You Are the Pearl!

You are the Pearl!

17 Sunday Year A

July 30, 2017

What is the pearl of great price? I attended a conference a few years ago and heard a talk from Curtis Martin. He said, “You are the pearl!” Jesus is the merchant who gave up everything to purchase you! The merchant came searching for the pearl. So often, we think of religion as our quest for God, but Christianity begins with God’s search for us. Jesus came to seek out and save the lost and when he found us he gave up everything to purchase us.

This is the price Jesus paid for you! St. Paul says in Galatians 2:20: “I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and gave himself up for me.” We all have to come to this truth in our own lives. We each should be able to say, “Jesus loved me and gave his life for me!”. This is the fundamental Good News of the Christian story. God loved the world so much that he gave us his only begotten Son who died to save us.

This is an important message we need to hear today. There are many people who are lost. They think their life has no meaning. The devil wants to tempt us to despair – to think our life has no value. The church makes this bold claim that each human life is sacred. We are each a pearl of great price, worthy of salvation.

If you go into St. Peter’s basilica in Rome in the back of the church on the floor is a circular red stone about 8’ in diameter. The stone is very precious. It is called Egyptian porphyry. This precious stone lined the royal palaces of the Pharaoh’s in Egypt. In order to walk on this stone you had to be of royal lineage. You had to have royal blood in the line of one of the great Pharaoh’s. When the Romans conquered Egypt, they brought this precious stone back to Rome and carried on this tradition. The Roman Emperors used this precious stone in their palaces and only one with royal blood could walk across this stone. If a common person walked on this stone he or she would be put to death!

In fact, it was on the Egyptian porphyry in St. Peter’s basilica that Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. Now you might ask, why did the church place this stone in the back of St. Peter’s where anyone can walk on it? The Church is proclaiming the great dignity of human life. Each one of us is a pearl of great price, worthy of salvation, worthy of Christ offering his life on Calvary. In addition, through our baptism, we have become children of God and thus we belong to God’s royal family.

Now, there is a second way to interpret this gospel. We can put ourselves in the shoes of the merchant. What is the pearl that we are seeking? We all have an “ultimate concern” in our lives – something we are willing to live and die for. Even an atheist has some “god” in his or her life – something that is most important. What is at the center of our lives?

I’ve often pointed out that the interpretive key to the gospel is found in the first reading. In the first reading, God tells Solomon to ask for whatever he wanted. And Solomon asked for wisdom. I heard a homily by Archbishop Chaput that I’ll never forget. He said, “Wisdom is the ability to see as God sees.” Wisdom allows us to see the true value of things. The wise person knows what’s most important. The wise person doesn’t pursue his or her own honor or glory, or the riches of the world. The wise person knows that Jesus is the pearl.

What did the merchant do when he found the pearl? He was overjoyed and went and sold everything to buy that pearl. Finding Christ, changes our lives! Once we find Jesus, everything else is brought into perspective. St. Paul says, “I consider all else as rubbish compared to the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus!” Mother Teresa said, Jesus is “my everything.”

This is a good question for us: Are we scattered, chasing after many things in our lives, trying to fit Jesus in where we can? Or is Jesus truly the center of our lives? Do we put Christ first?

Salvation demands a response. Jesus gave his life for you and me, and now he wants us to give our lives for him. The whole reason we are here at Mass is to offer our lives to Jesus. We are here to give our worship and thanks to God. We live in the “me” generation and so often we get caught up in thinking about ourselves. We ask, “What I am going to get out of this?” “What’s in it for me?” The reason we are here isn’t to get something. We are here to give something! We are here to give God our praise and worship. We are here to give God our thanks. Christ gave everything for us, and now we offer our lives back to him here at the Mass.

You are a pearl. This is how God sees us. And we pray for the wisdom to see the true value of things in our own lives – to see Jesus as the pearl of great price. If we have Christ then we have everything!