Spiritual millionaires?

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field… Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. Matthew 13:44-46

Why would Jesus tell two tiny parables which teach pretty much the same lesson?

Well, in general he wasn’t afraid to repeat himself – and, as any teacher will tell you, there is no harm in pressing home identical truths more than once. In the course of his earthly ministry of up to three years he must have repeated the same truths many times with variations. (This is very clear if you compare the “Sermon on the Mount”, Matthew 5-7, with the “Sermon on the Plain”, Luke 6:17-49). It looks too as if the four Gospel-writers often picked up slightly different versions to include in their respective books.

The basic truth of Matthew 13:44-46, the stories of “the treasure hidden in a field” and of “the pearl of great price” is very clear: being part of the kingdom of heaven is infinitely more precious and valuable than anything else we might ever own, achieve or experience.

Isn’t this, in essence, what Jesus was trying to get across to the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-22) when he told him to “sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven”? Isn’t it what Paul was driving at (Philippians 3:7-9) when he said he regarded everything valuable he had ever had as so much “garbage” (“dung” might be a better translation) in comparison with “knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”?

Sometimes preachers make this point by telling us that we are “spiritual millionaires”, which is a natural enough illustration. True, the word “millionaire” perhaps strikes a slightly artificial note – given that, being realistic, the Christian life sometimes seems to entail at worst great sacrifice and even suffering, and at best a whole lot of daily plod.

But we get the point. What a privilege it is to have gained what we might call the gospel “package”… forgiveness of sins, the assurance of eternal life, the gifts of prayer, of the Holy Spirit, of inspired scripture, of inner peace, of the fellowship of the church, the body of Christ. “Count your blessings” said an old song; and we know that they are literally uncountable.

Is it time you stopped for a few minutes and reflected on all that is yours in Christ? Perhaps look at it from the opposite angle and ask, Where would I be today if I had never come to know him? Where indeed!

There’s no doubt then about the basic lesson of these companion parables. But is there something more? I think there may be. Jesus doesn’t spell it out, but I don’t we’re straining the stories too much if we find it there.

Put simply, the two men are very different, and this suggests, first, that God is concerned for all sorts of men and women; and second, that he deals with us in very different ways.

The man in verse 44 seems to have been poor, quite likely a day-labourer, working hard in someone else’s field to eke out a living. He suddenly hears a clink of metal under his spade and… his life is changed for ever. He wasn’t looking for treasure; it just happened, completely out of the blue. (Burying valuables in the ground, in a world without banks, was a common practice.)

The man in verses 45-46 on the other hand is clearly rich: a merchant who trades in precious stones. He has a dream of one day finding a fabulously beautiful, breathtakingly valuable pearl, and he makes it his business to search far and wide for it. One day… there it is! - and his life also is changed for ever.

One man stumbles across great riches purely by accident; the other finds them as a result of persistent, determined searching. In just the same way, some Christians come to Christ by what almost seems like chance: they have no interest in the things of God, but then one day he simply breaks into their lives, turning them upside down and inside out. To borrow C S Lewis’s phrase in describing his own conversion, they are “surprised by joy”. (In fact, in the interests of accuracy, we ought to say that “surprised by joy” is a line borrowed by Lewis himself from a poem by William Wordsworth; but never mind.)

Other followers of Jesus only find him after months, perhaps years, of searching, questioning, agonising, doubting, arguing. Then one day it suddenly clicks into place and everything changes.

Most of us probably sit somewhere on a spectrum between those two types of conversion. And the point is: it doesn’t matter a scrap which one best fits us. All that matters is that our trust is in Christ, and our lives conform to his teaching.

So… let’s be very careful never to doubt the reality of someone else’s conversion just because it was different from ours. Let’s take very seriously the words of Paul in Romans 14:4: “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master they stand or fall…” -     implying, “so keep your nose out of their spiritual affairs!”

We have entered into riches beyond measure: how exactly we came by them matters not at all!

Heavenly Father, please refresh my appreciation of all the riches  that are mine in Christ, and so help me never to become spiritually stale. And help me too, day by day, to live a worthy life as a result. Amen.