Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

   What is worth more than anything to you?  Jesus looks at that question in this passage in Matthew’s gospel.  He’s describing the kingdom of God, or the reign of God.  Matthew uses the phrase, “kingdom of heaven,” for his audience of Jewish Christians, but in all of these kingdom parables, Jesus assumes the kingdom of God is something that can be perceived and experienced as a present reality, not just something in the future. 

   Each of these little kingdom parables is worth its own sermon, but I’m focusing on two of them: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field which someone found and hid, and from his joy he goes and sells all as much as he has and he buys that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a person on a journey seeking fine pearls, and finding one valuable pearl, he goes and sells all, as much as he has, and buys it.”

   The owner of the field has hidden a treasure and someone else has found it.  The person who found it wasn’t looking for it; he stumbled across it unexpectedly.  He is overcome by his good fortune and joyfully sells everything he has to buy the whole field and secure the treasure.  In the pearl parable, the person is deliberately searching far and wide for a fine pearl.  He finds it, and like the first man, he liquidates all his assets so he can buy the sought-after pearl.  The two characters make their discoveries as a result of entirely different circumstances, but once they’ve found the valuable object, they are all in.  Neither one of them pauses to calculate the risks, do a cost-benefit analysis, or consult with his investment advisor.

   This, says Jesus, is what the kingdom of God is like.  It is worth everything.  Many people will use these parables to talk about the cost of discipleship and that’s worth exploring, but only after we talk about something else: overwhelming joy, and the commitment that this kind of joy engenders.  This is not a parable about sacrifice; it’s a parable about joy.  These men give up everything because what they get is worth everything to them.

   What is it about the kingdom of God that is worth everything?

   Years ago, I stumbled onto Brené Brown’s TEDTalk about shame (https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame), which led me to her other TEDTalk and her books, nearly all of which I’ve read.  My interest led to my being sent to a national training along with other pastors from my presbytery where we learned to teach groups about Brown’s research.  On our return, we led a presbytery clergy retreat in the hope that Brown’s work would help us in adaptive leadership – leadership in these changing times. 

   That’s how I ended up in San Antonio studying shame, worthiness, courage, and vulnerability.  Brown began her research trying to understand what makes certain people more resilient and whole, a quality she calls “whole-heartedness.”[1]  She concluded that what most blocks whole-heartedness is shame.  Shame, at its heart, is a fear of disconnection.  We’re all hard-wired for connection and so we fear disconnection.  Shame whispers, “If you know the truth about me, you’ll reject me.”  It’s that feeling we are not enough – thin enough, rich enough, young enough, pretty enough, powerful enough, smart enough, perfect enough – you fill in the blank.  Shame is what we’re perpetuating whenever we communicate to others that they aren’t enough – which leads to all sorts of bad behavior – bullying, for example, which Brown says isn’t a school problem; it’s a national pastime.[2]  Another expert says there’s no record of a violent or cruel action committed other than as a reaction to shame or humiliation.[3]   

   We all have shame.  We all worry, now and then or maybe all the time, that, “I’m not good enough.”  So we hide who we really are.  But in order for connection to happen – true connection – we have to let ourselves be seen.  Brown discovered that what whole-hearted people have in common is courage; specifically, the ordinary courage to be seen, to show up, even though they’re imperfect.  Whole-hearted people believe that what makes them vulnerable makes them beautiful.  They don’t talk about vulnerability being easy or comfortable, just necessary.  They are kind to themselves, because they know that we can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t first treat ourselves kindly.  They are willing to let go of who they think they should be in order to be who they are, which is essential for connection with others.  Real connection flows from authenticity.

   So, in their vulnerability, wholehearted people are willing to say I love you first.  They’re willing to do things where there are no guarantees.  They’re willing to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call with results from the mammogram.  They’re willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out.  Wholehearted people, Brown found, also have a strong sense of love and belonging.  And this was the surprise: The one variable that separated people who have a strong sense of love and belonging from people who struggle for it, was that people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging.  That’s it.  They believe they’re worthy.

   Here is the other surprise: While all of us struggle with vulnerability, it also appears that vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, and creativity, of belonging and love.  When we numb ourselves to our vulnerability, when we numb ourselves to grief, and shame, and disappointment, we also numb ourselves to joy, and gratitude, and happiness.  We live in a culture that does a lot of numbing.[4]  The problem is, Brown says, we can’t selectively numb emotions.  She says, “We cannot say, ‘Here’s the bad stuff. Here’s grief, here’s shame, here’s disappointment.  I don’t want to feel these.  I’m going to have a couple of beers and a banana-nut muffin.  I don’t want to feel these.’  You can’t numb those hard feelings without numbing the other … emotions.”[5]

   This is not a commercial for Brené Brown; it actually is about the kingdom of God.  What I figured out in San Antonio is that Brown’s research is a secular repackaging of the good news of the Gospel.  Her hardcore research just restates what Jesus said, again and again, and especially what Jesus said about life lived in the kingdom of God.  In a wonderful conversation my colleague and I had with Brown at the San Antonio airport while we were waiting for our flight to San Francisco, she told us that her friends in the Episcopal Church tell her, “Brené didn’t say that.  Jesus said that.”   

   Jesus said that.  Jesus said, and modeled, and taught: “Love each other, even when it’s hard, even when it makes you vulnerable, even when it’s a risk.  Include people, connect with people, even when they aren’t like you, even when they scare you.  Practice empathy and compassion even when your first impulse is fight or flight, even when revenge is more attractive than understanding.  Treat everyone you encounter like the children of God they are.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Know in your bones that you are enough; that God knows you, loves you, and created you to be worthy, to be enough.  Live as though you are enough, and as though everybody else is, too.  Stick to your values even when it’s hard, even when it gets you in trouble.  Not to earn God’s love or prove you’re perfect – that’s the folly of the Pharisees – but in response to the gracious and unconditional love of God you already have.  You’ll be afraid.  It will be hard.  You will be hurt.  But this life, this wholehearted life and the world you will help create by living it are so much better, so much truer, so much holier, that it will be worth it. 

   It will be worth it.  It will be worth everything, says Jesus.  It will be worth the extravagant investment of your heart and soul and everything else, all you possess.  And the result is not a moaning and groaning sense of sacrifice, but joy.  Joy, and authenticity.  Connection.  Creativity.  Peace.  And freedom.  Freedom from the bondage of shame, perfectionism, and numbing.  For you.  And for everyone else. 

   What would you give for that?  It wouldn’t be easy.  It wouldn’t be pain-free.  It’d be more of a journey than a destination.  It’d be more of a practice and a path than an accomplishment.  The early Christians called it, “the Way” (Acts 9:2).

   What would that be worth to you?  

 © Joanne Whitt 2026 all rights reserved.

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[1]  This summary of Brown’s research is gleaned from three of her books: Daring Greatly (New York: Gotham Books, 2012), I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) (New York: Gotham Books, 2007); The Gifts of Imperfection, (Center City, Minnesota: Hazaeldon, 2010); and Brown’s TEDTalk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” TEDxHuston, June 2010, https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability. 

[2]  Brown, “The Cruelty Crisis: Bullying Isn’t a School Problem, It’s a National Pastime,” Psychology Today, October 31, 2010,  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ordinary-courage/201010/the-cruelty-crisis-bullying-isnt-school-problem-its-national-pastime. 

[3]  Donald I. Nathanson, M.D., http://psychcentral.com/lib/shame-the-quintessential-emotion/000730/2. 

[4]  Brown reports that we’re most in-debt, obese, addicted, and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history. Brown, “The Power of Vulnerability,” ibid. 

[5]  Brown, ibid.