"The Precious Pearl"

Matthew 13:45-46 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” What kinds of interesting jobs have you had? I had many different jobs before I enrolled in seminary to train as a pastor. • Cutting grass/shoveling snow – first jobs, all around the neighborhood • Church sexton – filled in one summer • Scooping ice cream at one of those 31 flavors stores • Worked at a golf course • Box factory – worked one summer on the corrugator & the slitter at the St. Joe Paper Company in Baltimore. • Pearl Diving! – yes, oxygen tanks, flippers, and a diving mask, off the coast of Bahrain one summer while earning money for college. Actually it was working as a dishwasher – country club, college dorm, nursing home, and finally a hotel restaurant. I once heard someone call this job “pearl diving”. So, yes I was a “pearl diver”, one of those euphemisms to make a dreary job sound exciting. The only diving I did was in suds up to my elbows. So I wasn’t really diving for pearls at all, but the story gives a good place to dive into the subject at hand. Jesus tells a parable about a precious pearl. This is yet another topic that I actually know very little about, other than washing pots and pans, so I had to do some research about it this week. A pearl is found on the inside a shelled mollusk. The pearl forms when a tiny irritant lodges in the flesh of the mollusk as it feeds on nutrients by drawing sea water in and out. To protect itself thin layers of an iridescent substance known as “mother of pearl”) form in thin layers over that irritant, and over time the result is a pearl. In modern times, pearls can be grown in mollusks by artificial means, what are called “cultured pearls”. But in Jesus’ time the only pearls that could be found were by pearl divers in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Pearls were very rare. A diver might have to bring up several tons of mollusks to find even a few pearls. And among the few found, most were flawed in some way, lumpy or misshapen or discolored. But a beautiful pearl was perfectly round, deeply iridescent, almost glowing, and the larger the more valuable. Pearls like these were used in making necklaces, earrings, and other jewelry. They were extremely valuable. So Jesus tells a parable about a merchant who traded in pearls. We can imagine that he traveled to the places where real pearl divers brought up the mollusks, bought them and then traveled to the markets where people would buy them, earning a profit on each pearl sold. On one of his journeys he was shown the most beautiful pearl he had ever seen, large, iridescent, flawless. When he saw that pearl he knew he had to own it, he had to possess it, he had to have it in his hand. So he mortgaged his home, sold off his heard of blue ribbon cows, auctioned off his collection of stamps and coins, sold his vintage T-bird coupe, his antique John Deere tractor, and his complete set of Barbie dolls. He sold everything he had to own that pearl. When he was done he had nothing but that precious pearl. Was this a wise business decision? Anyone here own your own store or business? Would you sell everything you have to buy a perfect hammer or a perfect coffee cup or a perfect sack of flour? Probably not. So this may not be a parable that contains wisdom about operating a business. So what could it really mean? That’s what everyone asks about Jesus’ parables. Why is Jesus talking about a mustard seed? Why is Jesus talking about leavening the bread dough? Why is Jesus talking about a beautiful pearl? That’s what everyone asks. What does it mean? There are many truths you might find in this parable. There are the truths on the exterior, and then for those with the patience to find them, the deeper truths. So one interpretation might be to appreciate the valuable things, or the beautiful things, in life. Or it might be a lesson about persistence – diving hundreds of times into deep water to find that one beautiful pearl. Or it might be the way your eye is drawn into the depths of the pearl, a deep spiritual insight. But here’s a story that I came across during the time when I served a congregation in Rochester in which half of the members were Italian Presbyterians. It turns out that the heritage of Italian Presbyterians went back into the times two or three hundred years before the Protestant Reformation of Luther and Calvin, when a small number of people responded to the street preaching of a merchant by the name of Peter Waldo. Because Peter Waldo’s followers, called Waldensians, were subject to horrible persecution, they lived out their faith secretly. It is said that Waldensian preachers went about disguised as traveling merchants. Upon arriving in a small town or village the merchant, more like a peddler, would spread out his wares for people to see – beautiful cloth, buttons, combs, jewelry, gems. But even as he lifted up each item to prospective buyers he would offer cryptic hints about things even more beautiful, even more precious that he might be willing to sell. As the people drew closer, hanging on his every word, he began to tell them about a “Pearl of Great Price”, and gradually told them about Jesus, his simple truth, his love, his sacrifice, all of which were a stark contrast to the corruption, wealth, and greed of the official church of the day. You can picture it – • “Look at these shiny buttons I have for sale”. • “Wow, I want to own buttons like that!” • “Do you want to see things even more beautiful than this?” • “Yes, yes”. • “I can’t show such riches to just anyone, but only to those who are able to appreciate them”. • “Please, please show me”. • “Have you ever seen a valuable pearl?”. • “Oh please, show me, show me”. • “It’s not really a pearl, it’s the eternal word of God, and you can have it … for free. This is the ‘Pearl of Great Price’.” Jesus spoke about a beautiful pearl that a merchant was willing to sell everything he had in order to own it. The pearl was beautiful, flawless, the biggest most beautiful pearl he had ever seen. It was more valuable than anything. And now I am telling you that this pearl is for you, it’s beautiful, it’s big, it is invaluable, but it’s free, it’s right here, it’s for you.