Value Beyond Pearls

5:30 Homily: What’s most important to us: acquiring money, wealth and all the comfort it can bring to us at any cost or is it about finding and keeping the real treasures of moral character, integrity, honesty, truth, and love? That’s the theme and meaning of today’s readings. Let’s dig a little deeper into these readings starting with the gospel.

Our gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke are not the same in every respect. They differ in many important ways such as Jesus’ ancestry. In Matthew he comes from Abraham.  In Luke, from Adam.

There is a very useful publication called “Gospel Parallels: A Comparison of the Synoptic Gospels.” It’s a side-by-side comparison of events recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There are many differences and similarities between and among the three.

One good example of a big difference in meaning is the parable about the talents – today’s reading from Matthew that we can compare to Luke. Matthew’s parable is about talents and Luke’s parable is about 10 gold coins. Talents were Jewish coins, not abilities such as a talent for writing or dancing, or playing the piano, for example. Priests and deacons often have confused the understanding about talents in our preaching.  

The two Gospel versions are very similar, but Luke begins by quoting Jesus as having said: “A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return. He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’ His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.” The fact that this nobleman was despised by his fellow citizens is not mentioned by Matthew.

Was this nobleman, this master, good or not?  I wager he was not good because as mentioned by both Matthew and Luke: he was a demanding person, harvesting where he did not plant and gathering where he did not scatter. Sounds like a slave-owner.  In fact, the third servant for good reason did not make the Master’s money grow.  He was afraid of him.

Consider that in Luke we read the nobleman issued this order: “Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.’” It sounds like this nobleman or master was a very cruel and nasty guy – likely a very rich, entitled, and arrogant tyrant to his servants and those around him. He demanded obedience and loyalty even when not deserved. He punished them severely when they disobeyed.

Here’s the question: shouldn’t we be like the third servant who refused to follow the tyrant – someone expecting our servitude and to follow him unquestionably? Shouldn’t we bury that talent in the ground, and give it back? If we don’t, we bend the knee to the wrong lord! 

The Lord we follow is the one who cares about the poor and warns the rich and powerful: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

The Lord we follow spoke about riches: “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

In great contrast to this selfish and contemptable nobleman or Master, we have in our first-reading proverb the woman with a value beyond pearls. It’s not really about the pearls – or even talents or gold coins. It’s about what really has great value and what money cannot buy.  It’s about character, integrity, and what makes for real and treasured worth – the worth we all need to treasure.

Listen to the proverb.  This woman is about bringing good, and not evil, every day of her life. She works with loving hands. She reaches out her hands to the poor and extends her arms to the needy. She fears the LORD meaning she respects, revers, and worships the LORD, as should we. We all need to be like this woman who tells us about real and treasured worth.

This real and treasured worth is made crystal clear when we live and act out the prayer of Saint Francis – a prayer loaded with meaning. It tells us how we should live our lives in this world to fight against and counter darkness, despair, and sorrow. We should be people who promote hope, peace, joy, and love. These four just happen to be the spiritual meaning of the four Advent candles we will be lighting in a few weeks.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

When we do all these things, we will have value far beyond pearls, or gold. We bring good, and not evil, every day of our lives. We reach out our hands to the poor and extend our arms to the needy. We respect, revere, and worship the LORD, as we know we should.

Today’s message simply is this: Let us all be instruments of the Lord’s peace, instruments to be played and for all to hear this coming Advent and every day throughout the Liturgical year.

Deacon David Pierce