Today's reading is chock-a-block full of parables. In Matthew Jesus is presented as the Living Teacher of the Church, and his ordinary method of teaching is by means of these "improving stories." He takes ordinary experiences of first century life in Palestine and transforms them—by nothing short of divine genius--into timeless gems of wisdom. His parables are stories designed to enlighten and change their hearers. Some succeed in that better than others. But when the parables of Jesus are perfect—and they are often perfect—nothing in all of literature approaches them for vividness of expression and spare elegance of form.
In our reading for today there is short but excellent example. It begins—"The kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. . . ." (Matthew 13:44). It is a story based upon a tragic misfortune and an outrageous windfall of good luck. In telling it perhaps Jesus is thinking of case he knew—or maybe not. But the circumstances he describes would not be unheard of. In a world before safety deposit boxes it was a normal practice for people to bury caches of coins and jewelry for safekeeping in times of uncertainty. Even though they saved their treasures from pillage, they often did not, for whatever reason, return to reclaim them. Often the owners died, and their treasures lay hidden until by chance they might be uncovered by pure accident.
In Jesus' time many—indeed perhaps most—Palestinian farmers were share-croppers, renting land from an absentee landlord for a share of the produce. Clearly that is the situation of the plowman in Jesus' parable; he does not own the land he works and in the normal course of things never would. And then one day he is out plowing as usual when he hears a dull thud, the sound of breaking pottery, and suddenly the furrow is filled with gold. Now his situation presents the modern reader with an ethical dilemma. The field is not his and treasure he finds, in the strictest sense, should be the property of the absentee landlord. But Jesus does not get hung up in this problem—from the point of view of the parable it's "finders keepers, losers weepers." And that is exactly as it should be, because this is not a story about moral scrupulosity but about the spontaneous joy of finding something wonderful and utterly unexpected.
"The kingdom of heaven"—the evangelist Matthew, the pious Jew, carefully avoids carelessly throwing the name of God about—is like that hidden treasure. Its finding is an occasion, not for hesitation and quibbling over its ownership, but for ecstatic joy and immediate action. "In his joy [the lucky sharecropper] goes and sells all that he has and buys that field," Jesus says. He gives up everything—he liquidates his little all--so that he can gain full ownership of the one thing that matters.
Of course, the share-cropper's good luck is preconditioned by the misfortune of others. First, there is the misfortune of the original owner of the treasure, and second, there is the misfortune of the landlord, the rightful owner of the treasure, who is effectively conned out of it. But the parable is not about justice. Some lose and others win. Every human life is touched with misfortune—the gospels never attempt to deny that. In fact, all four evangelists describe in gruesome detail the greatest misfortune the earth has yet known—the horrific and unjust crucifixion of God's man, Jesus Christ. Talk about bad luck!
But our outrageous good luck, the finding of the kingdom of heaven, is preconditioned upon the terrible misfortune that Jesus suffered. We find the kingdom of heaven, something wonderful and life-giving—or rather, it finds us—because Jesus died. And our great good fortune is totally undeserved. And again the parable of the lucky sharecropper parallels our own story. He does not come by his treasure by virtue and special merit—quite the opposite. He stumbles upon it by accident. And he reacts to its finding with a selfishness that borders on avarice. But that's all right. It's that precious. If the treasure were not something altogether precious and desirable, he would not have acted immediately with boldness and sold everything he has to get it. (See Matthew 19:21.) Time and again Jesus tells his followers—Seize of the kingdom of heaven now while you have a chance. Don't quibble over ownership. Don't let anything stand in your way. The treasure you have found is a good that calls for the renunciation of all other goods, and anyone who for any reason hesitates to take hold of it is a want-to-be and not a disciple. (See Matthew 8:18-22.)
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