bleeding out loud

This is an excerpt from the writing I’m doing at Mars Hill.

The Treasure & The Pearl | Matthew 13

One of the themes running throughout Jesus’ kingdom parables is the theme of hiddenness. Despite the fact that Jesus was constantly telling people the kingdom had arrived, few people saw it because they were looking for something else. The hiddenness of God is one of the greatest frustrations of a life of faith. Where is God when you need him most? Why does God speak so freely and clearly when things are just fine, but suddenly go silent when things blow up and we desperately need to hear from him? Yet as Jesus points out in these two parables, the kingdom, although hidden, can be found-stumbled over, in fact, if you aren’t careful.

Some people discover the kingdom at the end of an exhaustive search like a merchant looking for pearls. You know the experience. You search and search for something, and the searching goes on for what seems like an eternity. Maybe it’s something you lost. You rack your brain. You retrace your steps, and when you don’t find it, you wonder in exasperation, “Where could it possibly be?”

Or maybe it’s something you never possessed to begin with and your entire life has felt like a searching after you don’t know what. Only you have a deep sense that whatever it is, you’ll know it when you see it. Then, after weeks, months, or even years, you find whatever it is you’d been searching for: your keys, your phone, an old friend you’d lost touch with, a community of people you feel that you can finally belong to, or maybe the one person in all the world you can belong to. Whatever it is, the experience of discovering what you’ve been searching for is pure relief and indescribable joy.

Not everyone has to search for the kingdom though. Others simply happen upon it by accident like a man stumbling over treasure in a field. Maybe it’s better to say that it finds them.

Sometimes you find the kingdom. Sometimes the kingdom finds you. Either way, the result is the same: pure joy.

Joy is an interesting word. In Greek it’s the word chara. It means a state of joy, gladness, or great happiness, but in many languages, joy is expressed by action: “My heart is dancing” or “my heart shouts because I am happy.” That’s because joy is active. It wells up. It overflows. No one ever simply possesses joy and stays the same because it does something to whoever possesses it. You know joyous people when you see them. They either delight you or annoy you because it’s impossible to be around them and not get some of their joy on you. It’s parasitic. It jumps off of one and onto another.

In both of Jesus’ stories the joy comes because of the discovery of something incredibly valuable. In the ancient world, people buried treasures in the ground as a way of safekeeping. Likewise, pearls were one of the most sought after commodities. Finding these things was like hitting the jackpot.

What’s ironic is that most people win the lottery and start spending. Even if they choose to invest their newfound fortune, the end goal is still to put the money to work in order to acquire more. There are endless stories of people whose lives have been ruined by winning the lottery. More money. More problems.

The joy of discovering the kingdom leads the characters is Jesus’ parable to do the exact opposite. Instead of buying, they start selling. They hit the jackpot and start getting rid of everything. Why? They behave as though they’ve found the one thing that matters most. Like they’ve finally found what they were created for. Life as it was meant to be. Ultimate reality.

Sometimes we have the privilege of catching glimpses of this ultimate reality. There are moments when a window opens up and we see, ever so briefly, the world as God must have imagined it. We catch a flicker of the same beauty and possibility that God must have felt when he spoke the world into being.

A few years ago, some very close friends moved to China. We were sad to see them go and knew that things would be very different no matter how we tried to stay in touch. After a year or so, we got word that they were coming home for Thanksgiving. So we managed to plan a meal with them and ten or eleven other very close friends. It was a meal I will never forget. We sat together at the table and ate and drank and laughed and cried. We caught up. We told stories. Conversation floated along. It went on for hours, and we all lost track of time, and at the end of the night no one wanted to get up from the table. There was a real sense that we hadn’t just shared a meal, we’d shared life. I walked away hoping that every meal I would eat for the rest of my life would be like that one. That was what God meant for meals to be like. But this wasn’t just about a meal. This is what relationships were supposed to be like. This was heaven. Only it had just taken place in my friend’s dining room.

The odd thing about catching glimpses of the kingdom of heaven is that it’s easy to begin thinking that the kingdom is random. It may show up here or there in a momentary flash, so you’d better pay attention. Paying attention is good, but the kingdom of heaven isn’t random. Paying attention assumes that the kingdom is something happening external to you. But as Jesus points out in Luke 17:21, “people won’t say, “Here it is!” or “There it is!” because the kingdom of God is within you.” Jews used the phrase kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God interchangeably, but Jesus’ point is that the kingdom isn’t somewhere out there-It’s somewhere in here-not beyond your reach but within your grasp.

A kingdom is about rule and authority. Each of us possesses a degree of rule and authority in our own lives. There are certain things we have say over. The philosopher Dallas Willard calls this “the range of our effective will.” We can choose to do whatever we want with our possessions, our bodies, our behaviors, and our relationships. The things we have say over are our kingdoms, and we are free to do with them as we wish.

The kingdom of heaven refers to the rule and reign of God, which is any place where things are as God intends them to be. And the reason we only catch glimpses of this kingdom rather than long, uninterrupted views is that it is in constant competition with all of our individual kingdoms. There is what God intends and then there is what we intend. What God intends is right relationships between God and people, between people and one another, between people and creation, and between people and their own selves.

Every time we make the choice to align our intentions and actions with God’s intentions, heaven shows up. Not randomly, not magically but as the direct result of partnering with God and allowing his rule and reign to be the guiding force behind all of the things we have say over.

So the kingdom isn’t hidden after all. Maybe it’s better to say that it is hidden in plain sight like a person who searches for their keys only to realize that they’ve been in their hand the whole time. The kingdom isn’t in some distant future. It’s here and now, in living rooms and cubicles and checkout lanes and minivans and family reunions and difficult conversations and broken social systems. And it’s not random. It’s deliberate, brought about by a dynamic partnership between God and people.