Matthew

Goldmines and Pearls is an adaptation of Matthew 13: 44-46

God’s Nation

I’ve changed ‘The Kingdom of Heaven’ to ‘God’s Nation’. What’s God’s nation?

The Kingdom of Heaven has quite a few centuries of baggage attached to it and, in my opinion, most people in our era hear the phrase and promptly shorten it to ‘Heaven’. The ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is ‘Up There’ and ‘Not Yet’.

Now, this is an entirely possible reading for these two parables, where Jesus is describing something people find. But Matthew doesn’t just use the phrase ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ in these parables; he repeats it in other parables that suggest something a bit more earthly. Something that starts small (one guy and his twelve followers, perhaps?) and then grows.

Given that I live in the United Kingdom, I’m familiar with a ‘Kingdom’ as a place, a people and as an idea, a sense of belonging. The Kingdom of Heaven, then, might also represent a place (God’s Kingdom-not-on-earth-but-in-Heaven), or a people who do God’s will on Earth, running their lives as if they were being ruled from Heaven, or a sense of belonging. Or all three. It’s not simply ‘Heaven’.

There are several possible synonyms for Kingdom, including ‘country’ and ‘nation’. Calling the Kingdom of Heaven ‘God’s Country’ reminds me rather strongly of C.S. Lewis and his ‘Aslan’s Country’, which would drag the parable into something otherworldly and a bit fairy-tale. Calling the Kingdom of Heaven ‘God’s Nation,’ on the other hand, brings the Kingdom ruled by God firmly back to this world. However, it does also give a good image of a group of people who have a sense of belonging to God and who are trying to do God’s will.

On a side note, it also helps modern hearers realise why the Judean and Roman authorities might have heard Jesus preach about the ‘Kingdom of Heaven/God’ and started to panic. ‘God’s Nation’ has far more in the way of political implications, so much so that Jesus might well have to spell out: ‘My Nation is not the type of nation you get in this world’ and that political insurrection is not on the agenda.

Hidden Treasure

One of the problems with retelling the Parable of the Hidden Treasure as if it were happening today is that our legal practices are not the same as Roman legal practices. The Kingdom of Heaven will be like someone who finds treasure in a field – and then gets into a years long legal process that includes having to offer the treasure to a museum. This doesn’t sound very like the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus wasn’t telling a fairy story in this parable; he was using the reasonably common practice of people hiding their savings or treasure by burying it. If they were never able to come back to reclaim it, someone else might find it years later. It was a bit like winning the lottery and it was common enough that there were laws establishing who had the ownership rights over the found treasure.

What similar event could happen today? Well, goldmines do exist in the UK and very valuable gold nuggets have been found as recently as 2018. Finding a new gold mine would certainly be cause for astonishment and joy – and yes, people do keep the location of these discoveries a secret.

The Problem of the First Owner

One of the interesting points about this parable is the first owner of the field. The finder of the treasure hides it again, then buys the field. By the law of the day, found treasure was split 50/50 between the finder and the owner of the land. In a sense, you could say that the finder is swindling the field’s owner out of the half share that is legally theirs. Yes, they’re paying a fair price for the field itself, but they didn’t mention the incredibly valuable treasure it contains.

So what about the original owner? Is Jesus talking about people who’ve had the Kingdom of Heaven available to them all this time – but who never went out and really looked?

The Pearl of Great Price

The Pearl of Great Price doesn’t really need any kind of retelling beyond minor modernisations of the wording. Pearls may no longer be the gem of choice, the way they were in Jesus’ time, but you can still find rare pearls that cost millions to buy. Swapping it to diamonds, the current gem of choice, wouldn’t really work because diamonds aren’t really rare; their cost is partly due to market demand and partly to the careful control of supply.

Natural pearls are still extremely rare and even cultivated pearls can still fetch high prices. This is one of the parables where the puzzle/metaphor is still instantly accessible. We do still have ‘pearls of great price’.

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