Pigs and Pearls

Have you ever heard someone say that doing a certain thing would be like putting lipstick on a pig?

It's a phrase we Southerners use to describe an action that is of little significance. You can put lipstick on a pig all day long, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a pig. At the end of the day, that lipstick's gonna be all smudged off in the slop. 

Matthew 7:6 conjures similar imagery:

Do not give dogs what is sacred, do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. (NIV)

Reading this verse, I often imagine the comical irony of a big 'ole potbelly pig sloshing and slurping up slop in lipstick, pearls, and sparkly stilettos. 

However, while the imagery of the verse has always been good for a chuckle, wrestling with its meaning used to make my mind feel as messy as a pig sty, too.  

In its context, the verse can read a little like an awkward and caustic non sequitur summing up a convicting passage on judgment and hypocrisy. 

Check out the verse in its context, following verses 1-5:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck form your brother's eye. 

Do not give dogs what is sacred, do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

The message in verses 1-5 is pretty darn clear. Verse 6, in contrast, seems to come out of nowhere with its warning that dogs and pigs might tear you to pieces if they get a taste of your sacred pearls. 

In isolation, verse 6 seems to suggest we shouldn't share our faith with people who don't appreciate it. It's for Us, not for Them. But isn't that kind of antithetical to the Great Commission?

Even more jarring, perhaps, is the inherent judging going down when we determine that certain people are dogs or pigs and therefore unworthy of our message, which seems at odds with verses 1-5.

It begs the questions:

• What are our sacred pearls?
• Who/what are the dogs and pigs?
• How can we make sense of all this in its context?

A matter of the heart

Verses 1-5 deal with the heart of the listener. Jesus is holding up a mirror to the ugly in our hearts, the planks in our eyes, and asking us to acknowledge the filth. It calls to mind the scene in John 8 in which Jesus tells the Pharisees that whichever of them is without sin should cast the first stone. 

We don't know if any of those Pharisees truly had a change of heart, but we do know their zeal for calling out the sins of others was sidelined at least for one round. Jesus has a way of knocking the wind out of our arrogance like that. 

With a lot of these Pharisees, holiness was all misdirection, smoke and mirrors. A lot of, "Look what they're doing over there!" to distract from the ugliness inside their own hearts. Lipstick on a pig.

Matthew 7:5 suggests that only when our hearts are submitted and surrendered to God--the only surgeon capable of true plank removal--can we adequately assist in steering our brothers and sisters down a path of righteousness. 

So how can we view verse 6 in this light?

First, I think we have to ask ourselves . . . what do I possess that is both sacred and mine to freely give?

My soul

What do you have that is sacred? More precious than pearls? Your soul. 

Jesus died for it, after all. 

And God created it. On purpose, for a purpose. 

Yet we often downgrade and disregard its value, as if our own purposes had more merit. 

Tossing it to the dogs like stale biscuits or cheap kibble. 

Tearing and trampling

When we toss what should be sacred--our time, our worship, our allegiance, our souls--to the dogs and pigs of Flesh and Flash, Pride and Lust, appearances over authenticity, self-idolatry over submission, we align our hearts with the pharisaical practices of prejudice and hypocritical judgment Jesus warned us about. 

God wants our whole heart. 

That's why He made us. That's why Jesus saved us. 

It's a jealous love, but it's not a selfish love. 

When we toss our souls to lesser gods, it's not just lipstick on a pig, it's much more significant than that. We turn the sacred into the profane. We lose sight; we lose hope.

God knows that when we cast our pearls to the pigs we will be trampled and torn. 

He offers more and better. 

We might still find ourselves stuck in the slop or sleeping in the doghouse from time to time, but he doesn't just toss us some lipstick or chain us to the fence. He washes off the filth that weighs us down, removes the planks and specks that cloud our view, and restores the sacred to our souls.