How can a parable take you farther into God and into you?

Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!

Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Visit Suniway.ph to learn

This is our third week reflecting on parables. A quick review of what we have been learning may help. First, parables need figuring out, but once you think you have one figured out, think again. Parables cannot be constrained into a single interpretation. (For a refresher, read our reflection two weeks ago.)

To go deeper into a parable, pay attention to details. Let a detail trigger other images and create ripples of thought and feeling. Then try to connect all the images you have collected, and ask: What can God be telling me where I am right now? (You may want to revisit last week’s musings.)

Now, let’s try to apply the lessons above to two verses from our Gospel this week:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it (Matthew 13:45-46).

You can read this parable narrowly and see the kingdom of heaven as a merchant. But I think it is better to understand it more broadly and see the kingdom of heaven being compared to this whole situation of a merchant searching for fine pearls, finding it, and selling all that he has to buy it.

In this situation, who is the merchant? You can see God as the merchant. This reading works especially with the clause, “he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.” Isn’t this what God did when he sent us his only begotten Son?

And what is the pearl? Or better yet, who is the pearl? You are the pearl. A prayer exercise that would be a good way to begin any day: Say over and over again, “I am God’s pearl of great price. I am valued. I am loved.”

But wait, there’s more…

In the parable, God is a merchant, not a collector. And because he is a merchant, what will he do with this pearl he has bought? And why?

Take a deep breath: You have been bought to buy other pearls of great price. Perhaps, the language of “redemption” can help us grasp this truth in a way that is closer to what may be God’s intention: We have been redeemed by the Son so that we can also help redeem others.

Now, don’t push the parable too far and start thinking that we are mere commodities to be bought and sold. There are aspects of the analogy that work, and there are aspects that don’t. One way to see if a facet of the comparison works is to see what fruit it bears.

One insight from the merchant and his business is this: A good merchant will never sell at a loss. When a pearl is sold after it is bought, it appreciates in value. Before it is sold, the increase in its price is just “on paper.” Its worth remains potential until it is shared. Your value becomes real when you are able to redeem others.

Let’s explore a different direction. What if you are the merchant? There are many ways of pursuing the kingdom of heaven; there are many pearls of great price that you can buy. You cannot acquire them all; you have to choose what to invest in.

In the same way that there are different criteria by which pearls are judged—size, shape, color, luster, and so on—what criterion will you hold most important to help you discern the value of a pearl? Will it be size—like when the mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, becomes the largest of bushes? Or will it be the often neglected aspect of the mustard plant, that it offers a space for “the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches” (Matthew 13:32)? Will your main consideration be how much you can grow or how many people you can help?

Pushing this idea further, we also have to ponder on the provenance of the pearl. Where did it come from? Was it natural or cultured? Is your dream from God, or is it artificial?

And again, remember that in this parable, you are not a collector; you are a merchant. You cannot get stuck on one pearl. The one you hold now may be what seems most valuable to you, but circumstances and contexts change. Maybe there will come a time when another pearl more fitting for you comes into view.

As my first-year high school teacher wisely taught, “Love only 99%; leave 1% for letting go.” Life is a constant search for fine pearls. Sometimes, it is only when we let go of one pearl that we are able to hold another of greater value. We continue this process of letting go of the pearls we find here on earth until we finally come to the pearl of greatest price.

But wait, there’s still more…

Your prayer assignment this week:

Watch this video for a scientific theory on how pearls form.

You will learn that pearls are made of the same material as the shell that surrounds them. But pearls are more beautiful because of the way the lattices of the same chemical compounds are structured. It is the way we arrange the different components of our lives that make life worth living.

You will also learn that a pearl begins as something which irritates and even hurts the oyster—a parasite or a grain of sand that enters the oyster and is coated with layers of nacre over seasons and years. What is beautiful often comes out of pain and learning to live with it.

I have been speaking in parables. And as Jesus tells us at the end of our Gospel today: “Every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old” (Matthew 13:52).

You have been instructed by the parables we have been reading the past three weeks. From the storeroom of your experiences, what treasures can you bring to enrich these reflections?  How can you apply them to understand your past, to gain insight into your present, and to get a glimpse of your future?

Fr. Francis teaches Theology, Education and Scripture at both the Ateneo de Manila University and Loyola School of Theology. As a classroom teacher, he is first and foremost a student. As a professor, he sees himself primarily as a pastor.