, good fish and bad. This is the part of the parables that ought to put you in mind of last week’s sermon and the parable of the wheat and the weeds, where they’re to grow up together, and only in the end, the Last Day, will they be separated one from the other, the bad from the good. This parable, then, is about the Last Day, when God’s Word and all Christians will be vindicated. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” He gathers up in the visible church the good and the bad, the evil and the righteous, and then on that Last Day He’ll send the angels to the harvest. He’ll send the fishermen to separate them, the good from the bad.
We would have thought that God might have been more discriminate, more selective in casting His net, or how He went about fishing, so that He’d catch just the people that believe and trust in Him. But He’s not that discriminating at first. He casts a wide net, and then He sorts it later. Just like the sower of the seed who tosses seed on every kind of ground, showing the generosity of the gospel and of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so also He casts the net out into the world. Jesus drags the whole net of the world into His death on the cross, leading to the separation of the good and bad, believers from unbelievers, those who will die in sin and those who will be raised up again to His new creation. Then, and only then, will the evil and the good be properly sorted. Jesus is the fisherman who recognizes the good fish from the bad, the sheep from the goats, and separates them accordingly on the Last Day.
The fisherman, you see, is the actor in this parable. And whenever you’re reading a parable, look at who the actor is, not the title of the parable; those often are misleading. And you’ll always find that it is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, specifically Jesus Christ, who’s the actor in the parable. Jesus was the man who sold all. He was the man that uncovered the treasure, dug it up, and took it all. He’s the merchant that sold all to have the priceless pearl. He’s the sower of the seed in last week’s parable. He’s the owner of the field that brought forth the wheat and the weeds. Jesus is the one who for a little while gave up heaven, became flesh, humbled Himself even to the point of death on the cross. He is the one who purchased the hidden treasure, the church, you. He’s the one that sees in you the very value of His Son, Jesus Christ. He looks upon His church and He sees the holy, blameless, spotless bride of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Now, that’s contrary to our experience. There are many times that we feel worthless and cheated and disrespected. You may feel insignificant, nothing but a grain of sand on a seashore, or dust in the wind. But God bought you when you did not know Him. He chose you before you were able to choose any spiritual good at all. He saved you before you ever understood what it meant to be saved. He rescued you before you called for help. He redeemed you and brought life to you while you were still dead in your trespasses and sins. That’s how the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, works.
The kingdom of heaven, you see, is costly. It cost the Father His only begotten Son. It cost the Son everything: His heavenly glory, His earthly home, His perfect life of obedience, His atoning death was the price for the great pearl. The kingdom of heaven is universal, that is, catholic. It has been cast and continues to be cast throughout the whole world. Into the kingdom come both the good and bad, the wheat and the weeds, and on the Last Day they will be separated, the sheep from the goats, and everlasting glory will shine and sinlessness will prevail.
That hidden, costly, universal kingdom is yours, given to you in Christ in the waters of your Baptism. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in Baptism have come alongside of you and have caught you in the kingdom’s net, to be dragged to the shores of resurrection, to rise as saints and holy citizens of His heavenly kingdom. You are His treasured possession, His priceless pearl, His good fish. For your sins are forgiven, and your sinlessness is hidden. Amen.
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.