07/27/2026
July 26, 2026
A message for 9th Sunday after Pentecost from Jeff Meyers
We invite you to read the lessons for today: 1 Kings 3:5-12; Psalm 119:129-136; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
As many of you know, I teach a financial math course at the high school, a place that I will return to in one month from yesterday... Anyway, one of the units that I cover talks about investing, with an emphasis on retirement, but really any type of investing. One of the things that I stress when talking about investing is that we don’t put all our eggs in one basket. In other words, we shouldn’t take all of our money and invest it in Sears in the early 2000s, or Toys R Us, or KMart, or any other company, because so many companies fail. And of course, if we have all of our savings in a company that fails, our savings goes bye bye and we are left with nothing. So what do I teach? I teach to diversify. Index funds, mutual funds, things that if one company does poorly and goes bankrupt there are dozens or even hundreds of other companies in the portfolio to make sure that having one company fail doesn’t wipe out your savings. And I don’t think that financial situations is the only place we try to diversify. We may have a favorite sports team, but root for other teams and players just in case ours doesn’t have a great season. We most likely have multiple hobbies because we’d rather be well rounded and proficient in many things than excellent in just one. We applaud the “Renaissance Man” who can do a lot of different things, and are less likely to applaud the person who is great at one thing but can’t do anything else. My wife in her garden plants many different types of plants, even though some don’t grow as well as others, so that we have different foods to eat and not the same thing (it would probably be potatoes, we can’t stop growing potatoes) night after night. And when people stop to look at her garden, because it is a large and beautiful garden, they ask what she grows, and it is much more fun and socially acceptable to say, oh I grow tomatoes and potatoes and peppers etc than to say I grow hundreds of potatoes. We like diversification and hedging our bets. We are taught that diversification is good, and pigeonholing ourselves is bad. Desiring one thing, even if it has great worth, can even be seen as a bad thing.
Does anybody remember anything about the author John Steinbeck? He wrote novels like East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath, and a novella Of Mice and Men. Has anybody ever heard of The Pearl by John Steinbeck? I read it in school twice, because apparently 30 years ago we didn’t do as good a job aligning our curriculum with the next grade level as we do now. In The Pearl a family in Mexico had a son stung by a scorpion in his crib and they are too poor to get treatment from the town doctor. The mom treats the son and the son lives. Shortly thereafter the dad, Kino, goes pearl diving, and finds a pearl of great worth. This should sound familiar on this Sunday morning. When the people of the town find out about it, some try to steal it and attack Kino on multiple occasions. Kino even accidentally kills someone in self defense. Yet throughout the entire story Kino refuses to let the pearl go, as he sees it as the only way for his poor family to become wealthy. It takes for someone to shoot at him in an attempt to murder him for the pearl and the shot accidentally hitting his son and killing him, for Kino to feel the pearl of great worth is not worth the price he is paying for it, and the novella ends with him throwing it back into the ocean. Quite the contrast to what we hear Jesus teaching today, and undoubtedly not a coincidence.
So in our gospel lesson this morning we heard the parables of the pearl, and the treasure in the field. First, let's be clear that 2000 years ago in the area where Jesus lived, pearls were the most precious of all jewels. They were considered more precious than gold. Jesus’s use of a pearl would have been used to highlight that this treasure in our gospel reading this morning was rare, it was beautiful, in some cases it may have been life changing, and it had tremendous value, just like a close relationship with God is, rare, beautiful, life changing, and has tremendous value. Of course, this is the main twist Steinbeck gave this parable in his novella. It’s life changing for his main character as well.
But let’s talk about the parable. On my first reading, it really seemed pretty clear. “ The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls”, is what we read in our gospel. Well, I read this as we are the merchants. We are looking for more out of life. We may have some pearls that truly do have value. Our relationships with others, helping others, comes to mind for me first. There are some things in our lives that have value while we’re here on Earth. But we may also have pearls that we think have value that upon closer examination really don’t. The fine clothes, the big home, the fancy car, etc. And Jesus asks the question who wouldn’t trade these pearls of little value for a pearl of great value. You can imagine everyone listening to him would say of course, who wouldn’t give up some things of little value for something of great value. Of course we see this as him telling us to give up anything that doesn’t add value to our relationship with God to get a closer relationship with God. So we are the merchants, the pearl of great worth is our relationship with God and our way to Heaven, and we should give up whatever we need to give up that doesn’t help us in that relationship. I thought that seemed pretty straightforward and maybe it is.
However, I continued to do some research, and I found a second interpretation, and I don’t think I’d be doing my job up here if I didn’t go through this one as well, because it is also very reasonable and plausible. In this interpretation, Jesus is the merchant. He is the one looking for great pearls, and he finds them in his followers. We are the pearls of great worth. The members of his church, his followers, the believers. In this interpretation there are plenty of pearls that Jesus does not desire, but he is willing to sell everything for those pearls of great worth. How much is he willing to give up for these pearls? Well, he is willing to give up his spot in Heaven and come to Earth to die on a cross. I’d say that is a rather large price to pay. See, in the first interpretation, we almost have to buy, or earn our way into Heaven by giving up things hear on Earth. In this second interpretation we don’t get to earn our way into Heaven. Jesus sold all that he had to purchase us, our souls, that he will then take with him back to Heaven. When I first read this interpretation I thought boy, that’s a little presumptuous, that we would be a great pearl like that and have that much value to God. But think about it. We hear numerous times throughout the bible that we do have that kind of worth to God and Jesus and they do love us that much. The story of the prodigal son comes to mind at the type of celebration there is in Heaven when one of us comes back to have a relationship with God. Obviously Jesus dying on the cross shows the value we have to him as well. So which interpretation is correct? I can’t say, maybe it’s in the eye of the beholder, or maybe it’s both.
So what should we take away from this message? Well, let’s go back to Steinbeck for a second. Steinbeck was not a religious man and he did not believe in an afterlife. Yet many of his stories had religious undertones, just as the Pearl did, and while he did see Jesus as just a human, he also saw him as a genius, and a profound moral teacher. Yet, I don’t think his novella “The Pearl” is meant to be anti-religious at all. What I want you to take away from this message is that there is really only one thing that is worth going all in on, and that is our relationship with God and Jesus. Whether you follow the first interpretation of us having to give lesser things up to receive a great worth, or the second where we have great worth in the eyes of God by just living how Jesus taught us to live, both stress that we need to have a relationship with God. The message in these parables goes against the way we like to think as humans. Humans, often, don’t like to take chances, and sometimes we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t really learn to do just one thing, or invest in just one company. But we should take a chance on our relationship with God. We should do everything we can, or give up whatever we need to give up, to have a closer relationship with God. Companies fail, so you shouldn’t invest in just one company, but God never fails. Those skills that we learned how to do and put so much time and effort into often leave us as we get older, but a close relationship with God never leaves us. Just as Steinbeck was saying in his novella, there is nothing on Earth, no wealth great enough, that is worth giving up everything for. But your relationship with God is not earthly. Your relationship with God is supposed to be number one, of the utmost importance. That is the message of the morning. God has given us a chance to receive the one thing that truly matters forever, the greatest treasure of all, a relationship with him. Are we ready to receive it? Amen.