14 - Chapter 14

CHAPTER XIV. THE HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL

Mat 13:44-46 THE parables we have discussed hitherto have been answers to the question: “ Why do men refuse the invitation to become citizens of the Kingdom?" The answers have been variants of the theme that they did not find such citizenship attractive, at least sufficiently attractive to induce them to enrol. In these two parables we have Jesus’ estimate of the worth of citizenship: it is a treasure against which all life’s other treasures are weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Jesus pictures two men each discovering a treasure which made all their previous possessions seem mean and petty. To borrow a simile from Miss Underbill: Suppose a man who has been blind from birth suddenly to receive the gift of sight. For the first time he beholds the marvels of sky and field and sea, the beauty of tree and flower and plant, the flight of birds, the graceful forms of the animal world, the human countenance. Suppose a man who has been deaf from birth suddenly to have his ears unstopped. For the first time he hears the songs of singing birds, the sighing of the wind among the trees, the cheerful discords of the farm-yard, the sound of the human voice. Imagine one who loves music and whose soul has been starved for years in a foreign land to hear the first strains of a symphony by a trained orchestra. Picture an intelligent youth beginning the study of astronomy. In these and all such cases what happens is not advance to a new stage in a known world; it is a thrill of a new kind, an entrance into a joyous world till now unknown. It is an experience of that kind our Lord depicts in these two parables. For the finder life is filled at once with a new significance. No longer is it enough just to get through the day’s work; the labourer must at all costs acquire the field that contains the treasure; the merchant must at all costs become the owner of the precious pearl. The stolid ploughman becomes the alert athlete; the sedate merchant is transformed into the eager schoolboy. Till the prize be won, everything else must wait, every other consideration be forgotten. In the joy of the great discovery the finder is a “ new creature.” For the most part our generation feels no such thrill at the thought of the life to which Jesus calls us. In Noel Coward’s “ Cavalcade,” nothing was more impressive than the singing of the soldiers during the Great War. There was in it a certain grim courage; but it was the courage of men resolved to go on till the death in a stern task in which they can see no meaning and to which they can see no end, music infinitely sad and weirdly pathetic, a music that seems to typify the post-war generation even more than the generation that went through the war. In the world as Jesus knew it the strong man armed held mighty sway; there were paupers and parasites, diseases of body and mind in their most repulsive forms, moral cripples and pretentious hypocrites. Yet he never despaired, never wavered in his conviction that the world was God’s world, never thought of men as a race of crawling ants. He knew that the strong man armed had met a stronger, that the blind could be made to see and the deaf to hear, that disease could be cured and leprosy cleansed, that demons could be exorcised, prostitutes turned into saints and cheats into honest men. In the Gospels, not least in the parables, life has infinite significance, the world is instinct with purpose, men are called to tasks worthy of men. Jesus and the disciple circle were often weary, sometimes perhaps despondent; but they were never bored. Men to-day may be right in thinking that life as it is commonly lived is hardly worth living; but life in “ the Kingdom of God,” in the world as God meant it to be, and as it might become, is abundantly worth living. In our preaching do we not dwell too much on smaller themes, and forget to hold before men the splendour of the treasure, the glory of the pearl? But the farm-labourer did not simply add the treasure to his little store of goods and chattels, nor did the unique pearl just become a new item in the merchant’s collection. In both cases there was a price to be paid and the price was all their other possessions. The parable is a commentary on the story of the rich ruler, may indeed have been spoken on the occasion of that famous interview. It is in line with the teaching of Jesus, which at times seems so harsh, that the dearest of familyties, the noblest talents, the most cherished possessions, must not be allowed to stand in the way of the fulfilment of the end and aim of cur being.

We think of some of the other pearls that men prize, pearls of very varying degrees of worth, family affection, success in business, social prestige, fame or power, scholarship or art, amusement or passing the time as pleasantly as possible, good health or athletic prowess. We are allegorizing when we interpret the parable to mean that all these are to be abandoned if we are to claim our citizenship in the kingdom. On the contrary it is partly through some of these that our citizenship is manifested. The parable is a comparison of values; its lesson is that to be a citizen of the kingdom outweighs in value all other objects of pursuit, and that, when there is a clash, if we subordinate our citizenship to any other aim, we are dealing a vital blow at that which makes us men and women. On this point our Lord was adamant; it was one of his constant themes that our dearest privileges are also the source of our keenest temptations. This is the parable in its simplest form, When the peasant sold his odds and ends of furniture to buy a field that contained a box of treasure, he was no fool; and when the follower of Jesus ignores the ordinary prizes of life he is displaying the highest wisdom. The fact remains that most men do not think so. We continue to assume that the money bait is practically the only one that will call forth the higher forms of service. The man who does not make his own comfort one of the primary aims of his life is looked on as a being of another flesh and blood, as in fact he is. In the thought of Jesus sacrifice in itself has no significance. The hidden treasure, the pearl of great price, await those who for his sake have sat lightly to earth’s allurements. But the rewards that God gives are such as none can appreciate save those who are purged of all gross desires and all worldly ambitions.