All In--July 29, 2026

All In--July 29, 2026

[Jesus said:] “The kingdom of heaven is like 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." (Matthew 13:44)

I used to think that Jesus was only saying that it's worth any cost to get to participate in God's kingdom.  But after all these years, perhaps with fresh ears, I am hearing something else... something more.

I don't think that the earlier interpretation was wrong, per se.  It is certainly true that being a part of God's Reign and Jesus' beloved community are worth whatever other sacrifices, losses, or challenges we might endure.  And to be sure, Jesus does often talk to his disciples about "counting the cost" in advance of following in his footsteps. He unabashedly tells some would-be followers that they need to first sell all their possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come and follow him. He regularly mentions that being his disciples could mean losing relationships with our families, being ridiculed by our neighbors or persecuted by the Respectable Religious Leaders, or getting labeled as a threat by the political powers of the day.  He says quite plainly that if we want to follow him, we'll need to be ready to "take up the cross daily"--a phrase that certainly resonated with the shame of execution at the hands of the Empire when Jesus said it.  

And yet, as Jesus also often points out, for whatever we might risk by following him, we are also given what the apostle Paul calls, "more than we can ask or imagine." The point at which we lay down our lives in love following Jesus is the very same point at which we find our lives and discover that God has held onto them beyond the grip of death.  Like Dietrich Bohoeffer put it so powerfully during the era of the Third Reich in his well-known book, The Cost of Discipleship, "Grace is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."

So, yes, definitely, Jesus does tell his followers that being his disciple is something like selling all your possessions in order to buy the field that has a secret buried treasure in it.  It is both costly and worth the cost, according to a wide variety of passages in the Gospels. And we would be selling a counterfeit gospel if we didn't make both halves of that statement clear: yes, following Jesus means a profound and radical reordering of what matters in our lives, and that will almost certainly mean letting go of things we used to think mattered (money, status, power, reputation, among others). And also yes, letting go of those things actually brings us closer to "the life that really is life" as 1 Timothy puts it.  Both are true, and as disciples of Jesus, we are constantly dared to stake our lives on the pair of them at the same time. Yes, yes, and yes, to all that.

But let me also suggest another truth implied by Jesus' thought experiment here about the man who buys the field with the treasure: this is also a picture of God's choice to lose everything for the sake of redeeming... us.  

Let me say that again, just to make sure the point is clear.  I don't think Jesus is only talking about what it could or might or likely will cost us to follow him (and why it's still worth it after all). I think Jesus is also saying that God knows it will cost everything--even the life of the Beloved on the cross--in order to redeem us, and yet God is willing to give it all up in order to restore us and bring us back home.  No matter the cost, God is all in.

And lest you think I'm making this all up out of whole cloth, consider how often Jesus talks about his own awareness that he is headed to the cross.  Jesus never talks to his disciples about what costs they might face for following him with the logically prior statement that Jesus is going to be paying those same costs himself first.  He tells his disciples that he has come to lay down his life "as a ransom for many," and that only by being lifted up on the cross will he "draw all people to myself."  He describes himself as being like a grain of wheat that is buried and broken open when it is planted in the ground, in order to bring forth a harvest of many more grains.  

The rest of the New Testament also points in this direction.  Paul, for example, will talk about how God in Christ chose to empty himself in becoming human, suffering death like us, "even death on a cross." Paul will also talk about Jesus as the one who "became poor that we might become rich in him."  And because Christians have confessed from the beginning that Jesus is the fullness of God in a human life, then what Jesus does... God does.  What Jesus suffers, God suffers.  What Jesus bears as a cost, God bears as a cost.  

In other words, before we even get to talking about the sacrifices we might be expected to endure for following Jesus, the Gospel's claim is that God already chose to lose everything--even God's own life, at the cross--for the sake of having us.  We are not only the man who sells everything to buy a field with a buried treasure; we are the treasure for which God was willing to lose everything else in order to claim us.  God went all in... for us.

I think this is an appropriate way to understand this parable of Jesus, in addition to hearing it as a call to us to count the cost of discipleship, because of the way Jesus begins this parable.  As with so many of his little vignettes and stories, this one begins, "The kingdom of heaven is like..."  In other words, Jesus is telling us a story about how God reigns, how God runs the world, and what sort of priorities are set in the Yahweh Administration.  We are so quick to turn Jesus' stories into morality plays about our behavior or fables about what we have to do to get into heaven, but Jesus himself seems to think his stories are less about our actions and more about God's.  They are less about moral lessons and more about God's surprising way of ruling the universe.  And over and over again in Jesus' stories, we see God, not as a tyrant or emperor amassing vast wealth for himself, but more like a servant-leader who risks everything, who sweats in the toil of planting a field, who runs after the long-lost son, who leaves the ninety-nine sheep for the sake of one lost lamb, and who gives away a fortune to people who don't seem to have earned it.  God's way of reigning isn't about God getting "richer" but about God giving everything away for the sake of bringing us to life.  We are worth the cost to God, despite our unloveliness and frequent hard-heartedness, because God has decided we are.  God has made the reckless financial decision to sell all the real estate and liquidate the stock portfolio for the sake of buying the one plot of ground where we are, so that we can belong to God forever.   We are the treasure in God's eyes, as much as it is also true that God's kingdom itself is a treasure worth our sacrifice as well.

When you start from that point, everything changes, doesn't it?  When we start with the claim that God things you are so precious that God was willing to give up everything for your sake, and for the sake of the world, then yes, it makes perfect sense also for us to say back to God, "I will give my whole life back to you in loving response." God doesn't demand we lose what is valuable to us in order to test our commitment or prove our devotion. Rather, our willingness to lose whatever we might have to surrender is the second motion of a two-step dance that begins with God already losing everything for the sake of redeeming us first.  Our whole life of faith flows from God's choice first to redeem and save, no matter the cost--even when God knew the cost would be a cross.  We don't start with a requirement to prove to God how committed we are, but rather with the clear statement of what God has already done to reveal God's commitment to us first.

God is all in, so to speak, for the sake of having you.  You, dear one, are the treasure in the field.  Once that sinks in, how can we not be led to risk losing whatever it might cost for the sake of echoing that kind of love first shown to us?

Lord Jesus, remind us of the cost you have endured willingly and lovingly for our sake, so that we will be assured of our preciousness in your eyes, and will find the courage to lay our lives down in love for you as well.