The Greatest Pearl

R. Charles Grant, D.Min.

Pastor

Bon Air Presbyterian Church

Richmond, Virginia

February 23, 2007

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.

 –Matthew 13:45-46

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

 – I Corinthians 13:13

            A woman goes to a yard sale and spies a necklace. It doesn’t look like much.  The string is broken and a couple of pearls are even missing.  The price tag is a real eye popper. Clearly over-priced everybody says.  But this woman knows better.  So she empties her purse and signs over her car, including her husband’s golf clubs in the trunk, takes the necklace, and walks home.  And is perfectly delighted, for she knows a real treasure when she sees one.

            Well, that’s not exactly how the parable goes, I know.  But you get the idea.  It’s a simple idea and a complicated idea all at once.  Scholars tell us this is one of the key teachings of Jesus, a real insight into how he understood religious faith. In terms of how to comprehend what Jesus believed and taught, it is right up there with the parables of the good Samaritan and the prodigal and the call to love God and neighbor with all your heart and might.  For what this parable tells us, is, life with God is an incredible treasure, so incredible, a wise person, a person of authentic faith, will risk everything else she has to possess it.

            What did Jesus mean by saying the kingdom is like a pearl of great price?   I think Jesus is reminding us that God’s good creation and all the life in it is beautiful beyond measure.  And if you would enjoy God, look for that beauty and celebrate it and enjoy it and treasure it.

            I think Jesus is reminding us of the joy of finding, finding something that had been lost, as with the lost sheep or coin or son, or finding something you don’t have but would like to have.

            And I think Jesus is telling us, when you see something beautiful, when you find something precious, be bold and take it, go for it, and never let it go.

The Kingdom of heaven – the life of faith - 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. That’s how Jesus put it.

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. That’s how Paul put it in his summary verse of his great chapter on love.  Paul would say there are three great treasures in life – three treasures worth having, three virtues worth hanging your whole life on.  FAITH – which for Paul was always a relationship with God and a manner of life lived.  HOPE – the strength to endure the hardest of times, even death.  Hope, the confidence that comes from the victory over death we have through Christ Jesus our Lord.  And LOVE – the glue that holds people in relationship one with another.  Love, the joyful motivation to put another’s needs in front of your own. Love, the one human word that comes closest to describing God.  Faith, hope, love – three beautiful gifts, three pearls of great price, three strands of the faithful life.  And for Paul, the pearl of greatest price, the most precious of all, is love.

Today we mourn the loss of a dear wife, mother, grandmother, friend.  Today we mourn OUR loss. Our hearts are heavy.  Being thankful that Laura’s suffering is over doesn’t make it easier.  Only tolerable.  Yes, we saw it coming. But that lessens our loss not one bit. Grief covers us like a fog. And so today we find ourselves at that NEXT to the last verse of Paul’s great hymn to love:  now we see in a mirror darkly. 

Which is precisely why we need to finish Paul’s verse Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now we know only in part then we will know fully, even as we have been fully known.

That pearl of greatest price is here:  the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, that will support us all the day long and lead us through the darkest of valleys.  By God’s grace, we have the gift of faith that sees beyond this day to the days which are to come.  In Jesus Christ we have unending hope that nothing in life or in death can separate us from God’s love.  And through God’s love for us and our love for one another we have the greatest gift of all, the gift of love, that surrounds us and holds us up this day, so that we may live tomorrow.  AMEN.