Inside The Ugly Oyster

After what seems an entire year of hot Texas weather, I awoke yesterday to a chill in the air. Yay! Fall seems to have finally arrived and, with that, visions of Thanksgiving fill me with joyful anticipation of family, friends, fireside chats, turkey, pies and…oysters.

My latest project has been decoupaging oyster shells for the Thanksgiving table. Got me thinking again about the HJA Company’s tagline “What God has made clean, do not call common[1]” or adopting to jewelry, “Any creator knows that ordinary materials are often dull and dirty, but refined and fashioned become anything but ordinary…or common.”

As in jewelry, so too with oysters.

Rough and dirty outside, oysters are rather ugly creatures, dull in color even in the water, sharp to walk upon should you happen to step on its bed where it mingles with other rough characters like coral. And inside? Who would ever think to eat this slimy, salty gelatinous blob? Sitting on the bottom of the sea, it’s unimaginable the muck it digests – “Oysters don’t discriminate what they eat, so they consume toxins and other chemicals in the water. Since oysters are filter feeders, they are more prone to bacteria and parasites than any other seafood….[2]”

It’s no wonder God commanded Jews, “They shall be detestable to you; you must not eat their meat, and you must detest their carcasses.” It’s UNCLEAN.

Peter (see blog post) saw a vision of a sheet descending from heaven filled with all the Levitical unclean animals (eg. Hoopoe, and…oysters). God tells him, “Take and eat.” To Peter’s revulsion, God admonishes, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” God was preparing Peter, the “clean” Jew to receive Cornelius, the “unclean” Gentile into the new creation, cleansed by God apart from works.

The oyster is a “dirty sea creature,” just as the Hoopoe is a “dirty bird[3],” but now the analogy grows beyond Peter’s acceptance of Gentiles being clean, to one of embracing them into the fold, so to speak. Paul explains, “He [Jesus] himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace.[4]”  Peter clarifies, “As you come to him, the living Stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ[5].”

The oyster shell has no inherent beauty (neither did Christ[6]), but when an irritant (the gospel[7]) settles into that flesh (the world), the oyster covers that irritant layer upon layer with nacre producing a pearl, much like the blood of Christ covers believers producing a kingdom. It doesn’t happen overnight. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.[8]” It takes time to produce a pearl – all the while hidden in the dark environ of the flesh, just as believers are “now hidden in Christ[9].”

It might be perplexing to call the gospel an irritant, but think about it. Paul writes, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling….[10]” It is hard to go against the flow, to not conform to the world, to share this gospel with others, to sometimes bear temporary consequences in favor of eternal, to be in the world but not of it. Like the pearl from the oyster, the church is called out – separated, set apart by God to be iridescent light in a darkened world. Jesus likened the kingdom of God to a pearl of such enormous value one would sell all he has to acquire it[11].

 It is the iridescent nacre, known as mother-of-pearl that turns an irritant into a thing of beauty and value, and also one of enormous strength. “Known for its exceptional strength and resilience, nacre is considered one of the strongest materials in nature. Its brick-and-mortar structure consists of hard, multisided aragonite tablets…arranged in tiled layers and cushioned by a thin layer of soft organic material, which promotes crack deflection and prevents slippage while enhancing durability and impact resistance.[12]” No wonder Jesus tells Peter the gates of hell will not overcome it[13]. The Great Commission[14] of this prismatic, strong and resilient church is to be co-laborers in the harvest, to bring the gospel of peace to all nations, to be that irritant that brings depth and dimension to the kingdom. I looked up the etymology of nacre – “possibly from the Arabic naqur meaning hunting horn.[15]” The hunting horn historically is used to manage the chaos of the hunt and guide participants through dense forests and across challenging terrain. Psalm 132:17 reads, “There I will make a horn grow for David; I have prepared a lamp for My anointed one.” Many biblical verses connect God the Son with the horn of salvation[16] - the “nacre” of the kingdom, the head of the Church, the light of the world, the one who came to seek and to save the lost[17].

At the heart of every pearl is the irritant. The gospel.

No wonder Heaven’s Gates are pearls[18].