Keys to God’s Kingdom
Matthew 13:45-46
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a merchant, seeking fine pearls; on finding one pearl of extremely great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” - Matthew 13:45-46, paraphrased
As an intro for this week’s parable, I’m going to show you what are called “figure-ground images”. A picture will be shown on our worship screen; there’ll be one figure our eyes immediately see. But if we change our focus to the background, our perception will shift, and we should suddenly see a second image. Let’s give this a try. Raise your hand if you think you’ve perceived the initial figure and the background one.
I think this fun exercise is a good example of how parables work. There’s an initial or surface lesson that’s plain to see. But if we can shift our focus, we may perceive what’s hidden. You might call it hidden in plain sight! Today’s parable is only two sentences long; it’s embedded in a series of images Jesus used to help his disciples understand what God’s kingdom is like.
The easiest way to look at any parable is as an allegory. The pearl of great price represents Jesus or the gospel. Or the merchant can be seen as an example of discipleship, who seeks and finds a great treasure, Jesus. He’s admirably willing to pay a high price to be his follower.
Either of these allegories offer a fine message. Truth be told most sermons preached, including my own in the past, have focused on these plain-to-see lessons. But this time I want us to mine deeper truths, hidden in plain sight… but to do that, we’ll have to shift our focus. One important key we’ll need is insight into the worldview and experiences of Jesus’ original audience, which in this case is only his twelve disciples.
We’ll start with our main character, the merchant. In today’s world being a merchant is seen in a positive light. To own a business and sell your products to customers is a respectable profession. In Jesus’ day the word “merchant” in Greek was emporos. It’s where we get the word emporium from, which means market-place, or a place for businesses. Merchant was the name for a certain type of businessman, what we’d call a wholesale buyer. Unfortunately, most merchants back then had bad reputations. They travelled from place to place, commonly selling their wares at highly inflated prices. If there was any other way to cheat, or deceive an innocent buyer, they usually wouldn’t hesitate to do so.
There’s one other time when wholesale merchants are mentioned in the New Testament, and not in a positive light. Jesus went to the temple in Jerusalem with his disciples; he saw many merchants with their sales booths set up, filled with products in bulk. But their emporium, or marketplace, was set up in the Temple’s sacred area reserved for prayer. Jesus grew very angry; he tipped over the sales tables, scattering merchants’ wares and money on the ground. “Remove all of this from here,” said Jesus, “Stop making my Father’s house into a marketplace.” Can you hear the strong disdain in Jesus’ words?
With that fresh insight about merchants before us, let’s listen again to how Jesus began his parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant...”. “No!”, the men would have thought, “they are scoundrels, not to be trusted.” I bet their eyebrows lowered into a scowl and their jaws clenched. Jesus had hooked them by choosing a merchant as the main character.
Now let’s move on to the pearls. From our modern-day perspective, these are lovely. Many a young woman has been given a set of real pearl earrings or even a string of pearls made into a necklace. Although we don’t live anywhere near where they’re harvested, pearls are easy to purchase and affordable for most people. But in Jesus’ day no one, not even the Uber-wealthiest of Romans, would have owned a single pearl. Oysters weren’t found anywhere close to their location. At best, the richest in the region may have seen pearls in a painting by an artist.
For Jesus’ listeners, if a merchant was able to buy pearls in bulk and re-sell them for a profit, the value of his massive stock couldn’t begin to be assessed. It would be worth about a gajillion-billion, quadruple-trillion. Jesus has humorously exaggerated the merchants’ net wealth. His disciples would have been in on the joke, immediately getting how ridiculously, impossibly wealthy he was.
With a better, first-century understanding of “merchant” and “pearls”, we’ll now move toward the challenges and surprises that come when we shift our perception toward what is far less obvious. We’ll home in on the background, not the foreground.
Do you think the merchant searching for “fine” pearls was or wasn’t happy with the status quo of his life? We aren’t told the answer to that, directly. What we’re told in the second sentence of the parable does give us a hint. When he found a single pearl of great, exceeding worth the merchant sold all he had and bought it. Let’s go deeper: does that mean he sold all the remaining stock in his warehouse, probably to other merchants he knew? Maybe. Or does selling “all he had” mean he sold his inventory and all his worldly possessions? That would be a significant sacrifice. We aren’t told which of these is true, but what we can take away is how highly motivated he was.
Here are some similar questions: Do we know if the merchant had to hand over all his money to get the pearl he desperately wanted? That’s unknown. Did he have any money left over – or was he destitute, having no food, shelter, extra clothing, an animal to ride, etc.? Again, we just don’t know. But I believe there are some emerging questions for us that can be very relevant.
If we assume that the merchant wasn’t happy with the status quo in his life, maybe because his nose was to the grindstone, is Jesus hoping we’ll consider how happy we are with the status quo in our life? Have you paused lately and thought about your day-in, day-out routines and priorities? Is anything that’s really important to you that’s not happening in your life right now? Do you want to make a plan and change that?
Here’s one of my favorite thought-provoking questions from this parable. It comes from the merchants’ realization that he didn’t know what he’d been missing until he unexpectedly experienced it for himself. It was a routine day, he was on the search for fine pearls, but his business-minded focus stopped; that, and all else fell away and held no appeal for him, once he’d found what most mattered for his life. This discovery greatly changed him. Do you think you’d recognize what’s been missing in your life, if you saw it? Do you think there could be shockingly wonderful new things ahead of you, yet to happen in your life?
Now, on to the merchant selling all of his possessions. Was Jesus giving his disciples a lesson on being sacrificial? He did tell one rich young man that if he wanted to be perfect, he should go and sell all he owned and give it to the poor. The man heard this but didn’t want to do it. If that was Jesus’ message to the twelve, it wasn’t subtle. I think the deeper question Jesus invites us to think about is, “How attached are you to your possessions? Would you ever liquidate everything you own? What would be so valuable to you that you’d gladly exchange all your money for it?
The parable ends, and we don’t know what may have happened next. The man was no longer a merchant. We’re left to consider whether he made a wise choice, or a risky move. Was he foolhardy, or had he made the best decision of his life? He exchanged one thing of value, his financial assets, for something he adamantly believed was far superior!
A few final tantalizing questions remain. What was Jesus saying about the Kingdom of Heaven through this fascinating, two-sentence parable? Is it about exchanging what is lesser for what is greater? Or a reminder to be alert, so we don’t miss out on what is most valuable? The kingdom of heaven, to be clear, is not a literal commodity, something that can be bought or sold here on earth. It is a tremendous treasure, though, worth far more than a gajillion-billion, quadruple-trillion.
Brothers and sisters in Christ: may we be like those who diligently seek the Kingdom of God, who will lay down whatever we must to take hold of what is immeasurably better.
And although our choices may not make sense to others, we know it’s an exchange God hopes we’ll make. Our loss is actually gain; our future is better than our past; and our joy, luminescent as a pearl, will never be taken away from us! Amen.
As an intro for this week’s parable, I’m going to show you what are called “figure-ground images”. A picture will be shown on our worship screen; there’ll be one figure our eyes immediately see. But if we change our focus to the background, our perception will shift, and we should suddenly see a second image. Let’s give this a try. Raise your hand if you think you’ve perceived the initial figure and the background one.
I think this fun exercise is a good example of how parables work. There’s an initial or surface lesson that’s plain to see. But if we can shift our focus, we may perceive what’s hidden. You might call it hidden in plain sight! Today’s parable is only two sentences long; it’s embedded in a series of images Jesus used to help his disciples understand what God’s kingdom is like.
The easiest way to look at any parable is as an allegory. The pearl of great price represents Jesus or the gospel. Or the merchant can be seen as an example of discipleship, who seeks and finds a great treasure, Jesus. He’s admirably willing to pay a high price to be his follower.
Either of these allegories offer a fine message. Truth be told most sermons preached, including my own in the past, have focused on these plain-to-see lessons. But this time I want us to mine deeper truths, hidden in plain sight… but to do that, we’ll have to shift our focus. One important key we’ll need is insight into the worldview and experiences of Jesus’ original audience, which in this case is only his twelve disciples.
We’ll start with our main character, the merchant. In today’s world being a merchant is seen in a positive light. To own a business and sell your products to customers is a respectable profession. In Jesus’ day the word “merchant” in Greek was emporos. It’s where we get the word emporium from, which means market-place, or a place for businesses. Merchant was the name for a certain type of businessman, what we’d call a wholesale buyer. Unfortunately, most merchants back then had bad reputations. They travelled from place to place, commonly selling their wares at highly inflated prices. If there was any other way to cheat, or deceive an innocent buyer, they usually wouldn’t hesitate to do so.
There’s one other time when wholesale merchants are mentioned in the New Testament, and not in a positive light. Jesus went to the temple in Jerusalem with his disciples; he saw many merchants with their sales booths set up, filled with products in bulk. But their emporium, or marketplace, was set up in the Temple’s sacred area reserved for prayer. Jesus grew very angry; he tipped over the sales tables, scattering merchants’ wares and money on the ground. “Remove all of this from here,” said Jesus, “Stop making my Father’s house into a marketplace.” Can you hear the strong disdain in Jesus’ words?
With that fresh insight about merchants before us, let’s listen again to how Jesus began his parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant...”. “No!”, the men would have thought, “they are scoundrels, not to be trusted.” I bet their eyebrows lowered into a scowl and their jaws clenched. Jesus had hooked them by choosing a merchant as the main character.
Now let’s move on to the pearls. From our modern-day perspective, these are lovely. Many a young woman has been given a set of real pearl earrings or even a string of pearls made into a necklace. Although we don’t live anywhere near where they’re harvested, pearls are easy to purchase and affordable for most people. But in Jesus’ day no one, not even the Uber-wealthiest of Romans, would have owned a single pearl. Oysters weren’t found anywhere close to their location. At best, the richest in the region may have seen pearls in a painting by an artist.
For Jesus’ listeners, if a merchant was able to buy pearls in bulk and re-sell them for a profit, the value of his massive stock couldn’t begin to be assessed. It would be worth about a gajillion-billion, quadruple-trillion. Jesus has humorously exaggerated the merchants’ net wealth. His disciples would have been in on the joke, immediately getting how ridiculously, impossibly wealthy he was.
With a better, first-century understanding of “merchant” and “pearls”, we’ll now move toward the challenges and surprises that come when we shift our perception toward what is far less obvious. We’ll home in on the background, not the foreground.
Do you think the merchant searching for “fine” pearls was or wasn’t happy with the status quo of his life? We aren’t told the answer to that, directly. What we’re told in the second sentence of the parable does give us a hint. When he found a single pearl of great, exceeding worth the merchant sold all he had and bought it. Let’s go deeper: does that mean he sold all the remaining stock in his warehouse, probably to other merchants he knew? Maybe. Or does selling “all he had” mean he sold his inventory and all his worldly possessions? That would be a significant sacrifice. We aren’t told which of these is true, but what we can take away is how highly motivated he was.
Here are some similar questions: Do we know if the merchant had to hand over all his money to get the pearl he desperately wanted? That’s unknown. Did he have any money left over – or was he destitute, having no food, shelter, extra clothing, an animal to ride, etc.? Again, we just don’t know. But I believe there are some emerging questions for us that can be very relevant.
If we assume that the merchant wasn’t happy with the status quo in his life, maybe because his nose was to the grindstone, is Jesus hoping we’ll consider how happy we are with the status quo in our life? Have you paused lately and thought about your day-in, day-out routines and priorities? Is anything that’s really important to you that’s not happening in your life right now? Do you want to make a plan and change that?
Here’s one of my favorite thought-provoking questions from this parable. It comes from the merchants’ realization that he didn’t know what he’d been missing until he unexpectedly experienced it for himself. It was a routine day, he was on the search for fine pearls, but his business-minded focus stopped; that, and all else fell away and held no appeal for him, once he’d found what most mattered for his life. This discovery greatly changed him. Do you think you’d recognize what’s been missing in your life, if you saw it? Do you think there could be shockingly wonderful new things ahead of you, yet to happen in your life?
Now, on to the merchant selling all of his possessions. Was Jesus giving his disciples a lesson on being sacrificial? He did tell one rich young man that if he wanted to be perfect, he should go and sell all he owned and give it to the poor. The man heard this but didn’t want to do it. If that was Jesus’ message to the twelve, it wasn’t subtle. I think the deeper question Jesus invites us to think about is, “How attached are you to your possessions? Would you ever liquidate everything you own? What would be so valuable to you that you’d gladly exchange all your money for it?
The parable ends, and we don’t know what may have happened next. The man was no longer a merchant. We’re left to consider whether he made a wise choice, or a risky move. Was he foolhardy, or had he made the best decision of his life? He exchanged one thing of value, his financial assets, for something he adamantly believed was far superior!
A few final tantalizing questions remain. What was Jesus saying about the Kingdom of Heaven through this fascinating, two-sentence parable? Is it about exchanging what is lesser for what is greater? Or a reminder to be alert, so we don’t miss out on what is most valuable? The kingdom of heaven, to be clear, is not a literal commodity, something that can be bought or sold here on earth. It is a tremendous treasure, though, worth far more than a gajillion-billion, quadruple-trillion.
Brothers and sisters in Christ: may we be like those who diligently seek the Kingdom of God, who will lay down whatever we must to take hold of what is immeasurably better.
And although our choices may not make sense to others, we know it’s an exchange God hopes we’ll make. Our loss is actually gain; our future is better than our past; and our joy, luminescent as a pearl, will never be taken away from us! Amen.