23. Matthew 13: Parables of the Kingdom (3)

More Parables (Mt.13:44-50)

Throughout this centerpiece of Matthew’s gospel[1] we have met parables, designed to gather those “with ears to hears” to Jesus’ way of being Abrahamic Israel and separate those who clung to other ways of being Israel as destined for judgment. The people by and large do not get what these riddling stories are about. Neither do the disciples but they at least ask for explanations which Jesus gives them.

Jesus is presented as a Solomonic sage at this point in Matthew’s narrative. He embodies the wisdom he extols at the end of this chapter. He is the “master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (v.52). Notice the “new” -what is happening and coming into reality in and through Jesus, the “kingdom of heaven” – comes first, them in its light the “old” may be brought forth as interpreted by the arrival of the kingdom. It may, indeed, will, be different from everyone’s accumulated expectations, but it will prove, surprisingly, paradoxically, to be the substance of what has been hoped for.

These parables, in essence, retell the history of Israel as it reaches it crisis point in Jesus.[2] We’ve seen this already is earlier parables. And that crisis that Jesus catalyzes remains in view in these closing parables. And in invoking this crisis Jesus embarks on a massive subverting of Israel’s expectations of God’s kingdom (see last post). Here his parables bring the reality of the crisis and the reality of his subversion of expectations to their sharp existential point.

The Parable of the Treasure Hidden in a Field (Mt.13:44)

These next two parables are as brief as they are poignant and pointed. Someone stumbles upon a treasure hidden in field, re-hides it, and goes off to purchase the field for himself at the cost of all that he has. Unless we tap into the urgency of this moment of crisis we can get caught up in all sorts of niceties that good, respectable folks like us care about.

-is it not unfair that this person did not inform the field’s owner of his discovery but hides it and goes to but the field from the owner who is unaware of its true value?

-did he steal the treasure from the owner with this procedure?

-is it prudent to spend all one has for a treasure one has no intention of surrendering for a higher price?

Such worries reveal more about us and our failure to “hear” this story properly. Jesus has already told his followers to seek first his kingdom and God will take care of the rest of their needs (6:33). Prudence is not an “apocalyptic” virtue. Grabbing the kingdom, one’s last and only hope is.

The “field” we have met in earlier parables. It is the place where God has sown seed. Some has grown into wheat, some into weeds. The owner (read Israel) does not know what is valuable or not in his field. Esau-like, he squanders his treasure. “Gentiles, or the faithful among Israel, or Jews other than the Jewish leaders, are stumbling on the treasure that the Jewish leaders own but do not value. When they discover the treasure, they do whatever they need to gain the field. Thus they prove themselves true sons of Jacob.”[3] Typologically, then, like trickster Jacob those who have found the treasure, Jesus, have done what it takes and given up all (family, future, inheritance, reputation) to follow him. Jesus is not teaching sharp business practices here. Rather he is telling Israel’s story in a frame they can easily recognize, grasp, and respond to (if they have “ears to hear”!).

The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price (Mt.13:45-46)

This story finds a merchant actively seeking an item of surpassing value, a treasure from the sea. An anti-sea people, stories about the sea typically focus on Gentiles. After a long and fruitless search the merchant finally discovers his delight, a pearl of great price. Unlike the Jewish field owner who does not realize the value of what he has, this merchant immediately realizes it and acts as irrationally (from our point of view) as the surprised discoverer of the treasure in the field. He sells everything he has to get it.

This can scarcely be coincidental that both parables have the same punchline. If it’s about Jews and Gentiles responding to Jesus (as Leithart thinks) or just contrasting good luck with  intentional searching, the punchline is the point – one must throw caution or prudence aside and do what is required to obtain this prize, this Jesus. The more radical the giving of ourselves and our lives over to Jesus, the better (for us)!

Leithart’s insight here is as troubling for most of us as it is acute.

“It is not accidental that Jesus uses economic terminology to describe the proper response to the kingdom. Gaining the kingdom means having a certain attitude toward wealth; it means “selling all we have” to attain the kingdom. Jesus says elsewhere that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. Rich men are attached not only to their wealth, but to the world that creates their wealth and the way their wealth creates its own world. Wealth brings so many comforts as well as protection. If you are rich, you can do anything legal, and if you do something illegal, you can hire the best lawyers to get you off. They are attached to the delusion that they can control the future, to standards of value that their riches communicate to them, to certain ways of behaving – assessing costs and benefits in coldly rational terms. This will not work for the kingdom. The kingdom has a different set of values. For an entrepreneur, no purchase is a final purchase. You buy in order to sell and buy again in order to sell again. Jesus is describing the end of selling, a final purchase. The man with the pearl is left with something that is of great value – but what can He do with it? Jesus clearly does not expect the man to sell the pearl that he has just purchased with everything he owns. The kingdom, Jesus says, is of surpassing value, and, in terms of the world’s valuations, completely useless.”[4]

Jesus – priceless yet perfectly useless for securing our way and well-being in this world! How quickly his followers would discover that! At Golgotha for Jesus himself and a few decades later with Rome for his followers.

The Parable of Fish Caught in a Net (Mt.13:47-50)

This concluding parable is similar to the earlier one of the wheat and the weeds. God casts the neat into sea of draws in fish “of every kind” (v.47). Called already to become “fishers” of humans (4:19) here they (his followers) make the catch, haul it in, and make the division of the catch into the good and bad (v.48). There will be a ministry of discernment required in a world that has every variety of person in it, some of whom will want to seize and use Jesus for their own purposes and agendas.

Treasures New and Old (Mt.13:51-53)

I commented at the beginning of this post on this passage. Wright’s comment is apt:

“For him, the ‘new’ things are the extraordinary, brand new visions that the kingdom of heaven is bringing. The ‘old’ things are the wisdom of the centuries, particularly the ancient stories and hopes of Israel. The gospel he brings – and the gospel that Matthew is concerned to tell us about – consists in bringing the two together, rooting the new deep within the old, and allowing the old to come to fresh and exciting expression in the new.”[5]

This is Israel’s story, after all. Jesus is its culmination and climax. And at the end, everything earlier looks like what it was all along free of the misunderstandings and errors made in grasping it along the way.

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[1] Wright, Matthew for Everyone: 3306.

[2] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: “Jesus’ parables are allegories of Israel’s history, culminating in Jesus”: 392.

[3] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 442.

[4] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 456-463.

[5] Wright, Matthew for Everyone: 3298-3302.