Date: July 30, 2023
Festival: 9th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12)
Text: Matthew 13:44-52
Preaching Occasion: Zion Lutheran Church, Mt. Pleasant, MI, and CTKLC
Appointed Scriptures: Deuteronomy 7:6-9; Romans 8:28-39; Matthew 13:44-52
Sermon Hymn: LSB #646 Church of God, Elect and Glorious
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dearly beloved, as we finish these last of Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13, a reminder of what you’ve been learning these past couple weeks: that (1) the parables describe what God’s kingdom is like, and (2) they convey the paradox of the now/not-yet reality of God’s kingdom. A wider context is also necessary. In Matthew 11-12, there is increasing resistance to Jesus. John the Baptiser wonders if Jesus truly is the Messiah, and the Pharisees become more and more offended by Jesus’ miracles. The Parable of the Sower answered the question, “If Jesus is the Son of Man who’s come to inaugurate the kingdom of God, why doesn’t everyone believe in Him?” And Jesus’ answer is, “There’s nothing wrong with God’s activity—nothing wrong with the seed. It’s not as if He throws out the seed and there’s good seed and bad seed; it’s all good! Rather, it’s all on the soil; it’s all on the heart of man—man overcome by unbelief, tribulation, persecution, and the cares of this world.”
In the Parable of the Weeds, Jesus tells us that not everything will be sunshine and daisies in the age of the Church—that there will be good things come up like wheat, but there will also be bad things coming up like weeds by the activity of Satan, such as apostasy and wolves among sheep, which will make church life difficult; but God will ultimately lead the Church to triumph. For some reason, the lectionary for this year skips the Parable of the Mustard Seed, but it tells us that the kingdom of God starts minuscule like a tiny mustard seed but finally grows to become a great, mighty tree. So, it doesn’t matter how small the Church appears to be right now because she will grow to be great and mighty at the end of the age—she is that incalculable multitude John saw in his vision [Rev. 7:9]. Indeed, she’s larger than we think she is. For example, there are millions of Christians in China right now, but you simply don’t know about them. And when Christians die, the Church’s numbers don’t decrease but they remain the same, for the communion of the saints means those who live right now and those who are with Christ in Paradise. So, we should stop our complaining that the Church is “dying” because she isn’t; she cannot die because Christ is risen.
As the parables make clear so far, although the Church does struggle against the activities of Satan, she flourishes, which the history of the Church certainly attests to—that during times of persecution, only more Christians are born, and when empires have fallen, the Church remains the city set on a hill because the kingdom of God is not of this world. Then comes our text today. But before we explore these parables, I want you to consider something. Have you ever felt hidden, or insignificant, or worthless? Maybe it’s because of depression. You’re not sure of your purpose in life. You’re not sure if God really loves you. You feel like nobody really cares about you—not your parents, not your friends, nobody. So, you feel hidden, invisible—nobody sees you; there’s nothing special about you. You’re not worthy anybody’s attention.
Or maybe you don’t feel this way. Maybe you’re doing just fine, but then when you see these beautiful new images of space and are reminded of how infinitely vast the universe is, you suddenly see how insignificant you are as a little speck on a small blue planet called Earth. It doesn’t really bother you; it’s just the reality of things, so you rationalise. Beloved, all of these are lies of the devil. None of you are hidden or invisible, insignificant, or worthless because of what the following parables tell us about the present and personal reign of God in Jesus Christ for you.
Parable of the Hidden Treasure
Like all the parables, as we begin analysing these last four, we must remember we are not the subject of the parables. Rather, Jesus is, unless He says otherwise. So, in the first parable, the man is not us and the treasure is not the kingdom of God; rather, the man is Jesus, and the treasure is the people of God. In the Middle East at this time, if treasure was found in your field, this worked a lot differently than in our day. Today. if some sort of treasure is mined on your property and it’s discovered, you get some royalties because technically it belongs to you. But in the Middle East, if hidden treasure was found, it didn’t belong to you; it belonged solely to the one who found it. Therefore, as we understand the man to be Jesus, the field is the world, and the hidden treasure is you and me, the devil cannot just come up and say to Jesus, “Hey, they belong to me!” Nope, not anymore. You belong to Jesus now.
And the man in the parable only gets the treasure by purchasing it. But he doesn’t just buy the treasure; he buys the whole field, which seems a bit much because the treasure was already his. He didn’t need to buy the field. But remember what Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son…” [John 3:16]. Your redemption is not separate from the redemption of the world. To get His hidden treasured possession—you—Jesus purchased the whole world with His precious blood.
Parable of the Pearl
In theological terms, we call that objective justification—that Christ objectively died for all people regardless of gender, ethnicity, or social status. The next parable then focuses this on the individual—justification becomes subjective, that is, personal, for you. There are many pearls—a great sea of pearls that all look the same—but Christ goes to you specifically and sells all He has to purchase you. You are not too hidden or insignificant because you were on His mind when He died for you and said His last words, “It is finished.” You are not worthless because you are Jesus’ pearl, and your cost was the price of God’s own blood. The Greek word for pearl here is μαργαρίτης [margarites], which is where the name “Margarette” comes from, so some parents will name their daughter Margarette to show how precious their little pearl is to them.
That’s you. You are Jesus’ precious pearl whom He specifically sought out. He literally gave all He had—His life—to purchase you from sin, death, and the devil. As we heard from St. Paul earlier, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things” [Rom. 8:32]—all things being the inheritance of eternal life and salvation from tribulation, distress (like feeling hidden or insignificant or worthless), from persecution, famine, shame, danger, the sword, the evil angels, the evil rulers of this age, and whatever else causes us trouble and worry. He has delivered you from these now, but also not yet in the life of the world to come.
Parable of the Net
So, the Parable of the Net comes next, and this parable suddenly takes on an eschatological character like the Parable of the Weeds a little earlier. He brings us out of what the kingdom of God is like now—His blood is still purchasing pearls today—to what the kingdom of God will be. This is the not yet side of the paradox. It will be like fishermen casting their nets into the sea, dragging it onto the beach, and separating the good fish from the rotten ones and throwing the bad fish away. Jesus actually decodes the parable for us here, and He changes the subject. The angels are the fishermen who will separate the evil ones from the righteous and throw the evil ones into the fiery furnace, or Hell. It’s like what the psalmist writes in Psalm 1, “Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous” [v. 5]. The righteous will stand, but not the wicked. Christ will have purchased His hidden treasures in the world, and all His pearls, and He will command His angels to separate these from the rotten unbelievers who are as good as dead—those who, like the Pharisees, resist Jesus. It’s all on the bad soil, not the seed of God’s Word, which is always good.
Parable of New and Old Treasures
Finally, Jesus closes with this odd statement, “Therefore, every scribe who has been trained [literally, discipled] 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.” Who are the scribes? These are the followers of Jesus, particularly the disciples to whom He’s speaking. They’ve been instructed for the kingdom of Heaven, and they’re like a master of a house who brings out old treasures with his new—like when you bring out old sentimental items from your childhood to cherish with your new treasures. And the new is the reign and rule of God in Christ; the old is that the new is building on the old covenant, referencing back to 5:17 when Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” Matthew is always consistent in his Gospel account to make the point that, “Yes, there is something new here, but we’re not throwing out the old. The new is always building on what is old, like building new foundations to the house.”
This is exactly what we see in all the New Testament writings, whether it’s the Gospels, the epistles of Paul, Peter, John, James, whomever. They are constantly referring back to the Scriptures, which for them is the Old Testament, while at the same time writing new Scriptures that are “God-breathed” [2 Tim. 3:16], as Paul says, and which is confirmed by Peter [2 Peter 3:16]. So then, the people of God in the old have always been God’s treasure—like He said in Deuteronomy 7 we read earlier—just as the people of God are His treasure in the new, as Peter also confirms as being fulfilled in Christ when he writes, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light” [1 Peter 2:9].
So then, the people of God in the old have always been God’s treasure, just as the people of God are in the new. Again, we see this play out throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry when He ministers to the Jews first and then the Gentiles, and especially the Apostles’ ministry when they evangelised the Gentiles, which continues in the Church today. Paul’s missionary journeys make this especially clear. He always began to preach in the synagogue. A few Jews would believe, and when he faced resistance, he would say, “Fine, I’ll preach to the Gentiles,” and many of them would believe. So, the old and the new are brought in together in the singular reign of God in Christ—the believing Jews as the people of God in the old and the Gentiles as the people of God in the new.
Furthermore, you never have to worry about being “special” enough for God, because what God said to His people of old is the same for His people of new, “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery” [Deut. 7:7-8]. There was nothing special about the Hebrews; they were a rather unremarkable people. Yet the Lord loved them—the God who created this infinitely vast universe chose them, little specks that they are, and it is because of that love that He chose them to be a holy nation and redeem them from slavery in Egypt and make them into a great nation, just as He promised to their patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Just so, you might think there’s nothing remarkable about you, but it doesn’t matter because the Lord loves you anyway, and it is because of that love that God who created this unfathomably vast universe has chosen you, little pearl that you are, in Christ in the holy nation of His Church to redeem you from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, just as Christ promised—the new house of the Church that is the new foundation built on the old house of Israel.
Even the Sacraments are brought from the old and into the new, for many salvific acts of God in the old have foreshadowed His continued grace in the new. In Leviticus, there were laws that decreed sacrifices to be made for accidental sins, and of course specific ones done on purpose, and they would receive atonement from the priest. So, when you find yourself like Paul in Romans 7 and can’t help but do the bad things you don’t want to do like an addict relapsing into sin, or if you’ve proudly committed sin but the Word of God humbles you and you become sorry for what you’ve done, you can go to your pastor in private Confession & Absolution to receive atonement for your sins. It’s not that different than what we do at the beginning of the service.
In the old, we have God’s acts of salvation in the Great Flood and the Red Sea and Moses striking the rock at Horeb making water gush out that bring us to Baptism. Baptism corresponds to the Flood and saves you from God’s wrath just as He saved Noah and his family from His wrath [1 Peter 3:18-21]; like the Red Sea God has delivered you from slavery to sin and the devil; and like the rock at Horeb Jesus is the Rock from which you drink water welling up to eternal life by faith [John 4:1-45]. Like the lambs’ blood during the first Passover that was spread on the Hebrews’ doorposts in the shape of the Hebrew letter that translates to the letter “tau” in Greek, or “t” in English, which saved them from death, so Christ’s blood was shed on a t-shaped cross for you, saving you from death. And it was on the Passover that Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper with His body and blood, so that every time you partake of it, death passes over you.
And so, whenever you pray the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” God always answers in the affirmative. As we confess in the catechism, “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe in His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity”—now and not yet. You received the Holy Spirit when you were baptised, so you were brought into God’s kingdom then with the promise of the resurrection in the not yet. Every time the Spirit causes you to think on God’s holy Word, God’s kingdom has come, whether it’s here in the service or in your homes or on the road at a restaurant or wherever else you may be. His kingdom comes when you fear, love, and trust in Him above all things, when you call upon His name “in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks,” when you come to the Divine Service and here His Word preached and you hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it, when you honour and obey your parents (no matter how old you are), when you have babies instead of murdering them, and so on with the Commandments.
Most of all, God’s kingdom comes to you in His Word and Sacraments—again, when you hear His Word preached and read to you, and when you receive His reign in the Sacraments that deliver you from sin, death, and the devil both here now and in eternity. To Christ belongs all the glory, now and forever. Amen.
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