Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12A)

July 30, 2023

Text: Matt. 13:44-52

            “‘Have you understood all these things?’  [The disciples] said to him, ‘Yes’” (Matt. 13:51; ESV).  Well… an overstatement, to say the least.  As scribes go, the disciples had much more training ahead of them before they could competently bring out of their treasure what is new and what is old. 

            And what is new, and what is old… that is to say, a feast!  What is new: Fresh produce.  Homegrown.  Sweet honey from the comb, and figs from the Master’s own fig tree.  And what is old: Well aged wine, well refined. Fine cheeses and marbled steaks.  Signs that the Kingdom has come.  What is old: The Patriarchs, the Prophets.  What is new: The Lord Jesus Christ, the fulfillment and culmination of the old, the promised Messiah, God incarnate, who died for the sins of the world, but who is risen, and lives, and reigns, and sets out a Feast for you.  New, indeed!

            “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure in a field,” or a “pearl of great value” (vv. 44, 46).  One natural interpretation of these parables (and probably the majority interpretation in the Missouri Synod until more recent times), is that Jesus is the treasure, Jesus is the pearl (or perhaps it is salvation, or justification), and you, dear Christian, should sell everything you have to buy the field with the treasure, the pearl of great price.  That is, you should do whatever it takes to obtain the Kingdom for yourself, and remain in it.  Which is not to say you can purchase salvation.  Of course not.  But it is to say, discipleship is costly, and it isn’t easy to follow the Crucified.  But you should make any sacrifice, suffer any loss, for the surpassing worth, as St. Paul says, of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord (Phil. 3:8). 

            This interpretation is not wrong, and it is particularly valuable at a time like ours when grace is thought to be cheap, and being a Christian is relatively easy.  This preaching serves as a corrective.  Would you be willing to give it all up, everything you have, if that were the cost of faithfulness to Jesus?  What about persecution?  Fines?  Imprisonment?  Martyrdom?  Would you be faithful unto death to receive from Jesus the crown of life (Rev. 2:10)?

            But, granting the point, there is a more Christological reading, which also enjoys an ancient pedigree.  That is that you are the treasure, you are the pearl.  Not by a value intrinsic to yourself.  Not by your own merit, or your own righteousness.  But by the value placed upon you by God, who loves the unlovable that they might lovely be, with a love that fashions its own object.  Much like the children of Israel in our Old Testament reading (Deut. 7:6-9).  God calls them His “treasured possession” (v. 6), chosen by God to be such, to be His holy people, over against all the other nations on the face of the earth.  Why?  Well, we know it isn’t because of Israel’s holy track record.  God says this about Israel in the very midst of their grumbling and complaining, their faithlessness and lovelessness in the wilderness.  So how are they holy?  Why does God treasure them?  Because He says so.  Because He has chosen them.  And as it was with the Old, so it is with the New Israel, the Christian Church.  We are His treasure, we are His pearl, because He says so, and because He has chosen us.

            And now, if that is the case, Jesus must be the One who sells all that He has to acquire the treasure, to obtain the pearl.  And He does.  He has.  The cross.  Jesus sheds His blood, gives His body, His very life, into death, to obtain us for His Kingdom.  He goes through hell to make it so. 

            In the case of the treasure, He buys the whole field, which is to say, the world, to obtain that which is hidden in it, His Christians.  This teaches, first of all, that the death of Jesus makes atonement for the sins of all people, of all times and places, even those who do not believe, and will not ultimately be saved.  He redeems the whole world, which is why it is an unspeakable tragedy when anybody is lost.  That is due to their own rejection of our Lord’s gift of forgiveness and salvation. 

            Second, this teaches that the Christian Church is hidden within the world, buried in the very soil.  True, we are not of the world, and we look for Jesus to come and deliver us from the fallenness of the world as it stands.  But we are very much in the world, and that is by design.  To be salt and light in the world, to season it and preserve it, to preach the Gospel, and to be Christ’s hands in the world to serve our neighbor. 

            Then, in the case of the pearl, He buys the specific individual piece He desires, and this teaches us that what He has done for the world, He has done for each one of us, individually.  Dear Christian, Jesus loves you!  Jesus died for you!  Jesus is risen and lives for you!  And He is coming back for you!  For all people, yes.  But specifically, for you!  There is no getting lost in the crowd, here.  Jesus knows you by name.  The hairs of your head are all numbered.  By His Father.  By the Lord Jesus Himself.  Not one of them falls from your head apart from His knowledge.  He knows what you’ve done, and what you continue to do… your thoughts, words, and actions that are contrary to His will, His love, and His Kingdom.  Your grumbling and complaining.  Your faithlessness and lovelessness.  These He has done to death in His death on the cross.  He has chosen you to be His treasured possession.  You are holy because He says so.  He bespeaks you His beloved.  Yes, even you. 

            So, on the one hand, you should be willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of Jesus and the Kingdom, and on the other (and more importantly), Jesus has sacrificed everything to bring the Kingdom to you, and bring you into it.  I am not convinced the two interpretations are mutually exclusive.  St. Paul writes, “Indeed, 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” (Phil. 3:8), the first interpretation.  And the writer to the Hebrews says of Jesus, that “for the joy that was set before him,” the joy of purchasing for Himself a Kingdom, thus fulfilling the eternal will of the Father by saving us, He “endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2), the second interpretation.  Both are true, and a good scribe is like a master of a house who can bring out of his treasure, both things, new and old.

            That is the task of preaching, and of your confession of Jesus Christ to the world.  Gospel proclamation is like a fishing net thrown into the sea.  It gathers up all kinds of fish, good and bad.  People join the Church for all kinds of reasons.  Some believe for a time, and then fall away.  Others, by grace, do eventually come to faith.  Our Lord warns us that there will, inevitably, be hypocrites in our midst, people who say they are Christians, but are, in fact, unbelievers.  There will always be bad fish among the good.  No matter.  The Church preaches the Gospel indiscriminately.  She spreads a broad net, leaving it to the Lord’s angels to draw the net ashore at the appointed time, and separate the righteous (those justified by faith in Jesus Christ) from the evil (those not justified, because they have no faith in Jesus).  When, in the end, the evil are thrown into the fiery furnace where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, only the good fish (those justified by faith in Jesus) will be left.  In the world, redeemed, and made new. 

            Now, what of you?  Have you understood all these things?  In one sense, yes.  Enough to know that Jesus is the be-all and end-all of all things, the culmination of the Old and the fullness of the New.  He is your righteousness, life, and salvation.  But in another sense, you are ever and always growing into the fulness of an understanding you will not reach until you see with your own eyes what you now know only by faith.  That’s okay.  That is the life of a disciple.  The Lord has set a bounteous Table before you, the very best of new and old: Fresh produce.  Homegrown.  Sweet honey from the comb, and figs from the Master’s tree.  Aged wine, chesses, and marbled steaks.  The water of life.  The Holy Gospel.  His true body.  His true blood.  Given and shed for you.  This is the Table of God’s Kingdom.  And Jesus’ joy is that you enjoy it here with Him.  If you understand that, it is enough.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.