There is a parable about a farmer that went out in the field and as he was tilling the field he uncovered a pearl of extreme value. He covered the pearl back up and he went and sold all that he had and bought the field. This transaction made the pearl his.

At times I have wondered why this story seems to say it is OK to steal. The pearl belonged to the original owner and the original owner sold the field without knowing the truth that he was selling a pearl too.  This is like going into a store and putting a gold ring into a box of crackers and then saying after you have bought the box, look at the prize I found in the box.

Now be careful I pulled a trick on you. I mixed up two parables. The first parable is about a field, but it is not about a pearl but it is about treasure and the parable says nothing about how the treasure was found. The second parable is about a merchant and a very valuable pearl. Again it says nothing about how the pearl was found and it would be reasonable to say they seller knew what he was selling. But in both parables, the buyers sell all that they have to gain the prize.

In Christianity this is often referred to as the surrender that a sinner goes through when he accepts Christ as the redeemer of his soul. To the Christian, Christ is to be worth more than all the rest that life can offer and the reason that all worldly goods must be given to the church in exchange for Christ’s forgiveness.

OK again, and this time let us all be careful. Here we again are mixing in another story and that is the story of the Rich Young Ruler and the Rich Young Ruler was not told to give it to the church but to give it to the poor. Early church donations did not enrich the church but were used to assist those who were in need.

Also in the first two parables, it does not say Christ or Christ’s forgiveness of sin is what the treasure or the pearl is equal to. It says that the buying and the exchange are like the Kingdom of Heaven. It also does not say that what they had before was worthless. It just says that the exchange was a worthy investment. Hmmm.

Have you ever found something of great worth?

A little boy comes in from outside “Mommy, mommy, look at what I picked for you.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” the mother takes the brightly colored wildflowers (weeds) and puts them in her best vase. The flowers will wilt by tomorrow, but this event is a sample of great value exchanging hands.

So what is a Pearl of Great Price?

I once killed a person. It was not murder. I did not do it out of evil but out of great love.  She was my little girl and only 12 days old. After extensive review of her condition, our options and the pain she was in, I signed the papers for the life support she was on to be removed. Her name was Jasmine and she was my first daughter. I loved her. She had been born a preemie. At first, there was hope. But at 8 days old she had an un-reversible brain bleed and was in extreme pain. Only the machines were keeping her alive.

We prayed. We grieved. And I was asked to make the choice. I could let her rest in peace with hope that we would see her again or I could demand that God was going to fix this. How in the world could a father ever let a child go without a fight? The problem I was having with Jasmine’s condition, the more we would fight to save her, the more painful it would be for her. I wanted our story to be a story of great faith and a miracle.  I wanted … wanted … wanted … but love is not selfish wanting. In love, I had to face that what I wanted for Jasmine was not love but selfishness and love would only try to understand what was best for Jasmine and what was best was for her was to rest in peace.

And that was not all I learned. I also was no longer as a Christian able to look at the Cross and see the Father sitting along ways away in Heaven. After my experience with Jasmine, I came to see the Father walking along right in the middle of the story of the Cross. I saw the Father willing giving up the Son as an act of great love. I no longer saw Christ dying because I sinned but I saw Christ dying because the Father loved. AND, I saw the Father dying that day. Christ died a terrible death by crucifixion, but the Father died and even greater death, an emotional death that I, unfortunately, can relate to and understand a little bit about.

In this life lesson, I learned a great value. You could say there was an exchange or purchase that took place in my mind.

In less than a year my second daughter was born. We named her Isabelle Meaghan. I learned later that her name means God promised a pearl of value.

Again I ask, have you ever found something of great worth?

I have and I want to share it with you. I have seen its value and I no longer want to spend my life working toward anything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You already know, Christ will save you. I believe that is of great value, but I will leave that to those so-called preachers that work for corporate churches. No, this is much bigger than Christ. It is going to save you from the damage caused by your selfishness and the selfishness of this world. MUCH BIGGER.

The kingdom of heaven is not just an escape from the damage and evil caused by selfishness. It is actually a better and more valuable way to live a life today. The great value exchange is a spiritual and emotional exchange but it is also an economic exchange. And the economic exchange does not pay off in some distant future only when you are able to escape this polluted earth. It is an economic value exchange that is able to be experienced today. Not by the way we have understood things in the past but the way we can understand value as a community that shares, builds and protects. When we come to understand what the value exchange really is, then the benefits start the day we start living by them and not at some magical event at the end of the world.

It would be really hard for any really gifted writer to explain all of this in a single article and I am not a gifted writer. So I have started a blog, this blog, GreenUrbanPaddle.com. Myself with others are working on an economic proposal call BRG Street Community. It has been a long journey for me to get where I am today and I do not want to spend too much time preaching. Again I leave that to the corporate trainers and the church pastors. I want to do! But if we are going to take action we have to get the needed training and we have to have a blueprint created, and we have to have a team.

Please follow along as the training begins. I am sure that you have some value that is needed to help make this project happen. We may just need to look for it. I promise you it worth more than a pearl you might buy.

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