The Sermon on the Mount: Of Pearls and Pigs

(Artwork in this post by British street artist Banksy)

"Nothing But Straw"

​The kingdom of heaven is like a feather found in a field by a mouse, who, taking hold of it, exclaimed, "Now I will fly."

That was my attempt at a parable.  Don't worry, I haven't quit my day job.  I wish I had the Lord's way with words ― not to impress, but to inspire.

I want us to feel God's face with our hands like a blind person reading braille, to inhale the essence of His Being as peppermint clearing our spiritual sinuses, to kiss Him (3 Nephi 11:19), to touch His body like Thomas, leaving the fingerprints of our love upon His flesh, and know Him as intimately as we know ourselves.  Is that asking too much?  I want us to discover the Creator in our inward parts.

But my tongue is heavy and my eyes all but spent; all I can do is refer you to the lilies of the valley, for they speak more eloquently than I.

   Consider the lilies of the field,
   how they grow;
   they toil not,
   neither do they spin:

   Wherefore, if God so clothe
   the grass of the field,
   which to day is, 
   and to morrow is cast
   into the oven,
   shall he not much more
   clothe you
   [in light as with mother of pearl]?

(Matt. 6:28, 30)

But the more I learn the less I have to say.  I am reminded of St. Thomas Aquinas at the end of his life in 1273, when he had completed his great work on the Eucharist and laid the text on the altar as an offering to God during the Feast of St. Nicholas.  The heavens opened and he received a revelation of God.  Afterwards he refused to ever write another word.

His friends were concerned because Thomas stopped speaking.  After some time, while visiting his sister, the Countess of San Severino, who was shocked at his condition, Thomas finally opened his mouth:

"All that I have written seems to me nothing but straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me."

That is how I feel, too.  What can I say that God hasn't already made plain in the starry heavens, written in the sky and in the stirring of the sea, in the thundering waves and softness of seagull wings, in the whisper of whale song and playfulness of sea otters? 

I have come to know, as Julian of Norwich: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." 

And yet, even knowing this, I still weep.  Why?

First Atlantic Crossing

"Growth is the boundary between the darkness of unknowing and the light of new wisdom."
 
   ― Joan Chittister

​In 1998 Frenchman Benoît Lecomte was the first person to swim across the Atlantic Ocean.  He didn't swim the entire length at once (3,716 miles); he swam around eight hours a day, accompanied by a sailboat that used an electromagnetic pulse to keep sharks at bay.

It took him 73 days to swim from Massachusetts to France.  Jelly fish were a regular concern.  Lecomte wore a dive suit of polypropylene and lyrca specifically designed to protect him from getting stung.

Unfortunately, at sea one can never get all the salt off their skin (just as sin lingers while we remain in the flesh), and Lecomte experienced painful chafing from his wet suit.  He covered his body in non-petroleum lotion and used antibiotic ointment on the worst rashes.

His three-month journey was plagued by rough seas and high winds which caused severe seasickness.  "I'm not so much swimming, but fighting in the water!"  Despite trouble keeping his meals down, he had to consume enough calories to keep up his strength.  His log journal described an average carb-heavy breakfast of five bananas, five bagels, and a box of cookies (or, as I like to call it, a midmorning snack).

Many times Lecomte considered giving up.  The crossing was more difficult than he imagined.  "There is a thin line between being passionate and being fanatical," he said during the voyage.

The exhaustion fueled his discouragement.  At his lowest point, he remembered his father he had lost to cancer.  "When I was in pain, or when I thought about giving up, memories of my dad came to me and I knew I could go on."

When life is hardest for me, I recall that Christ died with open arms, a symbol fixed for all time of the Father's undying embrace.

On September 25, 1998 Lecomte reached Quiberon, France.  His brothers Christophe and Fabien were waiting on the shore.  Seeing their brother, they dove into the freezing waters of Port Maria and swam several hundred yards to greet him (I like to think this is how our ancestors will greet us when we cross over to the other side).

Also waiting for Lecomte was his girlfriend, Trinh.  He had proposed to her in Massachusetts before the journey, but she refused to give him an answer until he finished his crazy quest.  There in Quiberon, Trinh embraced Lecomte, who had fallen to bended knee (his legs still shaky on land), where she cried, 'Yes!'  The assembled crowd doused them in champagne.

When a reporter asked Lecomte if he would ever swim the Atlantic again, he shouted.  "No!  It is still all quite unbelievable.  I am just happy to be home with Trinh, my family and friends."

​   *****

I don't know about you, but the Crossing of mortality is harder than I ever imagined.

I am beginning to appreciate the way the Lord described it to the Brother of Jared:

   Ye shall be as a whale
   in the midst of the sea;
   for the mountain waves
   shall dash upon you.

(Ether 2:24)

I remember my grandfather saying that while serving as a new naval officer during WWII, he became so seasick he prayed that the Lord would either heal him or take him.

Do not be so eager to depart this life.  I understand, I do.  I imagine in the premortal world we looked down upon the calm waters, gazing over the sea at sunset from our clouds of glory, seeing how the sun sparkled over the earth as if someone had shaken a blanket of glitter across it, watching the rainbow dance above the horizon, and exclaimed, "This is going to be AWESOME!"  

But then we were born and grew to know the danger of rip tides and undertows pulling us away from God.

It's easy to panic when we are doused and dashed by mountain waves.  Sometimes we become too exhausted to resist any longer.  We dip beneath the surface, where the water is dark and murky and cold (not at all crystal-clear and warm like the blue tropical oceans advertised in the brochures we saw in Kolob's waiting room).

Here we discover the water can be filled with shell and rock and seaweed and sharks ― a churning cauldron of things living, and things dead.

Sometimes we cry out during the storm, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?!" (Mark 4:38).  We might even question why we were insane enough to come to this hellscape in the first place.

But I will tell you why I came, and why I gladly plunged into the deep despite the danger:

   To dive for pearls.

Dark Night of the Soul

   He hath led me,
   and brought me into darkness,
   but not into light.

        ― Lamentations 3:2

​I am mindful of you who carry a deep sadness.  I have been going through a dark night of the soul myself, and share your heartache.  Pearls are formed in the saltwater of our tears.

I think it is significant that Jesus chose to compare the Kingdom of God to a pearl (Matt. 13:45-46) since pearls are formed in darkness.

Darkness has purpose; it conceals what is hidden.  Hidden within the darkness is something we need, something of infinite worth.

I wrote previously, "What most people don't realize is that the kingdom of heaven grows within us.  It is not so much a place we inhabit, but something we come to embody.  When we find it, we will look back and see that the pearl was with us all along, as a grain of sand in our belly, that grew into the pearly gate of the Kingdom (Rev. 21:21)." (The Dance of God, June 20, 2025).

And so we dive after the elusive pearl of great price.  But the ocean depths are filled with monsters, all slime and spines, jelly and teeth, awful things.  Why would God hide something so precious in such treacherous shoals?

   For the Spirit searcheth 
   all things, yea, 
   the deep things of God.

(1 Cor. 2:10)

That's the challenge: searching "all things" when we are blind, where light fails to reach the ocean floor, and sight is useless in these dark depths.

Here in the deep, faith navigates not by sight but sonar.  We feel our way forward based on what is reflected back.  We are guided not by an external light, but are led by an inner sense of wonder and mystery.

​We are not as helpless as we suppose; for while we must hold our breath underwater, feeling after the pearl, faith fills our spiritual lungs.  And we swim on, despite muscle spasms, going deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

What does this pearl represent?  What are we actually searching for?  What treasure does Jesus offer?  What does the Kingdom look like?  How will we recognize it when we find it?

How will we recognize . . . ourselves?

"No Lifeguard On Duty"

"The antithesis to the message of Jesus is absolutism, fundamentalism, and moral righteousness.  Jesus’s message is simple: let go, let God, and trust the Spirit within."

   ― Sister Ilia Delio

Why can't pearls be formed in quiet lagoons, in freshwater, on sunny days?  Why must we dive into tempestuous seas (at night, no less) to retrieve them?

My faith prefers the shallow end of the pool where its toes can touch the bottom.

Alan Watts said, "To have faith is to trust yourself to the water.  When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown.  Instead you relax, and float."

But letting go is difficult when we want things all-spelled-out, like suntan lotion spread across our spiritual skin so we don't burn in a noonday sun.  It's nicer to lounge near the lifeguards and drinking fountains.

Our churches post Pool Rules: "No running!  No diving!"  They mean well, for their rules are meant to keep us safe.  But for all their good intentions, religion is more "Baywatch" than "Fourth Watch":

   And in the fourth watch
   of the night
   Jesus went unto them,
   walking on the sea.

(Matt. 14:25)

We probably won't spot Jesus in the Roman bathhouses of modern religion, poolside: for He was traversing an open sea at night, braving the waves and wind ― nary a Piña Colada in sight.

Contrast the sea that Jesus traversed with the chlorinated waters of contemporary Christianity, kept chemically clean and crystal-clear.  Creeds are meant to keep things from growing in the water.  No bugs or bacteria.  Not even faith, really, because faith is wild and uncontrollable.  "Follow the prophet," "Stay on the covenant path," "Pay your tithing."

Surrounded by bronzed pool boys, sitting in the hot tub at the Hyatt Regency, we might forget that Christianity was meant to be as mysterious as ocean waves moving in moonlight.

Joseph Smith understood something about the mystery of the Kingdom.  Don't forget that Joseph lived at the peak of the Romantic Movement (which enjoyed its heyday between 1800 - 1850, smack dab in his lifetime).

We seem to divorce Joseph from his historical context, but he (like us) was largely a creature of his time and culture.

Joseph Smith built a Church that hummed with Romanticism!  The Restoration was a beautiful expression of the Romantic Movement, defined by experiencing divinity through novelty and self-expression.

According to Isaiah Berlin, Romanticism embodied "a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals."

I feel the strong roots of the Restoration whenever I soar in the spirit of expansion and exploration and rediscovery.  With Joseph it was always, "Yes, and . . . ."

Christ taught we needed to leave our house, our brethren, sisters, fathers, mothers, spouses ― even our children ― for His sake (Mark 10:29).  I don’t think He meant we neglect them or abandon them or turn our backs on them ― heavens no!  Rather, I think Christ was saying we shouldn't let their beliefs and limiting perspectives keep us from growing; we are free to let God lift us beyond the point our families and peers are willing to go, to ascend to places they haven't yet dreamed of.  We can love them fiercely without letting them stifle our spiritual progression.

Ilia Delio said, "Authentic Christianity is neither static nor safe ― it is the ongoing work of allowing the divine fire to shape both individuals and communities into something closer to the vision of a new earth and a new heaven, even when that transformation requires letting go of what we thought we needed to keep."

My point is, to grasp the Pearl we must first let go of what we cling to.  No one can swim with clenched fists.

We must open our palms so the water flows through our fingers in order to receive the mark of Christ, whose Pearl pierced His hand.

Job's Pearl

The only time "pearls" are mentioned in the Old Testament is in the Book of Job.  Just once in fact, in Chapter 28.

I expected to find a lot more pearls, honestly, amid the scriptural rubies and diamonds, but no.  Just one.

There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen (28:7) . . .

So this pearl is exceedingly rare!  Even the birds that fly high above have not come across it.  We won't find this pearl by soaring upon angels' wings in the clouds of glory.  Everybody wants to be 'caught up to heaven' when the thing we're after is down here.

Neither have the sharp-eyed vultures spotted it below.  Vultures have such good vision they can spot a carcass from four miles away.  But what we seek is not "seen" with our eyes.  (Searching for something that is invisible is not easy.)

The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it (28:8).

The "lion" is a kingly symbol.  But kings and presidents, for all their power and authority, are impotent lions, unable to find it.  This Pearl does not recognize status or office.  The pearl awaits the weak and foolish.​

And the thing that is hid bringeth He forth to light (28:11). 

Like in Jesus' parable, the pearl of the Kingdom is "hid."  Why?  Who concealed it?

But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding (28:12)?

Ah, now we get our first glimpse of the Pearl at last, and what do we see?  It is good to remember that here in mortality, this is NOT a "place of understanding."  We are required to walk by faith in search of the Pearl.

Clark Burt wrote, "I like the analogy of my life as the backside of a tapestry.  It appears to be nothing more than a jumble of thread ― tangled, frayed, occasionally knotted, and seemingly random.  But when you turn the tapestry over you can see the art, the rich colors, the texture and the patterns that make up the tapestry.

"My Father in Heaven has woven into my life nothing that has been wasted ― not one thread of experience and not one person that I have met."

Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living (28:13). 

The plot thickens.  The Pearl of great "price" is actually priceless.  Look: no "man knoweth the price."

Why?  Doesn't it come with a price tag?  Well, the Pearl is not "found in the land of the living."  What does that mean?

As an aside, Jesus taught that we must sell "ALL that [we] hath" in order to obtain the treasure which is hidden in the field (Matt. 13:44).

To me this indicates we take possession of it only after death, after we've left everything behind pertaining to this world.

Until we depart this life, the parable says, the man that finds the treasure hidden in the field re-hides it until he can obtain it (Matt. 13:44).

The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me (28:14). 

This is rather shocking, for pearls are created in seawater, and yet, the ocean says, "It's not here."  Well, where is it?  Where does this Pearl come from if not the sea?

No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies (28:18).

The ocean at night is a frightful, beautiful thing: just like our souls.

I am grateful for the treasure hunt, this quest we're on.  Be genuinely grateful that our Father has loved us into Being, and loaned us His pearls while we seek our own.

Treat others as if they are pearls of infinite worth.  They are.  Hold others close as a treasure (especially those who don't fit in, who are castaways).

Be a flickering flame in a dark ocean, but more importantly, see the eternal flame rising in others.  There is real magic in humbly kneeling beside the brokenhearted and weeping in company.

You, my friends, are pearls most precious.  Together we form a necklace around the Lord's shoulders and hug His neck, resting upon His breast.

Entering the Pearly Gate

Pearls are formed by mollusks, oysters.  I think it is key to understanding Jesus' parable that pearls are created.  They don't make themselves.

To be clear: we are the ones creating our own pearls.  We are both oyster and pearl, self-becoming, for the kingdom of heaven is within (Luke 17:21).  We are creating heaven.

And why pearls instead of diamonds?  Isn't diamond a better metaphor for God's treasure?  Diamonds are hard, strong.  Diamonds cut stone.  They are prisms for light.

Pearls aren't cut.  Pearls aren't strong.  Pearls don't reflect light.

We think of the Straight and Narrow Path as something inert, unmoving, a surface we merely walk upon.   But the Path itself is a pearl ever-growing, evolving in relationship with us.

As we progress along the Path we recognize that we are not only traveling it, but the path is experiencing us at the same time.

As we become sanctified, the Path reaches inward and recasts itself, recalibrating its nature based on what it finds within us, until the Path and Pearl become One.

"Possess Ye Your Souls"

Jesus said:

   In your patience
   possess ye your souls.

(Luke 21:19)

Wait, aren't our souls already ours?  What did Jesus mean?  How do we possess . . . ourselves?

For a moment, let us open our hearts as if we were an oyster, revealing what lies within.  Let's take a look at our pearl.  Yes, sometimes it ain't pretty.

"Tim," you say, "I think something went seriously wrong.  I don't like the look of my pearl.  It's misshapen and discolored.  What happened?  It isn't round or smooth or white.  It's quite awful.  There's NO way I am going to wear that thing."

Okay, I hear you.  Pearls come in all varieties, each one unique.  Maybe you find your pearl wanting, displeasing.  What will you do?

"Tim, for real, this pearl I've made is rubbish.  I'm so mad about it.  No one will want it, not even me!  It's no good.  I am going to throw it away."

And now we come to the main part of this post: will you cast your pearl to the swine as if it were a worthless thing?  Will you fail to recognize your infinite worth?

What did Jesus say?  He told us to NOT cast our pearls to the pigs.  Look at Jesus' saying in a new light:

   Give not that which is holy
   [i.e., our souls]
   unto the dogs,
   neither cast ye your pearls
   [i.e. our souls]
   before swine,
   lest they trample them
   under their feet,
   and turn again and rend you.

(Matt. 7:6)

Resist your inclination to toss your lackluster pearl aside.  That pearl is part of you.  Do not rend yourself.

Why do you think that poor pearl was hidden in the first place?  Probably because someone was ashamed of it and wanted to conceal it, to hide it, forget it.  Guess what?  That ‘somebody’ was you.

Now the big twist: we are seeking the very pearl we cast away, not realizing its value.  Christ lifts us onto His lap like the little children we are, and says, "How's your pearl coming?"

"Oh that old thing?  I got rid of it ages ago.  It was a proper mess."

The Savior nods.  "Well, I'd like you to go get it and bring it to Me."

"What?  No, I have no idea where it went.  I threw it overboard.  Why would you want it, anyway?"

"Little one," He says, taking our hand in His, "I want all of you, especially those parts you thought no one wanted.  They are the most precious."  

When we find our pearl, our joy will be great because we will have returned to ourselves at last.

The Black Pearl

Consider for a moment that the pearl we seek is the portion of ourselves we have tried to "hide" from God (and ourselves), as the fig leaves of Eden foreshadowed.

Into this pearl we poured all of our shame and bitterness and anger and fear, our insecurities and ugly bits.  Then, we took it out to sea on our skiff and threw it as far as we could, hoping to sink it in a place no one would ever find it.

And there, in the coldest reaches of the Mariana Trench, we left it.  We rowed home and grew to hate it, the thought of the pearl a thorn in our side.  Soon we imagined it was never ours at all.

We blotted out the pearl from our mind because it represented all we hated about ourselves.  It became a mirror that reflected our most unsavory qualities.  We saw in it a face we despised, so we shattered the pearl.

"But Tim," someone objects, "Jesus told us to pluck out our eye and cut off our hand.  I think that black pearl has to go.  It doesn't fit with the others in the necklace."

   And if thy right eye
   offend thee, pluck it out,
   and cast it from thee . . . .

   And if thy right hand
   offend thee, cut it off,
   and cast it from thee.

(Matt. 5:29-30)

Well, Jesus didn't use these metaphors with the Nephites. Jesus doesn't want us to be spiritual amputees.  I don't think Jesus was talking about fracturing our psyches or splitting our spirits.  The Joseph Smith Translation explains Jesus was referring to setting boundaries with others so we aren't led astray.

"Tim, God doesn't want us to be stuck with our sinful nature.  That's why I am jettisoning the pearl!  Jesus wants me to be perfect.  I've got to shove all the bad parts of myself away so I can look pretty in the light."
 
Is the way we repent by casting our pearls to pigs, where we think they belong?  Casting a part of ourselves away will never make us whole.
​
"No, Tim.  Christ said to be perfect.  I have to forsake my sins."

Do we forsake something by burying it six feet under?  Do we forsake something by covering it with smiles and cologne?  Beneath the surface, the thing we forsook is rotting and eating us from within, haunting our dreams.

The way we forsake sin is by coming to God with our brokenness, our pearls that resemble kidney stones, our hearts laid bare and bleeding, and spirits contrite, saying, "Yup, Lord, this is part of me.  What am I to do with it?  Where do we go from here?"

Remember, Jesus did not become the I AM by acting like I AM NOT.

"Fine Tim, let's say I work on my terrible pearl, okay?  Is that what you want?  I will polish my pearl and change it, give it a nice new coat of paint; I'll turn it into a lovable, round, ivory, perfect pearl!"
 
*Sigh*  Paul asked God over and over to remove the thorn from his side, but God said no.  It was like Paul was saying, "God, this thorny pearl!  Take it away!  Remove it, please!  I don't want it."

But God did not remove Paul's thorn.  Paul's focus was on the imperfection, but God turned his attention to something far greater: grace and mercy.

We assume that God turns our weak things into strengths by changing them; but what if they remained and we were the ones changed ― not "to endure" it, not to suffer through it, but actually to be transformed by it.

I can see us saying, "No Lord, your grace is NOT sufficient, not unless it involves plastic surgery to smooth my wrinkles, and power to make my pearl shine, and liposuction so my fat folds disappear."

We're all so bossy telling God what He needs to do in order to make us presentable.  Why do we miss the miracle that He has already, in His Son, made us acceptable?​

Confession

My personal pearls are painful.  I carry them as open wounds.  I am a young doe in the forest, hunted.  Arrows fill the air; the sky is not safe.

Like you, I question, I cry.  I am a babe passed between harlots.  I call out from my crib and no hand reaches for me.

But you know, God cannot pour a gallon of water into an 8 oz. glass.  God cannot heal us while we're fussing over our makeup, trying to pretty ourselves up for Him.  God must stretch our hearts to receive more of Him.  Our hearts must hold the ocean.  

I mentioned before I had asked the Lord to teach me to create with light.  I had not realized that in order to create with light we must enter the Void.  Creation begins in the darkness of the womb.

I continue to struggle; painting with light is more difficult than Bob Ross made it seem; neither can the paint-by-numbers of modern religion help me.  The oil of our Lord's sanctuary has grown rancid: the shewbread has sprouted worms upon the Table.  We are besieged by loneliness looking for true messengers from our Father.

I have wiped more tears on aprons worn by devils than angels.  I understand now what the Psalmist meant when he said, "I will fear no evil" ― for such fearlessness is found only after one has "walked through the valley of the shadow of death" (Psalm 23:4).

The fact remains that one can only walk towards, but never reach, the horizon.

I carry my imperfect pearls and treasure them, love them, bless them, and hold hope for them . . . for myself . . . because God can work wonders through weakness.

O God!  See, our tears are too few; their moisture cannot quench this burning.  The world's shadow hurts our eyes.  The sin of this generation is a furnace in our blood.  Where does one chisel stone to bury this grief?
 
"My child," I can hear the Lord saying, "All that is, I am.  All I am, I share.  Honey is gathered from many flowers, and my honeycomb I return to all my children (Luke 24:42-43).  Come, partake of all that I am, both of my joy and my hurt, even as I partake of all that you are."​