Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

"Jesus told them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it."--Matthew 13

For most of my life,  I heard Jesus’ words in Matthew 13 as an exhortation to us—we are to be like the man who finds a great treasure. We are the merchant in search of the single amazing pearl. We are supposed to value God and his kingdom so much, that we are willing to sell everything, give up everything, for this treasure. Even further back in the chapter: we are supposed to be good seed; we are to be the good soil. We need to be on guard against the weeds. For years, I preached these texts that way: you must love God enough to give up everything.

Except…we don’t, do we? We don’t value God above everything else. And so these words become an accusation. Satan uses this words and throws them in our face. Satan says, “God and His kingdom are supposed to be this precious and valuable thing. And you say they are, Christian. But you don’t act like it. You are willing to give up everything, are you? I know better. I know your heart. You’d rather deny, you’d rather compromise, you’d rather keep quiet than lose your job, lose face, or lose your possessions.

Satan says, “You say you value God, but I see how you spend your time. Going to the lake, or your kid’s sports, or sleeping in are more important to you than going to worship. Buying things for yourself comes before giving to others. I don’t even need to try very hard to get you to fall to temptation! You’re so weak and pathetic. A little name calling, a little pressure, a little inconvenience, and you crumble.”

And it’s true. Satan isn’t lying. We are weak. We do put all sorts of other things and people before God. We aren’t willing to give up much of anything for the kingdom of God. And just look around: the world is a mess, the country is a mess, the Church is a mess. Our lives are a mess.

But look at this picture up here. What if---what if we aren’t the guy searching for the pearl? What if we aren’t the man buying the field that has a buried treasure in it? What if, what if….we got it backward. What if we are the treasure? What if we are the pearl?

"Nah," Satan says. "You’re not some fancy pearl. I can see right through you. You’re an old, broken down piece of junk. Just look at your life and how you’ve lived. Nobody is going to walk through the fields of your heart and find ANYthing worth selling everything for. You’re not treasure; you’re trash."

Except, Satan is lying to you.

You are the treasure. You are the pearl. Jesus gives up all he has—his life—to buy you, to claim his buried treasure.  This isn’t some random field that Jesus is walking through. It’s a cemetery. You were dead in your sin. Stuck in a box you can’t get out of. Sealed in a coffin in the ground.

But that word, coffin. Do you know what it means? It comes from the French and it means “little box, little safe.” It’s almost the same word as our English “coffer.” A coffer is the place where all the money is kept, all the precious gold and treasure is. A safe, for real. Your coffin is Christ’s coffer. It has you in it, and you are precious to him.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Jesus came down from heaven and was incarnated, enfleshed, in-meated as a man. He willing gave up his prerogatives as God, willingly did not using his divine power to help himself or save himself.

He left his throne in heaven and the unending song of the angels to be born in a stable. He became obedient to his parents, lived in this fallen creation. He who feeds all, knew hunger. He who provides rain for all, thirsted.  He who is joy, sorrowed. And giving up everything, being willing to be rejected, to be crucified in a garbage dump called Golgotha, and thrown in the ground in a borrowed grave, he bought with his own blood what was most precious to him: You.

One of the finest contemporary Lutheran artists is a man named Ed Riojas. He made this painting. Once I saw how he illustrated this parable, it changed everything about how I preach and read it.

Look at what the artist tells you. It’s morning—the first morning of eternal life. You can barely make out the wounds on Christ’s hands. Standing under the Tree of Life, this is the New Adam in the New Garden of Eden. He drags the coffin-coffer up from the ground. This is the field he gave up everything to buy. And come up and look later-- you can see the writing on the headstone.  It’s the artist’s own name. Jesus did everything for this man, lying here.

And for you, too. They’ll put your name on a tombstone, and your grave will have a scene just like this, one great gettin’ up morning. We are God’s treasures. If we look at ourselves as Satan want us to, we’ll never see that. But if you look at the cross, and all that Jesus gave for you, then that’s how much you’re worth! Then there’s what cleans up your mess. There’s your forgiveness, your life, your salvation, your food. There’s the answer. As the Catechism says, At great cost he has saved and redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, from sin, death and the power of the devil—not with silver or gold, but with his holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.

Jesus took that holy and precious blood poured out on the cross, and poured it over you in Holy Baptism, to cleanse you and make you his. 

And he takes that Body and Blood that hung on the cross and was buried in the grave but now risen from the dead and puts it into you, into your mouth, feeding you with himself. You literally taste the price of your salvation.

And then he takes the Word of his cross, that message of how valuable you are to him and all that he gave to purchase you, and fills your ears with it. That you may know, and by the working of his Spirit, believe it.

And you need that, I need that, because it is hard to believe it sometimes. When we’ve had a particularly bad week. When our own sins have erupted from us, and the sins of others have crushed us. When there seems no end to the bad news of this year. When we look in us and around us and see nothing but dirt. We are dust and to dust we shall return.

But in the dirt is where Jesus is. He has a body just like yours. 96% of the mass of your human body is made of up of elements that also make up dirt. Jesus was born in a dirty stable, not a sparkling palace. He hung out with dirty sinners, not the high and mighty and those who thought themselves all perfect. His pearls were prostitutes and tax collectors and betrayers and deniers and jerks of every kind.

So, since Jesus is in the dirt, where we are, then we can be a blessing to others in the dirt, those with us in the suffering and pains and trials of this world and life. We bless them so that they are not alone. So that they may see and hear the love of their Savior from us - that they, too, are pearls of great price their Savior is searching for.

This hiddenness in the dirt and mud and blood and suffering is the way of it with God. In the end, on the Last Day, all will be revealed. The net will be hauled ashore and the fish separated - the righteous and the evil, the weeds and the wheat, those in Christ and those who are not.

But not yet. Now we live by faith and not sight. Now we live by His Word and promises. Now we receive Him hidden in water and words and bread and wine. Now we live in the dirt, but knowing that the resurrection to eternal life is coming. For he who was raised from the dirt and dust of death, is coming back to do the same for us. And then will be the kingdom, the power, and glory.

And so until then, we confess with St. Paul in those gorgeous words that I often read at funerals and that we heard in our Second Lesson: No, in all these things - in all this dirty world and life - we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

We don’t even have to fear the grave - we’re already buried, with Christ. Treasures, pearls of great price, treasures resting and sleeping secure in coffin-coffers, awaiting the day of our raising. Awaiting our own Priceless Treasure, Jesus. Amen.