When you need to explain a difficult topic, analogy is the way to do it. Analogies are useful tools. They can convey complex truths. They help to give a reference, a touchstone, to the unknown. Say you wanted to tell me that Joe, your cousin, doesn’t have good vision. Telling me that “his prescription glasses have a spherical power of -5.00 diopters” would not work. I am not an optician. I don’t wear glasses. I’ve never even heard the word diopter. But, if you told me that he’s “as blind as a bat,” I would know what you meant right away. I know that bats don’t see very well, and therefore neither does Joe.
Analogies, though they have power, are limited. We can push them to a breaking point by taking them literally. Maybe you tell me that your cousin Joe is as busy as a bee. I can imagine what his house looks like. The house is full of barrels, and the barrels are full of pollen. He lives with 20,000 roommates. And like a bee, your cousin is frantic—he knows his lifespan is only about 35 days.
The message (that Joe is busy) is lost in a mess of details.
In the Gospels, Jesus uses analogy to express to us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. The Kingdom is beyond our power to know by nature, so Jesus teaches with helpful images. In Matthew 13:45–46, Jesus says that the Kingdom 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.”
What if we gave Jesus’s analogy the “literal treatment”? What if the merchant in this parable really sold all that he had? After buying the pearl, he walks through the village to his house. When he arrives, instead of his house, he finds a square patch of dirt where his house used to be (the movers were very thorough). His comfy chair is also gone, so he sits on the dirt. After sitting for a while, his stomach begins to rumble. He is hungry. Unfortunately for him, you can’t eat pearls. Even if you could, he only has one! He holds the pearl and turns it in his hand. The pearl looks nice, but he wonders if it was really worth all that he had.
Strangely, even by taking this parable literally, we can learn something about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Giving all we have for the sake of an earthly pearl would be foolish, but Jesus tells us that giving all we have for the sake of the Kingdom is wise. The Kingdom of Heaven is the thing that will make us perfectly happy—a happiness that needs nothing more. Life in the Kingdom is union with God in the person of Jesus Christ.
When we take our human analogies literally they fall apart, but with Christ it is different. When we push his analogies past their limit they reveal something that surpasses human wisdom. Take the pearl of great price; it really is worth giving all for it, because it represents the Kingdom of Heaven. What could we need in that Kingdom? If we are lonely, Jesus will give us his friendship. If we are tired, Jesus will give us rest. If we have sinned, Jesus will show us his mercy. If we are hungry, Jesus will give us his Body and Blood for food and drink. If we have Jesus, we need nothing else.
Jesus does not want to give us a pearl of great price (not fit to eat), or a treasure buried in a field (muddy), or flour poured into the lap (messy). He wants to give something better—he wants to give us himself. Jesus made the treasures of this world. Do not be afraid to give all that you have in exchange for life with him.
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Photo by Ruth Durbin on Unsplash
