Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
The dish is a little more than 18 inches in diameter…made of sterling silver.
- Around the rim appears the goddess Minerva…with symbols for the liberal arts: Arithmetic…astrology…dialectic…
geometry…grammar…music and rhetoric.
- There’s nothing on the dish about tennis.
You would expect that sport to be featured…since the dish is the trophy awarded to the women’s singles champion at Wimbledon…
- The tennis tournament that ended on July 12.
- The trophy is called The Venus Rosewater Dish…
- And the Venus part was there long before Venus Williams won it multiple times.
According to The Washington Post…the dish was made in 1864 and has been awarded to the singles champ since 1886.
- The winners get to hold the dish…but they do not get to keep
- The original stays in the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum…
- And the winner gets an 8-inch replica and prize money.
Now if you were to run across this dish in an art gallery…you might not be impressed.
- But if you are a tennis player…the dish is a precious treasure…
- A holy grail…a pearl of great value.
- Players from around the world push themselves to their physical and mental limits…
- Training…practicing…focusing…
competing…
- Hoping to be able to play at Wimbledon…the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world.
- Along the way…they dream of the Venus Rosewater Dish.
- The Lord be with you…
In Matthew 13…Jesus speaks of a set of prizes that people pursue with passion and single-minded purpose…
- Using every ounce of their heart…soul…mind and strength.
- Instead of the Venus Rosewater Dish…they seek a treasure hidden in a field…a pearl of great value…and a net filled with fish.
- What unites these treasures is that they are illustrations of the kingdom of heaven…
- A spiritual reality that we are invited to find in everyday life.
- The pursuit of the kingdom requires effort…
- Which is why we may translate the kingdom of heaven as The God Movement.
Jesus was a master of short and pithy messages.
- He would have been an effective user of the tweet… (Twitter…X).
- The challenge of a tweet is to say something funny or provocative or profound…in about 33 characters.
- Funny…such as…everyone says to follow your dreams…so I went back to bed.
- Provocative: every saint has a past and every sinner has a future!
- Profound: The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
Three times…Jesus illustrated the kingdom of heaven in short…pithy parables.
- He said the kingdom is like treasure hidden in a field…
- A pearl of great value…and a net.
- He could have easily tweeted these parables…had Twitter been invented.
- He asked his disciples if they understood and they said yes.
- Then he said that…every disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.
Jesus followers were challenged to dig into their treasure and bring out what is new and what is old…
- Both the new parables of Jesus and the old teachings of the Hebrew prophets.
- Of all the gospel-writers…Matthew was the one most concerned about what was new and what was old.
- He connected the ministry of Jesus to the history of Israel…
- Presenting Jesus as a second Moses who offered new laws and teachings to Israel and to the world.
Choosing the right prize is important because there will be a final reckoning.
- The parable of the net speaks of a separation of good fish and bad fish.
- So…it will be at the end of the age…says Jesus.
- The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous.
- Whether or not a person pursues the treasure of the kingdom has eternal consequences…according to Jesus.
- The kingdom is not simply a Venus Rosewater Dish…
- But it is a prize that changes a person’s life for all time.
- You must pick your prize well and pursue it with sacrifice…passion and purpose.
The world is full of prizes that people pursue with passion and single-minded purpose…
- The Borg-Warner Trophy…awarded to the winner of the Indianapolis 500.
- The Green Jacket…given to the winner of the Masters golf tournament.
- The Olive Wreath…placed on the heads of Boston Marathon winners…
- The original marathoner…a Greek man named Pheidippides…
- Ran from Marathon to announce an Athenian victory in 490 B.C…then he dropped dead…O MY!
All these prizes demand effort…the kingdom of heaven is the same.
- Jesus says that it is…like a treasure hidden in a field…which a man found and reburied…then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
- It takes focus and effort…as Jesus says…a willingness to sell all you have to buy a field or a pearl.
- That’s focus…that’s sacrifice…passion and purpose.
- The kingdom of heaven is not so much a place as it is a movement.
You have to admire the determination of A.J. Jacobs…an editor for Esquire magazine…who decided to spend a year living the Bible…literally.
- He made a commitment to stop lying…speaking evil…gossiping…complaining and despising his neighbor…
- He did this because he was impressed by the power of God’s Love…and he was determined to explore his own religious background.
What amazed him was how this focus and passion changed him.
- As he was learning to pray one day…he stood up before tasting his lunch of hummus and pita bread…
- Closed his eyes and said: I’d like to thank God for the land that he provided so that this food might be grown. I’d like to thank the farmer who grew the chickpeas for this hummus…and the worker who picked the chickpeas. And the truckers who drove them to the store…and the old Italian lady who sold the hummus to me and told me…lots of love.
A.J. Jacobs discovered that giving thanks to God feels good.
- It makes him feel more connected…more grateful…more grounded…more aware of his place in the world.
- Prayer reminds him that food does not spontaneously appear in his refrigerator…
- And that he’s lucky to have food at all.
- These are good insights…and they are making him a person of gratitude.
- But none of this would have happened if he had not focused on living the Bible for a year.
So…where can we find this kind of focus…sacrifice…passion and purpose?
- Earthly prizes are easy to identify…whether they be winning championships or achieving sales goals…
- Losing weight or gaining an advanced degree.
- But heavenly prizes? These are a bit more difficult to visualize.
- Still…they can be found when we make an effort to live by the Ten Commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy
- Or live by the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.
- We uncover God’s treasures when we dig into the parables of Jesus or the letters of Paul.
We join The God Movement when we start each day with prayer…
- Treat our neighbors as we would like to be treated…
- And serve Jesus Christ by serving the hungry or the homeless.
- These are all part of kingdom living…
- And they all require determination…desire and a sense of mission.
- The pursuit of these goals will challenge us…reward us…and change us for the better.