Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:44-58
I really like the parable about the pearl, because I have actually seen it in real life. When I worked in a jewellery store on Queen St Mall, we had a certain customer come in many times over the course of several months. She was a silent, Eastern European woman with a very serious look on her face, and would come in every so often to inspect our pearls. At first it drove the sales associates mad, because all they want to do is to sell a customer the thing they like and then move on to the next one. But this woman would come in, ask to see the pearls, and go through them one by one, with her jeweller’s loupe, turning them over slowly in the light. After a while, she would stand up, thank the sales associate, and leave without buying any of them. Eventually we just came to accept that this particular woman had extremely high standards, and let her get on with her journey of discovering the perfect pearl. One day she finally did find that pearl she was looking for, and we all had to hold our tongues and pretend like it was just another normal day – and after the sale was concluded, and the customer left, the store exploded with claps and cheers.
When it comes to the kingdom of God, I think we need to raise our standards and our expectations. For whatever reason, we humans seem to be happy with “good enough” when it comes to the spiritual. C. S. Lewis, ever one to have a way with words, described the phenomena like this:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Consider how socially uncomfortable it is to be the discerning pearl customer. Even now, ten years later, I still remember her. Who wants to be that person? Don’t we feel much more comfortable just getting in, grabbing something “good enough”, and getting out again as soon as possible? And yet Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like the one who actually stops and spends some time searching for the best, and will not settle for anything less.
There are echoes in this parable of something Jesus talks about later in this Gospel:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
That is to say, dump all that other stuff, and keep your eyes on the prize. He has also mentioned something thematically similar earlier:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matt 6:33)
Be the discerning customer; be the one who will only settle once they have found the perfect pearl. Deny yourself the consolation prize of second best; seek first the kingdom of God.
So there is this great sense that we must be pressing on, holding fast in our convictions, and reaching out for the kingdom of God, without being held back by the distractions of lesser things.
When I come to this conclusion from the text, I find myself wanting to know more. Why should I do this? And from here I think the answer is in the fact that the kingdom is like a pearl because the kingdom is beautiful.
Pearls are beautiful. Jewellers place them in the category of gems, and call them “natural” gems. When you get a really good one (like our customer from earlier), you can get lost in the way the light plays across the surface. And beauty is one of the defining features of the kingdom of God.
Take, for example, the waterfront here on the peninsula. Whenever I drive along the waterfront, I run some serious risk of an accident, because the view can be so breath-taking. Remember, when we look at God’s creation, we see the work of the Source of all beauty – it is God’s handiwork, not God himself. There is an even higher beauty behind it.
I saw something very much like the beauty of the kingdom when I was called up to palliative care this week. A woman, full of years, breathing her last, while her adult daughter was sitting beside her holding her hand and gently stroking it. The love between the two of them was a thing of beauty. And God, who had brought the three of us together to pray her home into her Father’s mansion – this was something of the beauty of God and his kingdom.
Most beautiful of all is, I think, the sacrificial love of the Lord Jesus. Think about the other short parable this morning, of the man who found a treasure in a field, and sold everything he had in order to get that field. When I read that, I thought “I wonder who that man is” (a very Sunday School question) and answered to myself “Jesus” (a very Sunday School answer). Jesus (as we read in Philippians 2:5-11) had everything as the Second Person of the Trinity, yet he did not consider it something to be grasped at or snatched. And so he “emptied himself”. He gave up everything he had, even to the point of dying on a cross. This was so that he could get the treasure: that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He gave up everything for the sake of the treasure of glorifying the Father.
The kingdom of God is beautiful, and so it is worth being the discerning pearl customer, seeking the perfection of the beauty of the kingdom. And this beauty is so superior to all other lesser beauties – indeed, it is the source of beauty itself, for it is the kingdom of God, who is Beauty – it is worth giving up everything else in order to gain it.
So I encourage you: seek the beauty of the kingdom of God. Do not settle for “good enough”. There is enough in the media and in the conversations you will have this week that will try and distract you and make you settle for less. But the beauty of the kingdom of God is found in the hand-holding of two people who share a deep love. It is found in the type of love that gives up everything for the sake of the beloved. It is found in the truth of the Lord Jesus, and his sacrificial death for us. It is why we put so much effort into our Sunday worship, and why we want the grace we receive from God to then go out into the community in our outreach. The kingdom of God is beauty itself, it is worth everything, and it is ours for the enjoying. Let us be known as people of beauty.