Sunday, 17 November 2019

The Parable of the Precious Pearl


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.

No comments:

Post a Comment