Matthew 13:44–52

⁴⁴"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. ⁴⁵"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, ⁴⁶who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. ⁴⁷"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. ⁴⁸When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. ⁴⁹So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁵¹"Have you understood all these things?" They said to him, "Yes." ⁵²And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

Jim Hawkins was a young boy living with his parents who owned an inn near Bristol, England in the 1700's. One day, an old and menacing sea captain known as Billy Bones appears and takes a room in the inn. Over the next few months the presence of the old pirate create nothing but problems for Jim and his parents. The day after Jim's father died and was buried, a blind pirate named Pew appears at the inn and presents captain Bones with "The Black Spot" upon which Captain Bones dies of a stroke. Quickly Jim and his widowed mother search through the captain's old sea chest for the money that he still owed them, and come across a map which a gang of dangerous pirates is after. Shortly thereafter, Jim embarks on a life threatening journey with some friends to the remote island where it is believed that Captain Flint had died and left buried treasure. Unbeknownst to them the cook was one of Flint's former mates, Long John Silver who attempts a mutiny and almost kills Jim and his friends. After finding the treasure, the finally return home with a portion of it and Jim is able to support his mother and continue running the old inn.

While buried treasure, pirates and treasure maps make for exciting adventure stories, they rarely happen in real life. Still, in the ancient world, and in fact in our world today in countries that are not as economically developed as ours, occasionally one does stumble upon a buried treasure. Mostly because banking systems are unreliable or non-existent, so people sometimes bury part of their wealth in remote places hoping to preserve it safely and be able to get it when a need arises. Often these treasures remain buried years after the person dies, since no one, not even his family members are aware of its existence.

This is precisely what happened in the parable Jesus told about a man who stumbled across a hidden treasure. We know nothing of the original owner, who is not a factor in the story at all, and is presumed dead, having left his fortune buried and forgotten. It is then legally the property of the owner of the land where in it was buried.

As it so happened, a man was walking through the field; we don't know why. Perhaps he was a sojourner or perhaps he was a hired hand of the farmer. In this case he did not have a treasure map nor was out looking for treasure. He just happened to stumble upon it by change, or so it would seem. He was a common, ordinary man. He was not what the world would have esteemed a wise man. He was not proud and self-sufficient. For such a man would not have been going through a field, nor would such a man be looking for treasure in such a common, lowly place as a field. That is why the original owner hid it there in the first place, just so that such people would not find it.

However, it turned out that the treasure was far more valuable than anything else the man had ever encountered. The treasure would be the answer to all his problems. It would satisfy his needs and those of his family for the rest of their earthly lives. It would make him a rich man, far above his peers. It was security, peace, and wealth that would never end for him.

But now he had the problem of how to acquire it for himself. He was not a thief and the idea of simply absconding it did not even cross his mind. According to law in the ancient world, the owner of the field would be the rightful owner of the treasure. So he had but one option: purchase the field. In order get the money to buy it he would have to sell all that he had. So he gathered up all his worldly possessions, including his house, any land he owned, any animals he may have owned, and sold them. With the money he placed an offer on the field where the treasure was buried. The offer was accepted by the owner and so the field changed hands. Now the man who found the treasure became the rightful, legal owner of the field, and any treasure that was buried there was his to keep.

But what does it all mean? Jesus said that the treasure was the kingdom of God. For there is no higher treasure to be found anywhere. There is no other treasure that even comes close in value or worth. For the kingdom of God is an eternal treasure, unlike treasures on this world. It is the treasure where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. Why do we value treasures? They give us comfort, wealth, security and peace. This treasure is permanent wealth and security and peace and satisfaction forever and ever. We look for treasures because we think that they will satisfy all our needs. They will solve all our problems. They will take care of us and supply for our needs.

But what are our needs? What is it that we are lacking? If we are honest about ourselves, we have to admit that deep inside each of us we are not the person we wish we were. We find deep inside us character flaws, thoughts, attitudes and the like that we know are not what they should be. We know we are not really the kind of people we want others to see in us or the character we want to have. We find sinful thoughts and attitudes, sinful feelings about others, sinful behavior and desires that we hide and don't let others know about because we know they are wrong. It is hard to confess them to God because it is painful to admit them even to ourselves. While on the outside we make a good show and want others to think we are pretty good people, on the inside we are all aware that we just aren't the kind of people we wish we were. Perhaps there are some sinful thoughts or desires that we can't get rid of. Perhaps some other areas of our life that we just aren't satisfied with. Perhaps there are fears we can't face, or addictions, or doubts, or worries. We even worry about ourselves, "Am I really OK or is there something deeply wrong with me?" If we say we aren't troubled from time to time by such thoughts and doubts about ourselves we are just not being honest. Sometimes even this dishonesty is really because we are afraid to face these issues because we don't know where to turn.

St. Paul had just such issues himself. But he also had found the treasure; the treasure of God's kingdom. For the kingdom is Christ. The treasure is Christ. The answer to all his and our deep, inward sins and defects is Jesus Christ crucified. As St. Paul proclaims: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Jesus by his death on the cross has redeemed us from sin and from all its devastation in our lives. The kingdom of God is a great treasure because only there do we find the solution to all our sinful desires and doubts and fears and self-centeredness and failure to be the kind of people we know we should be. Only by being washed with the precious, holy, innocent blood of Christ the Lord, the King of the kingdom, is there cleansing for our inner being and healing for our souls. Therefore, having Christ is the ultimate treasure. It is an incomparable treasure of greater value and worth than all other treasures combined. Like Naaman the leper who washed in the River Jordan and his leprosy went away, our sins and defects of character are washed away in the river of blood that flows from our Savior's cross to us through Word and Sacrament.

But where do we find the treasure? It is hidden in a field. But God hid it in the field in order that it might be found. Like the man in the field who did not go looking for treasure, but just stumbled across it, neither do we look for the treasure, but God reveals it to us. It is as if we just stumbled across it. We don't work for it. We don't labor to earn it. It is revealed to us, to those whom God desires to find it. God placed the treasure, led the man to it and so he found it there. Just as God leads us to the treasure and revels it to us in the Word.

And just as the man when he found the treasure acquired the field, this signifies that we get the treasure and make it our own when we appropriate the Word of God in our hearts, minds and lives. Buying the field denotes the real, true appropriation of the scriptures once a man knows the treasure they contain. We make the treasure our own when we acquire the Word of God. That Word of God is ours when we hear, read, and learn the Scriptures and when we receive the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. When we learn and use God's Word and carry it with us in our hearts and lives the treasure is ours.

But the treasure was hidden in a field, a plain, ordinary field. God did not hide his treasure far off in the heavens where no human being could even come near it, but in a common, lowly place; a field. It could not be found by earthly wisdom or the proud and self-sufficient; they would not have looked in such a lowly place for a treasure. It is not found in higher things like human wisdom and understanding, or spiritual exercises, or good works and humanitarian causes. It is not found in meditation and spirituality or asceticism. It is found in a field: the field is God's Word. The kingdom of God is not distant or far off in some other heavenly realm that we cannot reach. It is here close at hand. It is to be found in the Bible and in the Sacraments.

But just as a field is a common and lowly place, not where we expect to find a treasure, so we often find the scripture field to be plain, common and ordinary. How many times we walk over it again and again in our reading or hearing and find precious little in it. How often we close our ears and eyes and instead of looking for treasure, we despise the preaching and God's Word. Instead Luther tells us we should "rather than hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it." This is the meaning of the Third Commandment. How miserable creatures we become because we do not find the treasure in the field, but go right on by it never paying any attention. Oh, what joy we often forfeit, what pains we often bear, all because we underestimate the value of God's Word and do not find the treasure hidden therein!

God's kingdom is a treasure and holds all that a treasure has for us. We immediately think of the riches of a treasure; all that is spiritually priceless: pardon, righteousness, life, and peace that are ours when we acquire the treasure of God's kingdom for ourselves.

This is another thing which we notice in this parable: the man bought the field and the treasure became his. He was then the rightful and legal owner. The kingdom is ours! The kingdom does not possess us as if it belonged to a king or ruler and we were his subjects. The kingdom belongs to us. Notice in the previous parables dealing with the kingdom, that Jesus nowhere calls us "subjects" of the kingdom, but "sons." We are sons in the kingdom, that means we are princes and heirs of the kingdom. We are the rightful heirs, the owners, the possessors of the kingdom. And as heirs to the throne the Bible also calls us kings and rulers and says that we will rule next to Christ on the throne. We will be kings and queens of the kingdom of heaven and Jesus with indeed be the King of Kings.

We who have the treasure, let us not hid it again, but spread the treasure to all peoples, as in the final parable of our text that says that the kingdom is like a net that gathers in all sorts of fish when the net is swept through the sea. So the Gospel which we proclaim is a net that gathers people into the kingdom; all sorts of people from every nation an tribe, every social class, every level of education, and every age, old and young, rich and poor. As kings of the kingdom we cast out the net of the Gospel message to gather in the fish from the furthest corners of the world. For the kingdom is a treasure; a priceless treasure of infinite worth in which we shall live and reign forever.

Amen.