Selling Out: A Meditation on Matthew 13

As I was growing up, “selling out” had two very different connotations.  The first was negative, as if someone gave up their principles for money, influence, or reward.  The second was positive, as if someone gave everything they had to accomplish a goal or mission.  “Selling out” on the football field meant leaving every drop of energy, focus, and effort on the grass, and holding nothing back from your team to win the game.  That idea of winning or succeeding, even if it cost you everything you had, is more akin to the first two parables in this week’s reading from Matthew 13.

In the first short parable, a man finds a treasure in a field.  In order to possess that treasure, he sells all that he has, so that he can buy the field with the treasure in it.  In the second short parable, a man who specializes in procuring pearls finally finds the greatest and most magnificent of all pearls.  In order to acquire it, he sells everything he has—every other pearl—in order to have that one.  In both of these stories, Jesus tells of people who are willing to sell out in order to claim the Kingdom of God; people who hold nothing back to achieve the prize.

That’s a pretty alien notion amongst religious people in our time and place.  “Selling out” for the Kingdom of God seems extreme, even fanatical.  Our churches are comfortable places, with comfortable seating and climate control, for the proclamation of comfortable sermons.  We have conveniently located restrooms, coffee and snacks.  We have a nursery if your child is disturbing you.  We have musicians who can play the sweetest and most inspiring tunes.  We have audio systems to make listening easier.  We have lighting and projectors to save you the trouble of reading small hymnal print.  We have programs designed for children, for adults, for singles, for couples, for men, for women.  And we compete with each other, as each church across town claims to have more comforts and programs, trying to lure people from one congregation to another.  And if it is true of the church, it is true of the culture at large… in spades.

“Selling out” for your job, your family, your friends… it’s just so extreme.  Our families crumble when hard times come; we leave our jobs when someone doesn’t stroke us the right way; we dump our friends when they say something hard to us, or challenge our stupidity.  Our culture and our churches reflect a weak and tepid commitment to almost everything, knowing that whatever the next whim or pleasure we fixate on, that will be our pursuit, at least until it gets difficult, or some other shiny thing takes our attention away from it.

Into our mental, physical, and spiritual weakness, Jesus speaks His Word.  The Kingdom of God, that eternal kingdom which is present among us now in His Word and Sacraments, and shall continue forever, is not a place for the tepid or weak.  It is a place of holiness and absolute commitment to Truth.  It is a place where no evil is permitted, and Justice, Mercy, Love, and Compassion reign unchallenged.  This Kingdom of God has God as its King, and the character of God pervades every inch of it.  It is a place, a communion, which brokers no half heartedness, no dual allegiances, and no other gods.  It is holy and pure, and only there is eternal life.

Gazing into this terrible beauty from our sinful sloth, we know we have no right to be there.  We, who have heard the wonderful Word of the Lord and yet have not kept it, who gather in comfortable churches to stroke our own egos and satiate our own desires, know that this Kingdom is not our due.  The kingdom we deserve to inherit is one of misery and death, which is the natural end of our gluttony and narcissism.  Rather than strolling into the House of the Living God with our designer coffee and lounging back with our smart phones, we know that the very first words from our hearts and lips should be, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

And it is here that we learn what these parables are really all about—they are about Jesus.  You and I, though we saw the Kingdom of Heaven like a treasure in a field, had nothing to go and buy that field with.  You and I, though we saw the Kingdom of Heaven like the most fantastic of pearls, had no currency and nothing to trade for it.  But Jesus did.  Already King of Heaven and possessing all things, He beheld our fallen and miserable estate, and gave all that He had to secure that Kingdom for us.  From the Incarnation by the Blessed Virgin, to the Passion of the Holy Cross, Jesus “sells out” everything for you, and for me.  He gives His life as a ransom for many, so that all who will believe in Him would not perish, but have His everlasting life.  He pours out His most holy Blood, His precious Body broken, that He may be for you the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.  Rising again, glorious and victorious, He declares to every ear that will hear, that He has bought our passage, our citizenship, into His Kingdom.  He has left it all on the field—all upon the Cross—and achieved the victory we could not win.

It is our Lord Jesus who presents to you and to me, this treasure beyond price, by grace through faith in Him.  The price was incalculable, but it was paid, so that the Kingdom of God might be His free gift to sinful men.  And this free gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation, stands between the second and the third parable we read this Sunday.

That last parable, is of the end of the age.  When the trumpet sounds, and the Holy Angels are sent to sever the wicked and unbelieving from among the justified in Christ, there will be no more time to proclaim the Gospel to men, no more time to repent and believe and live.  In that day, the great dragnet shall gather in every living soul from every time and place under heaven, and the final judgment shall commence.  You stand today by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the One who “sold out” everything to secure your place in His eternal Kingdom.  You stand today by the Cross of Christ, where your Lord calls you to pick up your cross, and follow Him.  Your cross, your works, your “selling out” cannot save you, but they are the response of faith to the wonderful gift of the Gospel of your salvation.  May the Cross of Christ bring us to repentance for our lethargy, our selfishness, our sloth and our weakness—and may His Holy Cross, by the power of His Holy Spirit, inspire us to renewed faith leaves every ounce of our strength spent upon the field of this world, as we lay hold of the Kingdom of our God by grace.  Amen.