The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells everything that he has, and buys that field.
–Matt. 13:44, NASB
Jesus’ advocacy for parentless children, unmarried women, those with meager resources, and others regarded to be at the bottom of that society are amply documented in the record. For some, this makes Jesus an archetype for social struggle, but in fact the leap to such a conclusion is hard to support. For one thing, the record takes pains to show Jesus turning down opportunities for coordinated social overhaul, like when he disarmed the military-like legion of the hungry that formed soon after he started public ministry (Mark 6:40,44). Another is the unapologetically capitalistic perspective of his stories – hardly surprising given his petty bourgeois upbringing as a tradesman.
At less than a handful of phrases long, the Parable of the Hidden Treasure is a particularly concise example. Then as now, people loved to regale one another with stories like this, which featured huge returns on the denarius by luck or sharp dealing, and Jesus was no exception. Here the protagonist – rich, as in many of Jesus’ parables – digs up someone else’s land, hides what he finds, and uses his stored capital to purchase it from the ignorant landowner. This is not fair play – the buyer fully exploits illicit information asymmetry, like trading on inside knowledge obtained by corporate espionage. Everything is wrong here, but Jesus made absolutely no critique of the hero of his story nor of the greedy motives that undergird the most natural economic transactions.
The part missing in these stories is the punchline: the cash-out.
This is not to say that there is no twist. With Jesus, there is always a twist! The twist here is that, in any version of this parable, including that of the Gospel of Thomas, the ending is missing. It’s as if I told one of my stories (a true one) this way: “On Black Monday in 1987, I took all the cash I could spare and bought shares of a company exploring new computer tech.” The part missing in these stories (and in the parable following about the pearl) is, of course, the punchline: the cash-out. And that was precisely Jesus’ point: once we wander off into the Kingdom of Heaven, we would be stupid to return to the world just to cash out.
So it seems Jesus did not see natural human desire for profit as the problem; the problem is in value assessment. If God’s rewards for helping widows, orphans, etc. are so much greater than living in gold-plated penthouses, and if our worldly capital can provide such help, what is the capitalist solution, remembering that capitalism runs to extremes? It’s to take all worldly capital and invest it in the things God values. This happens to be exactly the lifestyle Jesus followed and called his followers to (Luke 12:33 and many other places).
So I’ve always claimed that one of my spiritual heroes is Michael Milken, who became exorbitantly wealthy by spending his money to buy so-called “junk bonds.” Once one realizes that dollars and what they can buy are like funny money compared to God’s approval, yet that same thing can be invested in things of real value in heaven, it presents what to any trader seems like an unbelievable opportunity: spend what is worthless to obtain things of great value. And the best part, unlike for Mr. Milken, in Heaven there is no SEC to convict us of being excessively greedy!