Writings: Hidden Treasure, Fine Pearls, and a Gar

By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” (Matthew 13:44-51)

***

My Dad was an incredible fisherman: he was a true artist with a fly rod, casting and popping the fly across the surface of the river, teasing the fish with every twitch. Dad always made it look effortless, charming Perch, Bluegill, and Goggle-eye onto his line with the ease of a master. Try as I might, I never developed anything remotely like the grace or precision of his style in fishing. All I could do was to sit in the back of the canoe, paddle the boat, and watch in awe as he worked his magic.

During the summer months we would head up to Beavers' Bend in Oklahoma, where we fished the Mountain Fork river. On the fly rod we were fishing for trotline bait, which we would set out across the river near our cabin and on which we hoped to catch large-mouth Bass and huge Channel Catfish! Fried up, with a mess of cut potatoes, these fish were absolutely scrumptious! Unfortunately, we also often caught snapping turtles and Gar! Dad could grasp the trotline and know, by how it twitched, what was on it, and there were few things he hated more than a nasty, scavenging Gar, stripping our line of bait and Bass.

In today’s Gospel reading we have three very famous parables. While each is coherent in and of itself, taken together they teach us a single, powerful, connected idea about the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven:

1. The treasure is worth more than anything else in the field, so much so that it would be worth it to buy the whole field in order to get just the treasure out of it.
2. The superb pearl is worth more than anything else, so the merchant sells everything in order to buy that one, special, valuable pearl.
3. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net set down to catch all sorts of fish; it doesn’t matter that it catches unwanted fish along with the wanted fish, for catching the wanted fish are more important than also catching the others … besides, the unwanted will eventually be discarded.