The kingdom of heaven
Text: Matthew 13:31–33, 44–52
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ve been enjoying a series of parables in recent weeks. Today, we hear five very short parables that are all describing God’s kingdom and the things that will happen at the end of time. We won’t tackle all of them today. Instead, we are going to focus specifically on the parable of the hidden treasure.
The kingdom of heaven is hidden.
Where is God’s kingdom? Where can we find the kingdom of heaven? These are hard questions because God’s kingdom is not a specific place or even a particular group of people. That’s why Jesus uses so many images and analogies to explain it.
God’s kingdom is hidden in the fact that it’s so hard for us to understand, comprehend, or describe it. It’s beyond us just like God is beyond us. These parables all start with, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” It can’t really be defined. The best our language (and our brains, for that matter) can handle are descriptions.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field…” (Mt. 13:44) That parable starts in a very weird place. When we think of any kingdom, we don’t think of something buried in a paddock for someone to stumble across one day, but that’s exactly how Jesus describes it.
God’s kingdom is not obvious. If it had to be a physical place on earth, you’d have to say it would be Israel, with its capital in Jerusalem. After all, that was God’s holy city through the Old Testament. You would not say that’s where God’s kingdom is today.
What about the Vatican? Our whole wing of Christianity started 500 years ago because the Catholic Church of the day was found to be corrupt.
What about the megachurches? Some of them attract tens of thousands of people on a Sunday for worship services. Surely God’s kingdom is there! Well, if you watch the news, you’d know the problems discovered within Hillsong and many other churches like it around the world.
We can’t definitively say that God’s kingdom is in any one church, denomination, or even in the Christian Church as a whole, with all of it’s problems, divisions, corruption, and sin. Even the obvious signs like wealth or rapid growth in memberships are not signs that God’s kingdom is present. They only point to human success, and that’s normally short-lived.
The signs of God’s kingdom are subtle and tend to be stumbled across rather than conjured up or intentionally discovered.
Only Jesus, crucified for the sins of the world and raised again for the justification of sinners, can create the Kingdom that leads to eternal life. Anchored in the cross of Christ (a past event) and actualised in the present through the proclamation of God’s Word and the administration of His Sacraments, the kingdom of God also awaits its fulfilment in the visible return of Jesus Christ in glory.
Edward A. Engelbrecht
The kingdom of heaven is hidden in ordinary things: a humble carpenter, a wooden cross, a book, a bowl of water, a piece of bread and cup of wine… Jesus, through His Holy Spirit, is present with us here and now through the power of His Word. It’s hidden, but it’s life-changing.
The kingdom of heaven is worth more than anything else.
“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.” (Mt. 13:44) When this man discovers this great treasure, He is somewhat sneaky.
This man doesn’t go and tell the landowner that he’s sitting on a gold mine. Instead, he covers it up and then buys the land for a price that he knows is way under its true value. He doesn’t lie, but he is very shrewd.
Jesus commends this kind of shrewdness in the Parable of the Dishonest Manager (Lk. 16:1–13). This manager is about to be fired, so he forges the financial records to reduce some debts of the clients. The boss then “commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness” (Lk. 16:8).
To us, the dishonest manager and the man who buys the field are both being deceitful which is wrong. Jesus’ point, though, is to show that these two value the treasure and their job more than anything else. Like any analogy, it can be pushed too far, but the takeaway here is that the kingdom of heaven is worth more than anything else.
We know the field-buyer’s heart is in the right place because he’s then willing to sell everything he has to get that field and the treasure in it. Nothing else matters more than that treasure. Likewise, nothing else matters to us more than being under God’s rule in His kingdom.
At times, being obedient to God’s rule may seem wrong in the world’s eyes. Christian views of gender, marriage, headship, or just about any other social issue are often seen as wrong, insensitive, disrespectful, and outdated in the public eye. It is important that we are a presence of peace in a world that so often lacks it, but there will be times when we are called to choose between what is right in the eyes of God or the world around us.
The man was willing to be a bit dishonest to be able to gain that treasure in the field. We must be willing to cop the world’s consequences for being true to God’s will for us.
The kingdom of heaven is for you.
So far, we’ve understood this parable in the normal way: you are the man who stumbles across the treasure that is God’s kingdom. You have to be willing to give up everything to obtain it.
I have a new proposition for you. That man is Christ and you are the treasure. When He finds you, He is willing to give up everything He has to bring you to Himself—even His life. That is the Gospel.
What if we think about the other parables differently?
Christ is the merchant who finds you and values you above every other precious pearl. People who don’t believe in Christ are still created by God and have great value, but He is willing to give them up to gain those that have faith in Him.
Christ is the fisherman who lowers His net and catches all kinds or fish. He keeps those who have faith in Him. It doesn’t help the point of this one to think about what happens to fish that are kept…
Christ is the baker who puts just a small amount of yeast in dough to make it rise. He places His seemingly small and insignificant message of hope in the world, through His Church, and it quietly and almost unnoticeably expands.
Christ is the mustard seed that is planted in the world as a humble human being in one time and one place. Through His death and resurrection, the tree of His kingdom grows and expands to the point that it provides respite and shelter for all kinds of people.
Each of us are just one person among a world of billions. Yet, you are here today because you have been found and saved by Christ, who died and rose so that you could be a part of His kingdom. Because of our faith in Him, planted in us by the Spirit, we are accepted by our Father and made to belong with Him and all His people for eternity.
Until then, we live to serve our God who gave up everything for us. May He grant us the faith to put His kingdom first in all we do. Amen.
