WISDOM!  King Solomon asked God for wisdom, “Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.”  Through the gift of wisdom, Solomon asked to be able to know right from wrong, so that he could do God’s will, not his own.

 Jesus said to His disciples: “When a person finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.” What does wisdom have to do with Jesus’ parable of the “pearl of great price?” To recognize the “pearl of great price” takes wisdom.  Wisdom leads us to do what is right.  Jesus gave His Apostles the wisdom to answer His call: “Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  In embracing the wisdom to answer Jesus’ call, His Apostles were willing to lay down their lives, so that others may have life. 

A martyr’s death is what the Apostles paid for the “pearl of great price.”  They, like Jesus, were not afraid of those who perse cuted them and killed their bodies, because they could not kill their souls.  Jesus calls others to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles.  A priest interviewed for the video “Fishers of Men” said, “When I came back to the Lord, that’s when I found every thing.  That is when I found the treasure in the field.  And it’s worth selling everything to buy that field, to get that treasure, the “pearl of great price,” hidden in that treasure box of the priesthood.  It’s worth it all.” 

Jesus does not call everyone to become a priest, nor does He call everyone to die a martyr’s death.   However, He does calls each of us, by name, to ask for wisdom, to seek holiness in our lives, to seek the field that contains the treasure box with the “pearl of great price.”  That “pearl of great price,” is Jesus Christ. 

We cannot pay a price great enough to purchase Jesus, because He has already paid the price Himself, with His death and resurrection, to purchase life for us.  He gave all that He has; He laid down His life for us.  When we are willing to give all that we have for Him, when we are willing to lay down our lives for our sisters and brothers, Jesus, the “pearl of great price,” is ours for the asking.  

-Bishop Roy Campbell