Glimpsing Into the Kingdom

A Pearl at Any Price

What is it that you are willing to put your heart into? What do you treasure the most? If you could pick the one possession you own that you would take to a desert island – a book, a musical instrument, a photo album, a volleyball named Wilson – what would you take? You are looking at a magazine and you see something, perhaps an article, a photograph or an ad, that so captivates you that you immediately put down the magazine. You float over to the computer and immediately launch a websearch. You start with the basics – Wikipedia, of course, then Google, you might Yahoo or query your Facebook/Myspace community – and your first thousand results you pretty much throw away, because that's the silly stuff that everyone else wants. You are after a precious treasure, uncommon, unique. It cannot be found in the first 100 hits, not even hinted at. You get a clue from amidst the barrage of garbage, and it hits you. What you seek cannot be found by sitting at home. You are now on a quest, and you decide that you do not care where that journey takes you. You are off and running. As I am describing this to you, is there some treasure you love that comes to mind? It may be an object, but it also might be a dream that you have harbored for years.

What we all have in common is that we are made with this yearning for seeking a treasure. What is the treasure you seek? What defines your quest?

45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, 46 and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

This is not a fancy story. In fact, I believe one of the more beautiful and challenging aspects of this story is that it is so brief. Yet it is so powerful.

There is nothing quite so moving in all of literature as a person on a quest, except perhaps a Hobbit on a quest. Here we have the image of a merchant seeking, seeking... “all his mind is bent on it...” It is very easy, though, to be drawn into the image and lose sight of the merchant. A merchant is no one special; he is quite common. A pearl is a thing of beauty. It is quite natural to want to look at the pearl, and believe that is the essence of the parable. Unlike the previous parable in Matthew, where the Kingdom is compared to a treasure, an object of great worth, here the focus is on the action, the seeking of the object. In this parable, the kingdom is not a static object waiting to be found, it is a dynamic force on a journey.

In the story Jesus presents here, a merchant is seeking fine pearls. We would be wise to recognize that Jesus did not say that the kingdom of God is a fine pearl, but rather a merchant seeking after the finest of pearls.

An Object of Desire

Yet we cannot overlook the tempting beauty and significance of the pearl. What is it about pearls that people find so fascinating?

I began my search (dare I say quest?), knowing next to nothing about pearls, by going online. I searched pearls, pearl history, pearl lore – it is amazing how many different ways there are to search an item. I am proud to say I did not go to Wikipedia. Knowing that the ancients believed that different gems conferred different powers – some for good and some for ill – I was curious to know how pearls were perceived. I started there because I wondered why Jesus made a fine pearl an object of quest, and not, for instance a diamond, onyx or sapphire.

Tears for the Garden

An ancient legend from Ceylon speaks of Adam and Eve who shed tears and created a lake of pearls. The white pearls were believed to be from Eve's tears and the black from Adam's. It was further believed that because man is better able to control his emotions and sheds lesser tears, that explains the rarity of black pearls as compared to white pearls.

It is intriguing to think that ancient Near Eastern cultures would associate the beautifully shaped, translucent object with the first of mankind, the two created by the very hands of God. Those of the Hebrew tradition add another layer onto that:

Hebrew legend claims that pearls were the tears shed by Eve on being banished from Eden.
To seek after the pearl perhaps can be viewed as the quest to be reunited with the Creator God, to return to the innocence of the Garden, to walk once again, blissfully unaware, naked in the presence of God, and be unashamed. In that sense, then the pearl is that great, one-of-a-kind redemptive love that can make restoration happen.

We are a people who long to be restored to our God. As kingdom people, we yearn to be home in the garden of the Lord.

The merchant has found this priceless pearl, which best represents the tears of Eve. As he holds up his treasure to the heavens, the merchant is perhaps pleading, “See, O God, my Lord, I hold in my hand this one great pearl. Eve’s tears are my tears now. Bring me home, so that I may never be apart from you again.”

A Perfect Love

Perhaps the more world-weary listener in Jesus’ audience would have other things on his mind. The society in which Jesus found himself was steeped in the lore of Greek and Roman culture. The lore of a culture is pervasive, even in the lives of those who do not believe it. We readily associate John Kennedy with Camelot, Abraham Lincoln with abolition, and John Wayne with heroism, whether they represented those things or not. The first century Roman world had traditions of its own, and in these, the object at the center of this parable imagery would have another meaning altogether:

Pearls have always been associated with love. The Greeks and Romans believed that wearing pearls promoted marital bliss, and the bond between Psyche and Cupid was often depicted by a strand of pearls. Venus, the goddess of love, was believed to have been born from an oyster in the sea, like a pearl.
Jesus used marriage imagery in many of his teachings. Matthew 25 portrays the Kingdom of God as virgins waiting for the bridegroom. The teaching in John 14, beginning with “In my father's house are many rooms; I go and prepare a place for you” is another one of those. Throughout scripture the relationship of God and his people is compared to a faithful marriage – and at times to a fractured, betrayed marriage. By using the pearl as a symbol, Jesus may have been drawing on this myth that the pearl carried. The merchant seeks the finest of pearls because he is looking for the finest of loves. Upon finding it, he eagerly gives up all that he has.

What would we give to have the finest of loves at the center of our lives? We are inundated by options of how to find “love.” And we are so tired of the experience of having our high hopes crushed by the reality of shallow living. Yet we are reminded here that there truly is a pearl of great price, and it is worth beyond all that we own.

We are people who are defined by our search for God’s authentic love. As we find it, we shed all of the false ‘loves,’ shallow experiences that have no lasting meaning. Like the merchant, we invest all that we are in His perfect Love.