A Pearl Not Worth Anything

Jesus told a story about a man who found a pearl of great price and sold everything he had to get the pearl. He gave up something of less value for something of greater value. John Steinbeck gives his characters a pearl of great monetary price in The Pearl and the pearl destroys the happiness of everyone in the book.

The pearl of the Kingdom of Heaven is worth all, the greatest material pearl is not worth anything.

Jesus has a pearl that represents the Kingdom of Heaven and that pearl is worth everything material. The person who sees the pearl of great price gets rid of all his worldly wealth. He becomes poor so that he can be rich in the coming Kingdom of God. The pearl is so heavenly and alive that gold seems crude and dead. The man who sees Christ’s pearl becomes like God in the reflected beauty of the priceless pearl.

Steinbeck’s pearl is beautiful, but chiefly valued for money and what money can buy. As the love of money always does, lust for the pearl destroyed the happiness of everyone around it. The man who finds it was happy before he found it, because he had great love in his family and village.

The finder of the pearl lives in a small village that is part of a bigger city utterly corrupted by the love of money. Medicine, church, and business all worship mammon and conspire together to keep the pearl fishers down. Decent men have become bad men and bad men have become horrible under the influence of a system of social injustice. If a man is damned for his personal sins, then some social structures men build damn him more quickly and thoroughly than others.

The love of money eats away at the happiness of the main characters and kills any dream of happiness that exists. Fire, violence, and murder follow the lust for the pearl. The system is so corrupt that nothing good can come of wealth only self-indulgence, oppression, and ugliness. Fools or dreamers believe poverty can always be solved with money, but give a poor man money in an oppressive, money loving system and the wealth will do the poor man no good.

He can either be corrupted by the system or destroyed by it.

Nothing ruins a man or a ministry faster than the love of money. My wise father says he knows a pastor is going bad when he begins to count “nickels and noses.” People are no longer people, but giving units and the slogan becomes “more money, more ministry.” Nothing good can survive the love of money because every other evil can spring from this mistake. Love money and you love something so unworthy of love that no vice is impossible for you.

The love of money will justify any evil in the pursuit of the golden god. Steinbeck is right: we cannot live for gain in this age. If we do, the system will surely corrupt us even if we think our goal is to grow a ministry or help others. Even the apostles following Jesus were not safe: at least one was corrupted by gold and Judas was damned by his love of money.

Jesus was right: you cannot love God and money.