In June 1969, in Mexico City, Adriana Martínez finally married Octavio Guillén. They had been engaged for sixty-seven years, and both were eighty-two by the time the big day came!
Sixty-seven years is quite a wait and of course, it’s not usually that long – for some its remarkably shorter although that too can be alarming, if the awful reality TV programme, Married at First Sight is to be believed. Over the course of human history we humans have gone to great lengths to get married and it has always involved money and value.
In some places a bride was calculated in heads of camels or cattle, a whole herd carefully counted out and handed over before the wedding could go ahead. In parts of Papua New Guinea it was pigs, yams and arm shells, all patiently gathered and presented. Helen’s family visited Morocco in 1983 for their last holiday before we were married (I didn’t get an invite) and the sight of a beautiful, white, educated English rose prompted a Bedouin souk trader in Tangier to offer a number of camels and donkeys to her father. If you don’t believe me, please ask her!
Even today, in parts of China the groom’s family still offers the bride’s family a generous cash gift before the wedding – modern sums that would have been far beyond Jacob’s ability to pay. In some Middle Eastern traditions the gift, the mohar, works in the bride’s favour: it becomes hers alone, hers to keep for life – a bit of a safety net if things don’t work out well.
Medieval Europe did it the other way round, the bride’s family handing over land, cattle and precious specie to the groom’s. In modern times we’ve focussed on engagement rings as the expression of wealth that is transferred. It is thought that Grace Kelly’s engagement ring from Prince Rainier would be worth something like $38M today. Whichever way the wealth flows, somebody always ends up counting the cost before the marriage could begin.
These customs share one thing in common: negotiation. A price is set, a value weighed, terms are agreed. But, if your father-in-law happens to be anything like the one Jacob met in Haran, the terms had a way of changing unexpectedly and at great expense. Sunday’s Old Testament reading finds Jacob of bargaining for Rachel only to be double-crossed by his future father in law who also happened to be his uncle; some family!
So the paired Gospel reading from Matthew comes as a surprise and stands in stark contrast. Jesus tells of a merchant who finds one pearl of great price. But the merchant doesn’t haggle. He doesn’t ask for a valuation, payment plan or extra time to raise the money. He simply goes and sells everything he has and buys it. No bargaining, no counting the cost, just a whole-hearted, joyful giving of everything for the one thing worth having.
I guess that’s the difference between the marketplace and the kingdom of heaven. Jesus doesn’t ask “what’s your best offer?” but rather “will you give everything you have?”
So whatever your own commitments you are counting this week or at the moment – money or time, or simply faithful patience – Sunday’s readings gently invite us to think which kind of buyer we are: the one still counting camels, or the one who has already sold the lot and gone home rejoicing because of what we have found in Jesus. There’s much to consider, so I look forward to us gathering as we delve a bit deeper into what we can learn.
Revd Paul