1 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,840 Today's teaching scripture comes from Matthew chapter 13 verse 2 00:00:14,840 --> 00:00:20,040 44. The Kingdom of heaven is like 3 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:25,160 treasure hidden in a field which a man found and reburied. 4 00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:32,119 Then in his joy he goes and sells all he has and buys that 5 00:00:32,119 --> 00:00:35,160 field. This is the word of the Lord. 6 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:45,240 Caravaggio was a street brawler, A fugitive, and a man living 7 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:48,840 under a death sentence from the Pope for murder. 8 00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:55,240 And he was also painting at that exact moment some of the most 9 00:00:55,560 --> 00:01:00,280 luminous sacred art in the history of Western civilization. 10 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:04,760 His painting here, The Calling of Saint Matthew, depicts the 11 00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:09,480 moment when Jesus confronts the tax collector and calls him to 12 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:13,400 follow after him. It was completed while 13 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:16,600 Caravaggio was simultaneously wanted for killing a man. 14 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:21,840 And it shows this instant that he looks up from his money and 15 00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:26,400 realizes that something out of the frame is calling to him, is 16 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:29,120 reaching out to him. There's light cutting across a 17 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:32,360 dark room and everyone sort of looking around and can't quite 18 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:37,080 locate the source of this call. One of my favorite artists, 19 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:42,160 Makoto Fujimora, went to Tokyo as a graduate student in Western 20 00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:46,040 realism, sort of following in the tradition of Caravaggio, 21 00:01:46,320 --> 00:01:49,760 expecting to refine what he already knew about painting. 22 00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:53,200 He was going to continue to cultivate this skill of painting 23 00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:56,760 in a particular style. What he didn't expect was his 24 00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:02,120 teacher pressing some thin gold leaf onto a sheet of glass and 25 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:03,920 holding the glass up to the light. 26 00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:10,120 Pure gold is nearly transparent at its finest in this form, and 27 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:13,600 so it doesn't reflect light the way that you'd expect it Let's 28 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:17,760 light through and casts sort of a soft bluish Halo. 29 00:02:18,080 --> 00:02:23,920 And Fujimora has written that he initially experienced gold as 30 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:28,880 sort of an outdated, pre modern material that was irrelevant to 31 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:32,320 his own artistic practice. This is some of Fujimora's work. 32 00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:37,320 And then he saw what it did with light and everything changed 33 00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:41,360 about the way that he thought about gold leaf in his art. 34 00:02:41,360 --> 00:02:44,800 He spent the rest of his career working with crushed minerals 35 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:47,960 and layered gold, completely departing from the style that he 36 00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:51,800 was familiar with and fond of going into this school. 37 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:56,600 And he describes the materials as symbols of the city of God 38 00:02:56,600 --> 00:03:01,160 descending into the world. And if you would want to go a 39 00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:04,680 little bit deeper into the way that Fujimora thinks about art 40 00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:07,480 and life and culture, we're going to read one of his books. 41 00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:10,000 Actually, we're going to have a little book club coming up in 42 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:11,520 May. So if you'd like to join us on 43 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:14,040 Thursday mornings, maybe before work, we're going to read 44 00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:17,880 Fujimora's book Culture Care. But he was, he was in a 45 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:22,920 classroom, and the classroom became like a field, and there 46 00:03:22,920 --> 00:03:25,880 was treasure in it that changed the course of the rest of his 47 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:29,560 life. And of course, if we're going to 48 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:38,280 talk about masterpieces, when Bruce Springsteen inducted Bob 49 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:41,520 Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he described his 50 00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:44,160 first time hearing Like a Rolling Stone, coming through 51 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:47,800 the car radio as a teenager riding with his mother. 52 00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:50,960 He said that the snare shot at the beginning of that song 53 00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:53,680 sounded like somebody kicked open the doors to his mind. 54 00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:57,760 His mother looked at him and said that guy Can't Sing. 55 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:04,360 But Springsteen knew that she was wrong, Not because he'd 56 00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:08,920 reasoned his way to a conclusion about Dylan's music, but because 57 00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:12,520 he recognized something in it before his mind caught up to the 58 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:14,880 moment of experiencing something new. 59 00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:18,120 And he went home a different person than the one who got in 60 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:20,240 the car. And he points to that moment as 61 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:23,160 the moment that made him the artist that he would become. 62 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,000 All three of these little vignettes, these people, we're 63 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:30,560 finding the thing that they were not looking for. 64 00:04:31,760 --> 00:04:36,040 They were without seeking, without searching for an 65 00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:40,120 epiphany or a moment of transformation, just going about 66 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:43,920 their everyday business. And these moments found them, 67 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:49,240 these extraordinary little glimpses of inspiration found 68 00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:51,400 right in the middle of the everyday. 69 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:55,040 And as we continue this little series that we're in on Jesus 70 00:04:55,040 --> 00:05:00,480 parables of the Kingdom, that is the texture of the text that 71 00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:04,240 we're looking at this morning. Jesus characteristically refuses 72 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:08,000 to make this little teaching super straightforward. 73 00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:13,040 These simple stories that he tells are packed with a life's 74 00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:15,720 lifetime's worth of meaning to uncover. 75 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:18,480 And friends, as long as we read these parables and we think 76 00:05:18,480 --> 00:05:21,440 about them and we pray through them, I I'm just convinced that 77 00:05:21,440 --> 00:05:25,280 we still won't arrive at the full depth of the meaning of 78 00:05:25,280 --> 00:05:27,080 what Jesus is trying to describe to us. 79 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:30,560 Because the reality is that the beauty of the life of the 80 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:35,240 Kingdom of God that Jesus is describing is so multifaceted. 81 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:40,440 It's it's so deep and rich with the beauty of the love of God 82 00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:45,480 that a lifetime will only, it'll only be like dipping a toe into 83 00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:48,440 the the, the truth and the beauty of what's there. 84 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:52,240 Robert Capon wrote that any understanding of the Kingdom 85 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:55,960 that Jesus hearers could come up with from a single parable would 86 00:05:55,960 --> 00:05:59,400 be a misunderstanding. Because if we take one of these 87 00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:02,640 little stories, if we take one of these little teachings on its 88 00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:07,440 own and we try to sort of turn it into a pithy explanation of 89 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:11,480 what life and the Kingdom of God is like, it'll fall short of the 90 00:06:11,480 --> 00:06:14,000 full meaning because we need all of them together. 91 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:16,400 And so that's one of my, my favorite things about this 92 00:06:16,400 --> 00:06:19,120 little series that we're doing is hopefully over the course of 93 00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:22,560 several weeks, we'll just get looks from different angles as 94 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:25,240 Jesus describes and he says the Kingdom of God is like this and 95 00:06:25,240 --> 00:06:27,960 the Kingdom of God is like that. And he pulls all of these 96 00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:31,200 examples from everyday life. And hopefully by the end we have 97 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:34,040 just a little bit fuller picture of the kind of thing that he's 98 00:06:34,040 --> 00:06:37,400 trying to describe. We're challenged to go deeper 99 00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:41,440 every time we take a closer look at one of the parables of Jesus, 100 00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:46,040 and this one is no different. It's short, it's one verse, but 101 00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:53,160 it's packed with dense meaning. We live in a world of deliberate 102 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:57,480 optimization, productivity, and spiritual self improvement. 103 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:02,000 And living curated lives sort of dominate the way that a lot of 104 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:03,560 us are thinking about our day-to-day. 105 00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:06,800 And the short passage that we're looking at this morning, it 106 00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:11,440 surfaces many truths. But the one overarching thought 107 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:13,960 that I would just offer to you as we read and think about 108 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:16,720 what's happening in this text is this, that the most important 109 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:21,280 things that will ever happen to you will not be things that you 110 00:07:21,280 --> 00:07:24,880 planned for. Can anyone who's lived just a 111 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:28,520 little bit of life concur? The most important things that 112 00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:31,160 will ever happen to you will not be the things that you planned 113 00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:34,280 for. You know, friends, sometimes I 114 00:07:34,280 --> 00:07:38,920 get this thought that like I could sort of sit down and take 115 00:07:38,920 --> 00:07:42,840 an inventory of what's going on in my life and where, where I'm 116 00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:44,600 at. You know, my, my bank account 117 00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:47,800 balance and the amount of time that I'm working and what my 118 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:50,600 family's up to and all these things that I can sort of plan 119 00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:54,000 for the next few years. Like I think I know about how 120 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:58,280 this is going to go and I just got to tell you it doesn't work. 121 00:07:58,760 --> 00:08:04,440 So I'll leave it at that. We've turned, we've turned 122 00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:09,920 Kingdom seeking into a project, into a thing that we think we 123 00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:14,280 can sort of if we read the right books and we develop the right 124 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:17,880 approach and we adopt the right methods, we will be able to 125 00:08:18,160 --> 00:08:20,400 cultivate a healthy life with God. 126 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:23,840 We'll be able to arrive at some sort of comfortable conclusions 127 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:26,600 about the spiritual life and what it looks like for us to 128 00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:31,440 have a healthy life with Jesus. And the truth is that right 129 00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:35,200 theology and right practice and right searching and then 130 00:08:35,200 --> 00:08:39,200 presumably arrival at a destination is precisely the 131 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:42,600 opposite of the kind of thing that Jesus is describing in 132 00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:45,320 these parables that he tells throughout the Gospels. 133 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:49,880 We talk about wrestling often in the Christian life. 134 00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:52,680 We talk about wrestling with a text or wrestling with a 135 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:58,040 question or wrestling even in a relationship, which suggests to 136 00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:01,720 us that the result of this wrestling will be that one 137 00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:07,480 participant in the wrestle, presumably us, will emerge the 138 00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:12,640 victor. And I don't think that's how it 139 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:16,760 works. We, I don't think, I don't think 140 00:09:16,760 --> 00:09:22,240 we conquer our hardest questions or our gravest in certainty, 141 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:29,280 uncertainties or insecurities. I think we often find that we 142 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:34,000 emerge with a sense of having wrestled and the depth and the 143 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:37,320 beauty of the question that it is that we're trying to take to 144 00:09:37,320 --> 00:09:40,720 the ground. But the truth is questions, the 145 00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:43,680 hardest questions of life and faith remain. 146 00:09:44,840 --> 00:09:47,720 The chapter that our text comes from this morning, Matthew 13, 147 00:09:48,560 --> 00:09:51,800 is the parable chapter in the middle of this gospel narrative. 148 00:09:52,160 --> 00:09:55,200 So in other words, some things happen before it, some things 149 00:09:55,200 --> 00:09:58,040 happen after it. But Matthew 13 is basically just 150 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:03,040 7 short parables about the Kingdom in quick succession that 151 00:10:03,040 --> 00:10:08,680 Jesus tells. 7 parables. The last three are privately 152 00:10:08,680 --> 00:10:11,080 spoken to the disciples in a house. 153 00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:16,640 So in other words, this week and next week, the treasure in the 154 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:21,960 field and the Pearl of great price are not crowd material. 155 00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:28,040 Jesus is saving those for the people who are already following 156 00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:31,840 them and trying to understand what it is that they've 157 00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:35,960 received. So these parables arrive right 158 00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:39,440 after the Pharisees have accused Jesus of working by the power of 159 00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:42,840 the devil. So in Matthew 12, he heals on 160 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:46,520 the Sabbath, He challenges the Pharisees on some of their 161 00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:52,240 assumptions about the core purpose of the law, and he casts 162 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:54,680 out a demon from a man who couldn't speak. 163 00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:58,600 And all of this, according to Jesus, was to demonstrate that 164 00:10:58,600 --> 00:11:00,960 the Kingdom of God had come among them. 165 00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:04,360 And so I think the next chapter full of parables of the Kingdom 166 00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:07,960 is to further demonstrate this point that Jesus is making. 167 00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:11,440 He says all of this crazy stuff that happened in the prior 168 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:15,160 chapter is so that you would understand that the Kingdom of 169 00:11:15,160 --> 00:11:17,640 God has come among you. And then he goes on for an 170 00:11:17,640 --> 00:11:20,640 entire chapter to say the Kingdom is like, the Kingdom is 171 00:11:20,640 --> 00:11:24,520 like the Kingdom is like. So your homework is to go back 172 00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:29,080 and read Matthew 12. But the religious professionals 173 00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:35,440 in the story in Matthew 12, the ones who were searching, the 174 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:38,120 ones who were looking for the Kingdom, the ones who were 175 00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:40,600 watching, the ones who were waiting, the ones who were 176 00:11:40,600 --> 00:11:45,120 supposed to recognize when it came, missed it entirely. 177 00:11:46,240 --> 00:11:50,760 Jesus shifts to parables. He tells his disciples to hide 178 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:55,920 this truth in plain sight because these teachers of the 179 00:11:55,920 --> 00:12:00,160 law, these Pharisees, have missed the meaning of the 180 00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:02,400 Kingdom when it was right in front of them. 181 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:08,280 The Kingdom seems to sort of have a way of concealing itself 182 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:11,360 from those who think that they already know what they're 183 00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:14,800 looking for. And then when we come to our 184 00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:18,080 text for today, Jesus begins. The Kingdom of heaven is like. 185 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:22,360 So right away we know a few things when what Jesus is about 186 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:26,120 to say about the Kingdom is an analogy. 187 00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:30,040 We can read over this really quickly. 188 00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:33,520 I thought Carl gave a description that was pretty apt 189 00:12:33,520 --> 00:12:35,840 a couple weeks ago. It's easy to just read right 190 00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:38,360 over this language. But Jesus is clearly telling us 191 00:12:38,360 --> 00:12:41,000 at the beginning of each of these parables, He's not about 192 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:43,600 to give a definition of the Kingdom. 193 00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:47,160 He's about to give an analogy for what the Kingdom is like. 194 00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:53,200 He's giving us a lens into the good and just and kind rule of 195 00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:58,000 God, but he's not giving an equation to solve for God's 196 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:01,800 activity in the world. So often we read these parables 197 00:13:01,800 --> 00:13:04,880 and and we can think about them almost like a, like a, an 198 00:13:04,880 --> 00:13:09,600 algebra equation. And so you just sub the treasure 199 00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:12,200 for this thing in your life and you sub the man for this other 200 00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:13,720 thing in the field for this thing. 201 00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:16,080 And then you arrive, you know, you kind of get out the other 202 00:13:16,080 --> 00:13:20,360 end an output that explains to you what the Kingdom is like in 203 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:22,960 your life. And Jesus is is not doing that 204 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:26,760 here. So what is the Kingdom of God? 205 00:13:27,560 --> 00:13:33,400 Excuse me? Jesus uses this phrase 206 00:13:33,560 --> 00:13:38,280 constantly and he rarely defines the Kingdom, which itself I 207 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:42,800 think is instructive because he seems to want to do this in a 208 00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:47,280 not so straightforward way. But the simplest way to say it 209 00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:50,680 is this, that the Kingdom of God is what the world looks like 210 00:13:50,680 --> 00:13:56,400 when God is in charge. It's the active rule and reign 211 00:13:56,400 --> 00:14:00,600 of God breaking into real time in space, so not a place that 212 00:14:00,600 --> 00:14:05,080 you go when you die, not a political program, not a 213 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:10,400 geopolitical nation, but it's the living reality of God's good 214 00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:14,080 power at work in our present circumstances. 215 00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:17,840 So the thing that makes the parables of Matthew 13 so 216 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:21,440 strange and so interesting is that Jesus is saying that the 217 00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:24,960 Kingdom of God has arrived in him. 218 00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:31,080 It's present in the world now, and it's hidden like leaven in 219 00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:34,480 dough, like a seed in the ground, like treasure buried in 220 00:14:34,480 --> 00:14:36,440 a field. So this theme of hiddenness 221 00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:39,560 keeps coming up as Jesus describes the Kingdom. 222 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:44,240 And we live between the arrival of the Kingdom and the 223 00:14:44,240 --> 00:14:49,280 completion of the Kingdom, which means we live in the overlap of 224 00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:54,200 two ages, the world as it is and the world as God is making it. 225 00:14:54,920 --> 00:14:57,560 How how many of you know that that's central to what Jesus is 226 00:14:57,560 --> 00:15:02,240 teaching about the Kingdom, that the world as it is is not 227 00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:05,040 ultimately the world as God is making it. 228 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:08,920 And so where we see God's love and God's kindness and the 229 00:15:08,920 --> 00:15:14,120 justice of God and the righteousness of God and all 230 00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,480 those things coming into the world, those are like, it's a 231 00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:20,240 little sampling of the world as God is making it. 232 00:15:20,680 --> 00:15:24,720 But by and large what we see is just the world as it is. 233 00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:30,320 And the parables are Jesus attempt to describe what this 234 00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:35,120 paradoxical way of seeing the world looks like from the 235 00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:37,880 inside. And so he says the Kingdom of 236 00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:40,280 heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. 237 00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:47,040 So a few things here, because this sounds sort of archaic to 238 00:15:47,040 --> 00:15:52,040 us or a little bit fantastical, the idea of hidden treasure. 239 00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:59,240 But buried treasure was actually a normal occurrence to the to 240 00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:00,920 the audience that Jesus would have been speaking to. 241 00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:04,600 To our ears, that feels a little removed from anything remotely 242 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:08,320 normal unless you're into like, what's it called? 243 00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:09,880 Like geocaching or something like that. 244 00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:11,800 I don't know if we have any. I don't want to insult your 245 00:16:11,800 --> 00:16:13,400 hobbies. Yeah, there you go. 246 00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:16,000 So we've got at least one geocacher in the room. 247 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:24,080 But 1st century Palestine was an occupied land that was unstable, 248 00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:26,960 and there were no banks as we know them. 249 00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:32,520 Burying wealth was how you preserved it, how you protected 250 00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:34,600 it. And we actually know this. 251 00:16:34,840 --> 00:16:39,000 Ancient Jewish law codes included instructions around 252 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:42,320 legal questions that had to do with finding buried treasure. 253 00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:47,320 So this this was common enough that the the laws of the day and 254 00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:51,080 sort of the society structure of the day accounted for it that, 255 00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:53,320 you know, would say, well, it's entirely possible that you find 256 00:16:53,320 --> 00:16:55,800 buried treasure and here's what you ought to do when you find 257 00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:59,000 it. So this is far more commonplace 258 00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:02,320 than it sounds to our modern Western ears. 259 00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,880 Finding buried treasure was the peasant lottery. 260 00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:11,200 It was possible it was extraordinarily rare, but it did 261 00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:15,920 happen and it it would have been it would have landed with with 262 00:17:16,319 --> 00:17:19,920 immediate force on Jesus audience because he's mostly 263 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:22,480 speaking to poor people. And so people would hear this 264 00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:27,040 and go, Gee, would that that would happen to me. 265 00:17:27,040 --> 00:17:29,960 You know, it's it's something that they could kind of imagine 266 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:34,320 and say like, you know, the monopoly card, you know, bank 267 00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:36,400 error in your favor, right. It's like, Oh, well, that kind 268 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:39,000 of stuff does happen, but not all the time. 269 00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:44,800 So we know the man that we're imagining in the parable is 270 00:17:44,800 --> 00:17:49,120 almost certainly a day laborer who is plowing a field that he 271 00:17:49,120 --> 00:17:53,720 does not own because that wouldn't be something that 272 00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:55,360 someone who owns a field would do. 273 00:17:57,520 --> 00:18:01,320 And commenting on the context of the parable, the New Testament 274 00:18:01,320 --> 00:18:05,480 scholar Gusto Gonzalez, reading the parable through the lens of 275 00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:09,720 the marginalized, argues that the Kingdom arrives in the most 276 00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:13,400 marginal circumstances to people working fields that belong to 277 00:18:13,400 --> 00:18:16,600 someone else. And so friends, I just, I think, 278 00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:19,640 you know, as we sort of think through the layers of context 279 00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:26,040 here and we bring it to our level, most of us live rather 280 00:18:26,040 --> 00:18:31,720 ordinary lives working for someone else or going to school 281 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:34,600 or, you know, whatever it is that you sort of fill your days 282 00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:37,520 with. And part of what's immediately 283 00:18:37,520 --> 00:18:40,800 communicated to the hearers here is this is an ordinary person 284 00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:44,240 just like you. The Kingdom of God is like this 285 00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:50,400 for, for one of us, so to speak. So what's Jesus saying then 286 00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:54,680 about the Kingdom of God, that the, the rule and reign of God 287 00:18:55,120 --> 00:18:56,800 in this present age is like this? 288 00:18:56,800 --> 00:19:00,600 It's like a thing that's been put in the ground for 289 00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:04,520 safekeeping. It was there before you started 290 00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:08,240 plowing and it was found by an ordinary person. 291 00:19:09,040 --> 00:19:12,080 And so look what it says next. The Kingdom of heaven is like 292 00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:18,600 treasure hidden in a field which a man found, not which a man 293 00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:23,000 searched for for a long time and eventually located after years 294 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:27,760 and years of discipline seeking. That's not what it says his plow 295 00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:31,000 hit something. It's a completely passive 296 00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:35,000 discovery. This person was not plowing the 297 00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:37,320 field looking for buried treasure. 298 00:19:37,880 --> 00:19:40,600 They were going about their ordinary life that was probably 299 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:43,400 rather mundane and even possibly sort of oppressive. 300 00:19:46,920 --> 00:19:51,200 And this encounter just happens to him. 301 00:19:52,080 --> 00:19:55,200 So the parable on its face is almost offensively simple. 302 00:19:56,120 --> 00:20:02,200 A guy plowing hits treasure, stumbles, hides it, sells 303 00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:08,640 everything and buys the field. This is the opposite of elitism 304 00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:13,040 in our spiritual life. We're not talking about some 305 00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:17,400 kind of secret knowledge that's only available to a select few. 306 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:21,080 This is a mistake that we can make sometimes when we read 307 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:24,080 Jesus parables that have this theme of hiddenness. 308 00:20:24,680 --> 00:20:27,920 Remember we said like this, like the leaven in the dough or like 309 00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:30,360 a seed buried in the ground or like hidden treasure. 310 00:20:30,840 --> 00:20:33,560 And one of the ways that our human brain can sort of hear 311 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:35,520 those things. And we, we go off in this 312 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:40,760 direction of, oh, it must be super secret knowledge that only 313 00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:45,960 special people can attain or that I have to have some, you 314 00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:49,720 know, special spiritual epiphany to find. 315 00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:53,160 And if I haven't had that, or if I don't push the right buttons 316 00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:57,280 and pull the right levers, I will never arrive there. 317 00:20:57,680 --> 00:20:59,360 And this is precisely the opposite. 318 00:20:59,360 --> 00:21:05,360 Jesus is saying it's easy to get hung up on the, the hiddenness 319 00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:10,800 of the treasure, but we miss the way that it's found completely 320 00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:14,240 by accident. And you know, I just this is the 321 00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:18,080 this idea that the most important things in our lives, 322 00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:22,080 the most important things that God orchestrates in our lives, 323 00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:24,560 we stumble upon completely by accident. 324 00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:27,280 They're not things that we plan for. 325 00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:32,320 And so this parable is good news specifically for those who have 326 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:35,680 been told that the Kingdom of God is for other people. 327 00:21:37,120 --> 00:21:41,760 There are many who we encounter in our day-to-day lives, 328 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:45,240 probably many in this room, who at one point or another have 329 00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:50,480 been told that that this, this Kingdom of God, the activity of 330 00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:54,960 the Kingdom, God's activity by his Spirit in the world is for 331 00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:57,320 other people. For one reason or another. 332 00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:01,200 Whether that's, I don't know what your life has looked like 333 00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:04,120 or the way that you think about one thing or another particular 334 00:22:04,120 --> 00:22:07,880 belief that you might have or the job that you work or 335 00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:12,000 whatever it is the Kingdom is for the ordinary person. 336 00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:16,160 And then look at what he does next. 337 00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,560 He finds this treasure, he reburies it. 338 00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,320 He doesn't announce it. He doesn't run back to town. 339 00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:25,320 He doesn't start telling people what's just happened to him. 340 00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:29,040 He puts it back in the ground and goes to handle his business 341 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:32,840 quietly. I listen to a really interesting 342 00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:35,800 podcast this week that was sort of about like focus and 343 00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,840 attention and how all of those things work in our brains. 344 00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:42,200 And it was with a a researcher who had done some work around 345 00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,960 the effect of social media, particularly on creative thought 346 00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:49,640 and ideation. And one of the things that that 347 00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:53,480 this lady named was, you know, when we have a particularly good 348 00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:57,640 idea strike us and our immediate reaction is to just sort of 349 00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:01,440 release it out into the world to like begin telling people or to 350 00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:04,880 immediately tweet it or to start, you know, active acting 351 00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:08,640 upon that thing right away. We, we might actually be sort of 352 00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:13,240 undercutting some depth of creativity that God would want 353 00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:17,520 to cultivate in our lives. Some depth of, of even spiritual 354 00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,800 formation, some depth of some of the things that God would want 355 00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:24,480 to point out to us about our relationships or about our 356 00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,640 relationship to prayer or our relationship to the Scriptures. 357 00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,040 When we just immediately sort of release the thing that we found 358 00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:33,080 out into the world. And I love this about this 359 00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:36,760 parable that this, this thing sort of goes about in secret. 360 00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:40,640 The early church fathers read this as wisdom in the parable 361 00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,480 and, and several different places they would say, you know, 362 00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:47,040 don't, don't perform the thing that you've just received 363 00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,280 moments ago. There's there's a kind of 364 00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,600 formation that needs to happen in us before we begin declaring 365 00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:59,240 that thing publicly, something that I wish I had known when I 366 00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:02,200 started preaching at 18. I think maybe that was just a 367 00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,320 bad idea on its face. I'm not sure. 368 00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,680 But guys, you know, there were plenty of things that I did not 369 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:11,280 hold on to for very long before I started declaring them in 370 00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:14,880 public. And thank God that much of that 371 00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:20,440 isn't on the Internet. So what you found needs to take 372 00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:24,640 root in you before it gets broadcast to the world. 373 00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:28,960 And this treasure. Was already there before the man 374 00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:33,760 started plowing. God has been at work in the 375 00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:39,120 field of your ordinary life long before you went looking. 376 00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:44,680 Origin writing in the 3rd century said the field 377 00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:49,160 containing the treasure is Christ himself. 378 00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:52,640 Which is really interesting because when we read these 379 00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:56,040 parables, we can be a little bit short sighted and we could sort 380 00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:59,480 of want to read ourselves into the parable in ways that maybe 381 00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:04,680 weren't intended. When you buy the field, you're 382 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:09,640 not purchasing access to some kind of a reward that's beyond 383 00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,120 the field. You're purchasing the one in 384 00:25:12,120 --> 00:25:17,440 whom all the treasures and knowledge and wisdom are hidden. 385 00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,920 Paul writes this to the Colossians and his prayer at the 386 00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:22,960 beginning of his letter. I want their hearts to be 387 00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,600 encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the 388 00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:30,800 riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God's 389 00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:36,200 mystery that is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of 390 00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,160 wisdom and knowledge. So this is the way that the 391 00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,520 early Church thought about this treasure hidden in plain sight. 392 00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:44,160 The field is. Jesus. 393 00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,200 The life and. The ministry of Jesus lived out 394 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,760 in the open for people to just grab a hold of and run with and 395 00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:57,080 and say I have found something worth selling everything. 396 00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:00,200 The priest Robert Kapin pushes this a little bit further. 397 00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:05,200 He wrote that God becoming human in Christ is a mystery present 398 00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,120 in creation from the very beginning, finally and fully 399 00:26:09,120 --> 00:26:14,040 manifested in Jesus. Which means that when we make 400 00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:18,080 the mistake of thinking if I can't, if I can't see it, it 401 00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:23,680 isn't happening if I can't see. The kindness of. 402 00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,880 God, the promises of God coming to fruition in my daily life. 403 00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,640 It's not happening. That's that's a mistake. 404 00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,880 We have a profoundly short sighted view of what God is 405 00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,440 doing in the world and what God is doing in our lives. 406 00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:40,000 The Kingdom of God was not launched the moment you found 407 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,440 it. I, I find that to be a 408 00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:48,080 particularly helpful reminder for myself sometimes I'm part of 409 00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:53,760 a thing that is so much bigger than anything that I know. 410 00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,320 Anything that I've experienced, anything that's ever happened to 411 00:26:56,320 --> 00:27:01,600 me, anything that that I've even, you know, helped, helped 412 00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,560 to build. The Kingdom of God was not 413 00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:05,920 launched the moment you found it. 414 00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:10,920 It was, it was buried in the field of our ordinary lives, 415 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,120 each one of us. It's been buried in the ordinary 416 00:27:14,120 --> 00:27:18,640 field of human history for people to keep bumping up 417 00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,960 against with their plows and have sort of the presence of 418 00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,040 mind to stop and go, what is this thing that I just hit? 419 00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:30,520 And so the question was never whether or not there was 420 00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:34,080 treasure there for you to find. The question is whether we'll 421 00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,800 stop the plow when it hits something or we'll just keep 422 00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,800 going. Because I think, you know, when, 423 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:44,800 when we read the parable a few weeks ago about the sower or the 424 00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:51,960 soil and the weeds of the, the cares of our life sort of choke 425 00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,880 out some of the seed, I think this is the same thing. 426 00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,760 I think it's the thing that causes us to just keep going. 427 00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,240 When the plow hits something, you know, we run into what might 428 00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,560 feel like an obstacle to us at 1st and there might actually be 429 00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:09,800 a tremendous richness of the kindness and the love of God in 430 00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:13,920 that thing. But we just kind of keep going 431 00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,080 because we've bumped up against an obstacle. 432 00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:18,480 There's a thing we didn't expect. 433 00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:22,000 I was here to plow the field. So. 434 00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:26,200 Let me maneuver around this and continue about my business. 435 00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,560 Can I mean, does anything come to mind for anybody? 436 00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,080 Right. This is the way that God shows 437 00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:38,480 up in our lives. And so there's another way to 438 00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,320 read this multifaceted parable. I want to give you just lots of 439 00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,240 ways to think about this so that when you go back and read it, 440 00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,240 you can think about all the possible meanings and all the 441 00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,320 ways that, you know, God might have something to say to you in 442 00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,640 this. And, and you know, heaven forbid 443 00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,600 that we walk out thinking we've, we've attained the, the meaning 444 00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:02,160 of this parable, right? What if the man? 445 00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:07,160 Finding the treasure isn't just a a picture of us stumbling on 446 00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,800 the Kingdom. What if it's also a picture of 447 00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,120 God? What if God's? 448 00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:15,360 Plowing the field. So think about it this way. 449 00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,760 If the treasure buried in the field is humanity. 450 00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,120 Then the one who? Finds it and sells everything to 451 00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:28,200 buy it. Is Christ the cross. 452 00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:33,040 Is God's sell everything moment and so I think this is a helpful 453 00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,920 picture for our lives, but it's also a helpful way to just 454 00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,720 understand the whole story of the scriptures that's unfolding. 455 00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,760 We see throughout the the Hebrew Bible, you know, right up to the 456 00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:44,840 moment of Jesus death on the cross. 457 00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:50,200 God is trying to communicate to humanity, I love you, I care for 458 00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:54,600 you, I'm turned toward you. I have your best in mind and 459 00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:58,720 humanity at almost every turn sort of doesn't want to hear it. 460 00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:05,960 God plowing the field of of history, hits this thing, this 461 00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,080 treasure humanity and sells everything. 462 00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:12,880 Paul writes in Philippians 2 that Jesus, who was in very 463 00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,680 nature God, didn't consider equality with God something to 464 00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:19,240 be held on to. He emptied himself, took on the 465 00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:21,960 form of a servant, was made in human likeness, and humbled 466 00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,400 himself to the point of death on a cross. 467 00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:29,320 This is what theologians call kenosis, the self emptying of 468 00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,760 God. And I think selling everything 469 00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:36,800 is sort of an apartment picture for what's happening here. 470 00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:42,040 He he liquidated the riches of divinity, the the riches of 471 00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:48,160 power, to purchase the field that contains your life and 472 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,560 mine. Sit with. 473 00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:55,640 That for a moment, you know, I know, I know that it can sound a 474 00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,960 little bit corny. I know lots of. 475 00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,120 Preachers who take this in a direction that just feels a 476 00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,320 little bit like, I don't know if I need to hear that again, but. 477 00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:11,240 We were the. Treasure the humans in all of 478 00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,960 our sort of confusing brokenness. 479 00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:21,200 I mean, my life is messed up. And so is. 480 00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,880 Yours. I'm aware that this is true and 481 00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,760 guys. We're the treasure in the. 482 00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:32,520 Field God looked at humanity and counted it worth everything. 483 00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:37,000 Not because we had made ourselves valuable, not because 484 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:42,400 we had attained to some kind of worthy status of being 485 00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:46,040 considered treasure in the field, but because we're we're 486 00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:48,840 inherently bearers of God's image. 487 00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:57,240 God sees the beauty and the love of the imprint of God's likeness 488 00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,960 on humanity and says that's worth saving, that's worth 489 00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:06,400 selling everything for. And this text does something 490 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,440 remarkable. Look at how Matthew describes 491 00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:13,400 the man's motivation. He sells everything and buys the 492 00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,040 field. And the word that drives the 493 00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:23,080 whole transaction is what joy. It's not an obligation. 494 00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:28,480 It's not something that God finds God's self bound to. 495 00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:32,120 It's not a grim necessity, but for joy. 496 00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:35,880 The treasure in the. Field is found. 497 00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:38,640 The selling comes after the finding. 498 00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:44,280 And the finding? Produces a delight that's so 499 00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:47,760 complete that everything. That the that. 500 00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:52,640 The farmhand is releasing barely registers as a loss. 501 00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:55,720 It's so. Completely worth it. 502 00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:59,960 And so this sacrifice is done out of delight. 503 00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:04,640 It's the engine of the entire parable. 504 00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:07,080 He doesn't sell everything in order to get joy. 505 00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:09,840 It's not. Joy is on the other side of 506 00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:11,840 this. And once I've, you know, made 507 00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:15,840 this tremendous sacrifice, once I've sort of overextended myself 508 00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:20,640 way beyond my limits, then there will be joy on the other side. 509 00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:24,400 And. Paul describes this same 510 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:26,840 experience again. You know, it's just this, this, 511 00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:28,720 these themes keep getting reiterated. 512 00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:32,040 He writes that he considers everything he once valued as 513 00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:37,000 lost compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ. 514 00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,520 And this is precisely the thing that he's talking about. 515 00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:44,800 The the the way that the math works has permanently shifted 516 00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:47,400 for us. What looked like. 517 00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:51,240 Wealth before. Now looks like. 518 00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,520 Nothing compared to what we found in the ground and so. 519 00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:57,240 Where does that leave? US. 520 00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:01,360 The Kingdom found. The man in the field before he 521 00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:06,000 went looking for it. God has already sold everything 522 00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,760 to buy the field that contains you. 523 00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:16,280 Which means this sell everything attitude of discipleship or 524 00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,080 spiritual formation. It's not the price of admission. 525 00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:24,400 And so often it's presented to us that way, you know, sell 526 00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,520 everything and then you can have in return sell everything and 527 00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:32,320 then you'll experience. But it's working the other way 528 00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,600 around. It's the response of someone 529 00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:39,159 who's already been found. It's the response of someone 530 00:34:39,159 --> 00:34:42,480 who's already experienced just a little bit of something in their 531 00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:44,159 life that they can't quite shake. 532 00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:46,960 You know, the reason that I opened with those 3 examples, 533 00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:54,080 the, the Caravaggio and Fujimura and Springsteen is because I 534 00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:57,520 think on some level, I hope on some level, each of us can 535 00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:03,000 relate a little bit to that, that experience of running up 536 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,920 against something that we can't quite shake, that sort of 537 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:08,400 changed the trajectory of our lives. 538 00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,400 And for you, it might be very easy to just index that to the 539 00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:17,720 moment that you, that, that Jesus became real for you, that 540 00:35:17,720 --> 00:35:19,200 you began to have a life with God. 541 00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,640 For some of you that might feel very real and alive in your 542 00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:27,920 vocation, in your career or in a, a particular skill that 543 00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:31,880 you've honed or something. But at the end of the day, I 544 00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,880 love this picture of the Kingdom because it illustrates the way 545 00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:39,400 that God desires for the Kingdom to just sort of crash into our 546 00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:43,000 ordinary lives. And think about a friend of mine 547 00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:46,560 and his epiphany in a diner about spending the rest of his 548 00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,840 life telling people that God loves them. 549 00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:54,400 Or another friend's story of healing and then giving away her 550 00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,760 life to make community and resources and encouragement 551 00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,920 available to other people. I think about a friend of mine 552 00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,560 who lives near Cincinnati who walked away from an opportunity 553 00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,800 to work as a main contributor to NASA's Space Shuttle program 554 00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:13,080 because God gave him a vision for a non profit performing home 555 00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:16,000 repairs for low income homeowners so that they could 556 00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,560 remain in their homes and pass their homes to their children as 557 00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:20,960 an asset. These are the. 558 00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,160 Things that get a hold of us and won't let go. 559 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:28,520 And there's a difference between the person who gives everything 560 00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,280 because they're trying to get something, and the person who 561 00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,800 gives everything because they've already received something 562 00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:39,400 that's so real that almost nothing else feels worth holding 563 00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:44,560 on to. The Kingdom doesn't. 564 00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:48,520 Always come to us because we've searched for it. 565 00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:53,360 Jesus says the Kingdom of. God is like, because next week 566 00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:55,920 we're going to read a parable about someone who is searching 567 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:59,760 for it and found it. But this is one of the ways 568 00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:04,160 sometimes just plowing a field and your plow hits something. 569 00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:08,960 And the the man in this parable didn't become a different person 570 00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:13,600 before he found the treasure. He was just working and he found 571 00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:15,720 it. The Kingdom breaking into your 572 00:37:15,720 --> 00:37:19,280 ordinary life, your ordinary circumstances, your ordinary 573 00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,400 Tuesday. It's what Jesus is. 574 00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:27,040 Describing when he talks about the Kingdom of God, it's not a 575 00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,320 future destination that you can earn your way toward. 576 00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,400 We're talking about a present reality that has already broken 577 00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:37,800 into the world in Christ. And that is? 578 00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,160 Buried in the field of your ordinary life. 579 00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,680 So. I just want to repeat again the 580 00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:49,200 arc of what Jesus is saying in this parable. 581 00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:55,200 That's singular and brief and almost a little bit offhand. 582 00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,840 The treasure was already in the field before the man arrived. 583 00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:04,920 God has already paid the price for the field, and so now we are 584 00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:09,160 living in the response time to that reality. 585 00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:13,960 This is what the already and the not yet of the Kingdom feels 586 00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,200 like. We can talk about that in a way 587 00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:21,360 that feels sort of trite, but at ground level, it's not this 588 00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,760 idea, it's not this theological abstraction. 589 00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:29,080 It's that the Kingdom is already here, hidden in the ordinary, 590 00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:34,760 and the purchase has been made. We live. 591 00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:40,400 In between the the finding and the full possession, so to 592 00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:45,560 speak, we found the thing. The transaction hasn't hasn't 593 00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,000 quite taken place to buy the whole field, but. 594 00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,360 This is where the. Disciples were when they were 595 00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:58,480 sitting in this house listening to Jesus tell this parable as he 596 00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,320 was explaining to them, this is what you've signed up for. 597 00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:06,440 They had recognized Jesus. They had made the decision to 598 00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:10,240 follow him, to listen to his teaching and to put it into 599 00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:13,800 practice. But that whole thing hadn't 600 00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:15,720 quite yet completely come to fruition. 601 00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:21,080 Jesus hadn't gone to the cross, hadn't been raised the the fruit 602 00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:23,680 of the Kingdom wasn't yet fully visible. 603 00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,320 So the question that this parable leaves us with is not 604 00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:35,280 whether you've searched enough or believed correctly enough or 605 00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:39,160 done enough to deserve the treasure that's buried in the 606 00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:41,320 field. The question is simpler than 607 00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:46,880 that. What do you do when your plow 608 00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:51,160 hits something? And friends, I, I just want to 609 00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,480 say this as an encouragement to some of you. 610 00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:58,600 You know, we live, we live in a, a cynical secular age. 611 00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:06,960 And some of you might be 1020, thirty years, 50 years removed 612 00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:11,200 from the moment when your plow hit something and you can sort 613 00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:13,560 of point and go, that thing changed me forever. 614 00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:15,720 And I just want to encourage you. 615 00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,680 It's OK to still be excited about that. 616 00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,680 I think some of us have sort of bought into this idea that it's, 617 00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:30,400 it's somehow sort of uncool to like really want what God wants 618 00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:35,000 to do in your life and really like talk to people about it and 619 00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,520 think about it and pursue it in a wholehearted way. 620 00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:41,080 And I just want to say I don't believe that. 621 00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:43,800 So if you want to talk to somebody about it, you can talk 622 00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:45,280 to me and I'll be excited with you. 623 00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:50,360 You know the thing that the place where God has met you, 624 00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:57,160 whether it was recently or a long time ago, it's worth, it's 625 00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,720 actually worth organizing your life around that thing. 626 00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:08,480 It's worth looking at this, this moment of encounter, this sort 627 00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:13,200 of call it an epiphany, or if it feels more ordinary than that, 628 00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,000 don't. I guess it's worth it to lean 629 00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,480 into that thing and to really be excited about it. 630 00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:27,120 Don't let the. Reality of the cares of life 631 00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:34,680 your everyday steal from the. The weight, the. 632 00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,360 Joy. Of the ways. 633 00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:39,320 That God has met you in the ordinary. 634 00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:44,600 So as the worship team comes up. And I'll invite Jared. 635 00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:46,840 If he has a thing or two to add for ministry. 636 00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:55,800 I want to ask. Just a a few questions for 637 00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,120 ministry time and we'll have our prayer people around the room. 638 00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:00,440 We'd actually invite you to stand while we do this. 639 00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:03,720 I'm going to pray for all of us as we prepare to worship. 640 00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:08,480 Are there? Things. 641 00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,360 That you are. Clinging to that, you're 642 00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:20,320 clutching in your life that the joy of the Kingdom is inviting 643 00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,120 you to release. Inviting you to. 644 00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:31,040 Let go of and is there a moment that comes to your mind? 645 00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,080 You know, when we when we talk about finding treasure in the 646 00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:37,200 field? This thing happened to me a long 647 00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:41,440 time ago and maybe it feels a little bit dull. 648 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,080 Maybe the the shine of that moment has worn off a little 649 00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:47,960 bit, but can you point to that and go? 650 00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:50,000 I think I found the treasure in the field. 651 00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:52,920 I think there's a few of you that that God might be inviting 652 00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:57,280 to just embrace that wholehearted joy that came to 653 00:42:57,280 --> 00:42:57,960 you in that moment.