A sermon given at Bloomsbury
Central Baptist Church, 17/11/19
Matthew 13.45-46
"Again, the
kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great
value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
This week, we’re coming to the end of our little series
looking at
the so-called Parables of the Kingdom,
which we’ve
been working our way through on Communion Sundays.
What we have found time and again
is
that the way Jesus tells these short stories
has
subverted the way in which the Pharisees of his time
were
making use of traditional images from the Hebrew tradition
to
justify their version of nationalistic pride and religious intolerance.
So, the parable of the
mustard seed undermined their desire
for
Jerusalem to tower over the nations of the world like a mighty cedar.
The parable of the
yeast undermined their desire
for Israel
to become so ritually pure
that all
other people were excluded from God’s love.
The parable of the
treasure undermined their desire
to make
following God about duty rather than joy.
And the parable of the
drag-net undermined the Pharisees’ desire
to declare
themselves and those like them as ‘good’
whilst
everyone else was declared ‘evil’.
In today’s short parable
of the precious pearl,
we find
Jesus striking right at the heart
of the
Pharisees’ understanding of the Kingdom of God.
In order for us to understand how Jesus did this,
we need to
have an insight into what pearls meant
for the
Jews of the first century.
And part of our difficulty here
is that the
Old Testament doesn’t mention pearls at all:
we don’t
have an easy Old Testament passage that clearly lies behind
the way
Jesus uses a precious pearl as an image of the kingdom of heaven.
This isn’t to say, however, that pearls were unknown in the
ancient world,
quite the
opposite, they were just astronomically expensive,
and to talk of them was to use a figure of speech
for
something of supreme worth.
In some ways, if we were to update this parable,
we might
substitute the word ‘diamond’ for ‘pearl’
to get the idea
of their value.
Of course, these days, every jeweller’s shop offers strings
of freshwater pearls
which are
generated by the industrial farming of freshwater pearls.
And when Liz and I were in South East Asia earlier this year
we went to
a pearl factory,
and we were shown how the workers would take an oyster,
and using
tweezers would insert a speck of sand into it,
to start
the process of the pearl forming.
But in the ancient world, of course, things were very
different:
beautiful
pearls would exist only if they naturally occurred,
which meant that they were, at that time, the most valuable
objects in existence.
The reason they’re not mentioned in the Old Testament
is probably
because they were so rare that even Kings would struggle to own one.
But there are stories from within the early Jewish Tradition
which use
the image of a precious pearl to say something important about faith.
In one of these, a Jewish Tailor needs a fish to make as an
offering on the Sabbath,
and at the
last minute pays an outrageous price for one,
only to find when he opens it up that it has within it a
pearl
that he
sells and it supplies him with all he needs for the rest of his life.
(Pes Rab
23.6)
The point of this little story is clear:
if you faithfully
keep the Sabbath, even at great cost to yourself,
God will
reward you with great riches
and
blessings beyond what you could imagine.
Another early Jewish story,
possibly
related to the one of the tailor
comes from a collection of sayings known as the Babylonian
Talmud,
and again
is concerned to show that wealth comes to those
who honour
the Sabbath and observe the commandments.
I’ll read it to you, as it’s quite short:
There was a certain Gentile … who owned much property….
He went and
sold all his property, and bought a pearl with the proceeds,
which
he placed in his hat.
As he was
crossing a bridge, the wind blew the hat off and cast it into the water,
and
a fish swallowed [the pearl].
[Later on
some fishermen] hauled the fish up
and
brought it [to market] on the eve of the Sabbath, towards sunset.
They cried,
"Who will buy [our fish] now?"
They
were told, "Go and take it to Joseph-who-honours-the- Sabbaths,
for
he is accustomed to buying."
So they
took it to him.
He
bought it, cut it open, found the pearl therein,
[and]
sold it for thirteen roomfuls of gold denarii.
A certain
old man met him and said,
"He
who lends to the Sabbath, the Sabbath repays him."[1]
So, again the point is: that if you do right by the Sabbath,
then the
Sabbath will do right by you.
All of which gives us an insight
into the
religious traditions surrounding precious pearls
that would
have laid behind Jesus’ little parable.
So if you had asked a Pharisee of Jesus’ day how a pearl
related to his religion,
he would probably
have told you that it was a symbol of his piety,
a
symbol of God’s reward for his faithfulness,
for
carefully studying the Torah,
for honouring the
Sabbath,
and
for keeping the commandments.
And that if he did these things,
he could
expect reward from God in exchange.
So, if Jesus had said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a
precious pearl’
the
Pharisees would surely have agreed with him.
This would have suggested that the kingdom of was a thing of
rare value,
only
available to the select few who were blessed by God
in exchange
for their piety and faith.
However, Jesus didn’t said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a
precious pearl’
He said something subtly different:
He said, “The
kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls;
46
on finding one pearl of great value,
he
went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
The emphasis in Jesus’ parable is not on the pearl itself,
it is on
the act of seeking.
The metaphor for the Kingdom here
is not an
object, but an action.
The kingdom here is experienced through seeking, and
finding,
and
sacrificing, and acting decisively.
And this changes things quite considerably,
because it makes
the kingdom something that anyone can aspire to,
rather than
something bestowed by God on a select few.
Anyone can seek the kingdom
and as
Jesus said elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel,
and
as we heard in our reading earlier,
“Search,
and you will find... For everyone … who searches finds.”
However, before we continue with this train of thought,
and think a
bit more about what searching and finding
the
precious pearl of the kingdom might look like for us,
I think it’s worth also having in our minds
some of the
ways in which Christians have used this parable down the centuries,
because we are the heirs to a tradition of interpretation,
every bit
as much as Jesus and the Pharisees were…
Various Christian interpreters have made suggestions
as to what,
or who, is symbolised by the pearl in the parable.
Some have suggested that the pearl should be understood as
Jesus himself,
and the
invitation is therefore to seek after Jesus and possess him,
casting off
other, lesser, pearls and treasures
such
as doing good works,
or
the pursuit of knowledge.
This interpretation takes us in the direction of pietistic
religion,
where the
focus is on the worship of Jesus
to the
exclusion of everything else that might distract us.
Others have suggested that the pearl is to be understood
as the new
covenant of Christianity ,
and the invitation is to pursue the Christian path,
setting
aside the lesser pearls of the law and the prophets.
This interpretation takes us in the direction of exclusive
religion,
where the
focus in on following the path of Jesus
to the
exclusion of all other revelations of God’s nature.
Others have suggested that the pearl is to be understood as
the church,
with its
buildings, and priests, and rules, and rituals.
This interpretation takes us in the direction of ecclesial
religion,
where the focus
is on the correct observance of the sacraments,
and the diligent offering of
services of worship at the prescribed times,
to the
exclusion of less structured ways of encountering God in Jesus.
And still others have suggested
that the
pearl is to be understood as the teachings of Jesus
as
revealed in the sermon on the mount,
or
elsewhere in the teaching sections of the gospels.
and
as interpreted and applied by the doctors of the church.
This interpretation takes us in the direction of legalistic
religion,
where the
focus is on obedience to the teachings,
and
on literal plain readings of Bible,
to the
exclusion of an openness to the continuous revelation of God’s will
through
the discovery of new light and truth
as
it breaks forth from the word of God.
All these different allegorical interpretations,
have proved
popular at different points in our Christian tradition.
From the centuries of hegemony under Catholic Christendom,
to the
drastic separatism of the radical reformers,
to the
legalistic bibliolatry of the fundamentalists,
to the emotively
charged worship of the evangelical-charismatic tradition.
But the thing is,
whilst I am
broadly in favour
of
Christians meeting in church for discipleship, teaching, and accountability
and whilst
I am broadly in favour
of
there being something distinctive about the people of Christ,
and whilst
I am broadly in favour
of
taking the Bible seriously,
and whilst
I am broadly in favour
of
worship that is emotionally engaging,
I don’t think any of these are what Jesus is actually
talking about
in his
little parable of the precious pearl.
And when we inherit interpretations like those I’ve just
outlines,
we run the
risk of doing what Christians so often do,
which is to overlay our own concerns and preferences onto
the text,
so that
Jesus seems to be saying, by the end of it,
exactly
what we think he should be saying.
Now, some might say, ‘Woodman, how are you any different?’
and that’s
a good point.
So, as always, I offer my readings provisionally,
for us to
weigh together.
Because the task of interpreting scripture for our time and
place is not mine alone,
it is a
task we share.
Anyway, back to the precious pearl.
The Pharisees would have seen the pearl of great price
as symbolic
of their own rather hard line and exclusive
interpretation
of the Jewish law.
Keep the law their way, and you get the benefits,
but don’t,
and you don’t.
Against this, Jesus says that the kingdom is not the pearl,
it is
rather the process of seeking, of finding, and of taking decisive action.
Jesus is offering the kingdom here to all who seek it,
and I can
just imagine how the exclusive Pharisees felt at that!
No longer is the kingdom a well kept secret,
a precious
gift for the favoured few.
It is available to be found by all who go looking for it.
But this is no offer of cheap grace.
This is no
cost-free path to the kingdom.
Because the possession of the kingdom
involves a
radical act of reversal.
Sure, anyone can find it, if they seek it,
but possessing
it is inextricable from repentance.
Listen to the parable 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.
The merchant gives up everything that he previously held to
be of value,
in order to
possess the kingdom that he had found.
And the implication is that the kingdom is possessed,
only when
those seeking it similarly re-orientate their values
towards
the new reality that is coming into being through Jesus,
turning
away from their old values,
and
embracing the new.
It’s like those other two little parables that Jesus told,
about old
cloth, and old wineskins:
No one sews a patch of
unshrunk cloth on an old garment,
for the patch will pull away from
the garment, making the tear worse.
Neither do people pour
new wine into old wineskins.
If they do, the skins will burst;
the wine will run out,
and the wineskins will be ruined.
No, they pour new wine
into new wineskins, and both are preserved. (Matt. 9:16–17)
Those who would possess the new wine of the kingdom,
those who
seek and find the kingdom,
will
find that the possession of it
involves
an inevitable act of radical reorientation,
because lives lived by values from the old order,
simply cannot
and will not contain or constrain the values of the new.
But hear this very clearly,
this is not
about justifying a conflict between Judaism and Christianity.
As we have already established,
the pearl
of great price is not the church,
and that
which is cast aside to possess it is not the law and the prophets.
Just as the Pharisees had to hear
that the
Kingdom was not synonymous
with their interpretation of the
Jewish tradition,
so we too have to resist all attempts in our lives to
constrain and contain the kingdom
within any structure
or institution of power.
The church is not the kingdom,
and neither
does the church bring in the kingdom.
Rather, the church witnesses to, is a servant of,
and
demonstrates the presence of the kingdom of heaven.
The people of God are those who live into being in the world
the radical
reorientation of their values
that occurs
because they have sought and found.
The kingdom comes into being through those who live it into
being,
and so our
task, as has always been the task of the people of God,
is to live
the new age into being right here, in the midst of the old.
And unless the Spirit of Jesus is with us,
leading us
to lives that exhibit the values he embodied,
teaching us to exhibit compassion, acceptance,
forgiveness, justice, and joy,
then we
have no right to speak of the presence of the kingdom.
However, if our lives are marked by the reorientation of
values
that is the
corollary of our taking possession
of the precious
pearl of the kingdom,
then the new reality and humanity
that Jesus
lived into being in his world,
is similarly lived into being by us in our world.
So today, as we come to the communion table,
all who
seek are invited to receive.
We will receive these gifts of bread and wine,
which are symbol
and sign of the kingdom of heaven.
And we will be invited to repent,
to turn
intentionally towards Christ,
as he meets
us around his table.
And the radical reorientation of our lives continues,
as we find
ourselves moving another step
away from self and towards Christ,
away from
fear and towards courage,
away from guilt and towards
forgiveness,
away from pain
and towards healing,
away from the old, and towards the
new.
x
[1]
The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jan., 1982), pp.
161-177.
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