What a pericope!
Tonight we get 5 ways to imagine the Kingdom of Heaven…more specifically: “God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven!”
5 different parables…
5 different things to think about and to ponder…
The Kingdom of Heaven is like “a mustard seed;” like “yeast” (leaven) into flour, like a “treasure” hidden in a field, like a “priceless pearl” and finally like a “net” that catches all kinds of fish.
It’s all about picturing things in your minds’ eye.
A treasure hidden in a field-how intriguing is that!
What kind of treasure? How much was it? What was its value? Was it cash? Precious jewels? Gold Doubloon’s? Fine art? Pieces of eight? Stocks and Bonds? I guess everybody can fill in the blanks for themselves. That’s the way parables were meant to be.
You think about it. You fill in the blanks. You figure it out. It is like a riddle to be savored and enjoyed.
Anyways, Jesus said, “The Kingdom of heaven is like this:
There was this hired man who worked in this field. It was not a particularly good field, either.
The soil was like clay. It was hard as rock, as a matter of fact, it was filled with all kinds of rocks and boulders. It was definitely NOT a field worth owning.
It was a pretty poor piece of farming land. The landowner must have paid little to nothing for it.
I mean, who would want it?
This soil would have to be worked and reworked before anything would grow here.
Was it even worth it?
Hold long would it take? How many years? It would take a lot of fertilizer mixed in…
So this hired hand was attempting to plow – he had tried many times before – it was tedious work and not easy going…
The iron tips of his plow get dulled after every attempt…and constantly need to be re-sharpened…
It must have been quite a picture to behold – the old wooden plow with its dulled iron tips, behind the older scrawny mule wearing an even older worn out ripped and torn harness.
No matter where he started he hit rock…on this crummy piece of land.
Clunk!
And then of course, you have to stop and dig out the stone. Once the stone is dug out, you have to carry it to the edge of the property line…
There were so many rocks piled there already it was forming a rock fence surrounding the field.
Then back to the plow.
Plow. Clunk! Dig. Carry.
Plow. Clunk! Dig. Carry.
It was getting monotonous as well as tedious. Does anybody else have a field this lousy?
Plow. Clank! What was that? That was a different sound! It was definitely a clank and not a clunk! What does a clank mean?
So, he stooped down and with his bare hands he started pawing at the dirt. Pawing…pawing…pawing…now on all fours…digging madly…look it’s not a rock at all – but a treasure chest. My lucky day!
As you may remember there were no banks in Jesus’ day, so people often times buried their treasures in open fields – where no one would ever look.
When the field hand opened the box – he found it filled with priceless and precious jewels. His heart leapt. He placed the box back into the ground, covered it up…and continued to attempt to plow.
At the end of that very tedious and long day, he sold everything he owned. The shirt right off his back, that old mule and the even older-tattered-and torn-harness and even that old broken-down-dull-as can-be-plow of his…
He hoped he had enough…he prayed he had enough…he wanted to buy that field from its original owner.
That once worthless and rocky field was now worth everything he owned. He must have it. He has to have it. He is driven. Nothing was more important than owning that piece of land.
Get it? Do you understand? That is supposed to be our approach to the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is beyond priceless…and I have to have it. What about you?