Best Buy

                                          Matthew 13: 44-52

 

 

            Turn on the internet and type in “best deal.” Many sites emerge.

“Best deal in town,” “best deal finder,” “best deal shopping;” you get the idea. There are many suggestions for how and where to get the best deal. But the internet can only lead you to where you ask. If you ask for the best clothing deal, it will make suggestions. The same is true for all kinds of material things. What if you ask the internet to take you to the best deal of your life? Do you think the internet could do that for you?

          What would be the best deal of your life, anyway? Is it the same for everyone? Would it be something to do with money? Security? Health? Long life? If you could make the best deal of your life today, what would it be? If you had one wish? If you had one goal that you could make come true? Would you go for it? Would you commit yourself to this one thing if you knew it was the best deal of your life?

          Today we look at three more parables of Jesus. The first two act as a pair. They convey the same meaning, but Jesus uses two different illustrations to make the same point. Remember that Matthew 13 is a series of parables from Jesus, all designed to tell us about the kingdom of heaven. All three of these parables only appear in Matthew’s gospel. There are no parallel stories in Mark or Luke. The third parable is the parable of the Net. It is a parallel illustration that would fall in line theologically with the parable of the weeds, which we have just looked at recently, so we will concentrate in this message on the first two parables.

          What is the kingdom of God like? Well, it’s like a treasure hidden in a field. It’s also like a pearl of great value. How is that so?  It is so in this way. The kingdom of heaven is so valuable, so life changing, that when you have a chance to enter it, you lay down anything and everything that is in your way in order to come in to the kingdom.

          In first century Palestine, it was not uncommon to bury money in the ground. There were no modern banks as we know them today. There was certainly no FDIC to insure your money on deposit. So you put it in as safe a place as you could. Sometimes, that meant hiding it in the ground. There were rules about buried treasure. If you were a workman, and working in someone’s field, anything you found in that field, including buried treasure, belonged to the owner of the field.  But if you bought the field, anything in the field at the time of the purchase was part of the purchase. So in our first parable today, the workman finds a treasure in the field where he is working. He realizes his find. It is so incredible that he sells all that he has in order to buy the field, which makes him the owner of the treasure as well. Is there an ethical problem here? Does the workman have some ethical duty to disclose his find? The short answer to that is that is not relevant. The story is not a lesson on ethics. It is a lesson about a life changing discovery.

           In our second parable, a merchant is in the business of searching for and acquiring valuable pearls. He finds the greatest pearl he has ever seen, and he is in the pearl business, so he knows how great it really is. He sells everything he has in order to acquire the pearl.

          How is the kingdom of heaven like a treasure in a field or a pearl of great price? They are just things. Well, yes, they are just things, but are not just any old things. They are things of superlative worth. They are the one thing that defines all the other things. When we talk about the kingdom of heaven, we are not going to have anything parallel in our universe with which to compare it. All we can do is to compare the things of our understanding to that thing not of our understanding. So, the kingdom of heaven is like… In this case, it is like the greatest treasure ever found or the greatest pearl ever made. Although it will take almost the ultimate sacrifice to make these acquisitions, it is worth it, because it is the Best Buy. It is the deal of the century. It is the deal of their lives!

          Think about the gospel in terms of pearls. Let’s just say that ethical living…being a good guy…being trustworthy and nice, is like a bag of exquisitely beautiful pearls. Or let’s say that religion…regular church attendance…Bible studies…Sunday school; serving on committees…is like another bag of those valuable pearls. But then, imagine that Jesus comes to town. He is preaching the gospel at church hour and you can’t go to church in both places. He is showing us the way, and your ethics have rules that get in between you and that Gospel. You have to put it first or it won’t work. What will you do? One way is nice. It’s clean. It’s always worked before. But it depends on you. The other way? Messy. Putting all your eggs in one basket. We all know what our mothers told us about that. But our mothers didn’t reckon on that basket being held by Jesus. To follow him will be pricy. In some very real ways, it will cost you everything you have. That is the cost of discipleship. And the kingdom is worth infinitely more than any cost we might be called upon to pay. No matter how much and how deep the cost may be for us, it cannot match the cost paid for each of us by out Savior.

          Verses 51 and 52 are probably best read together. Verse 52 is very difficult and scholars continue to debate what it means, so don’t feel bad if you find it complicated. In verse 51, Jesus asks the disciples if they understand. They say yes. Certainly they do understand on some level, but Jesus is asking a lot from them. Only a chapter later, they are still asking for explanations and Jesus shows his frustrations at their slowness. But here, they say they understand. So then Jesus makes an observation which is more like a caution and a command. He says that scribes trained for the kingdom of heaven are like houses who display both new and old possessions.

Think of the scribes as the disciples. Now think of disciples as followers. Now think of followers as not just first century but also twenty first century. Now think of yourself. If you today in your reading of Scripture neglect to read and study the Old Testament, then you have relegated it to the attic of your spiritual house. The Bible is a testimony. It is a testimony of the Gospel, divided into two sections and sixty six books to tell one story. Let your treasure…the presentation and understanding of the Gospel...reflect both new and old. Let your spiritual house present it all, for it is all part of God’s revelation to us.

In Matthew 13, Jesus is telling his first century and modern day disciples about the kingdom of heaven. Even Jesus has to struggle with words and concepts big enough to tell the story. The kingdom of heaven is not an everyday story. It is not an everyday place. But wait. That’s not quite true either. The kingdom of heaven is an everyday place. Oh, I know, it’s not a physical destination. But it is a spiritual destination. Even the very parables that Jesus chose demonstrate that to us. The treasure was obtainable. The pearl was obtainable. Their owners were able to enjoy them in real time! The kingdom of God is very much a destination, and a destination for which the cost of admission is everything.

But everything is love. The proof of love is obedience and repentance. And obedience and repentance bring us the fruits of the Spirit. And then…we are home, for the kingdom of heaven starts here and now in our hearts. It is the treasure. It is the pearl of great value. It is Emmanuel…God with us.