Where your treasure is......

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12: 34
Delivered by Dorothy Gordan, President of the Uniting Church Synod Lay Preachers’ Association at the services at Balmoral and Douglas, on 12th August, 2007
Psalm 50: 1-8,
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12: 32-40

Last Sunday’s gospel was the story Jesus told of the rich farmer who wanted to pull down his barns and build bigger ones to store his bumper harvest, without any thought for others or for his own future. Jesus called him a fool and concluded: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich before God”.

Then comes some of my favourite verses in the Bible: Jesus tells his disciples not to worry about food and clothes. God cares for the flowers and the birds and knows that we need these things. The passage concludes “instead, strive for the kingdom of God and these things will be given to you as well”

Today’s reading follows. Jesus says: “Do not be afraid little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom”. We are to strive for that which our heavenly Father not only knows we need, but wants to give to us. God wants to give us real treasure and we are to be ready to be called to account for its use.

The Hebrews reading reminds us of the company we are in as we travel in faith towards the kingdom, to the city prepared for us. The whole of that chapter is worth reading, it has a long list of people beginning with Abel, the murdered son of Adam and Eve and continuing on through the history of the people of God. There are men and women, famous leaders like Abraham and Moses and lesser known ones Rahab and Jephthah. They are described as travelers seeking a homeland, the heavenly country, the city, the kingdom which God has prepared for the faithful.

We could add the names of many saints, both ancient and modern, well- known and nameless except to a few, (maybe just to us) but known to God . These are our inspiration and our example but that is to begin to talk about the cloud of witnesses which is the reading for next week.

We return to today’s Gospel story where Jesus is telling his disciples about that kingdom which is God’s gift for God’s people. He speaks of possessions and tells his followers to think about what is most important to them because, as he says:
“where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
There are three questions we are going to think about in that text:
1. What is your treasure?
2. Where is your heart?
3. When are they going to be together?

1.What is your treasure?

The treasure for last Sunday’s wealthy farmer was his good harvest and his personal supply of stored grain. Jesus called him a fool! But it is true that we all have personal treasures. For some it is money and personal possessions. Jesus said it was difficult ( not impossible) for a rich person to enter the kingdom (Matt 9:23) but there are other sorts of ‘treasures’.

For some it may be their social position which is most significant for them. To be highly regarded by others and to be a person whose position in their community is to be envied, may be the most important thing for them. Closely related to that, of course is fame. Many would like their personal
‘5 minutes of fame’ or to be the Australian Idol or whatever is popularly held to be of consequence in the media.

For many, including myself, the family holds a high priority in our lives. I may well tell someone that our grandchildren are real treasures. It may be that your treasure is to be found in your intellect, or your hobbies,

These worldly treasures are to be seen as real gifts from God. We do have much for which we can be thankful as well as our life, our health and our daily food. But the lesson tells us that “it is the Father’s pleasure to give us the Kingdom”. Our real treasure is that which God wants to give: the Kingdom of our God and of his Christ.


2. Where is your heart?

At this point, Jesus gives three instructions to those who want to become residents of the Father’s Kingdom. Firstly he says: ‘sell your possessions’. This is not in order to gain merit in God’s eyes. It is not trying to buy a way into heaven or by our good deeds somehow earn ‘brownie points’ that we can redeem in eternity! It is to show that the things of this world are not critical to our life as God’s chosen people.

Matthew writes about a rich young man who came to Jesus to ask what he had to do to gain eternal life. He went away grieving when Jesus said the same thing to him: “Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor”. This is the second directive of today’s passage also. Give alms. Whatever it is that God has given us, in money, position, power, or anything else, it is to be used for the sake of others.

Barclay records one of John Wesley’s rules of life : “Save all you can and give all you can” When Wesley was at Oxford he had an income of $30 a year. He lived on $28 and gave away $2. When his income increased to $60, $90 and $120 a year, he still lived on $28 and gave the balance away.

The third instruction is to “make purses that do not wear out”. William Loader points out that there is something liberating about the honesty of this passage. He writes “There is no pretending here that we cease to care for ourselves…. Go for wealth that will pay dividends, go for purses that will not wear thin and lose your money” He sees a challenge here to merge inseparably together love of self, love of others and love of God and so to act within the framework of the gospel. Those who deny any self- interest may be in danger of a distortion of their lives without even being aware of it.

The stewardship of our money, our gifts and our lives also includes the stewardship of our world, God’s creation. We are reminded to curb our self-interest for the benefit, not only of the earth but of future generations.
Global warning may have consequences at any time. That leads us to the next part of our reading, the need to be alert to what is going on around us and to always be ready to act when the need arises.

4. When are they going to be together?

Jesus, the greatest story-teller of all time, gives us another parable. Bruce Prewer describes it as “a surprise party” and the surprise is that those who have prepared the feast for the newly married master do not know when he is coming. He will surprise them at any time. It is their task to be ready, to have the house, the food and themselves well prepared for the event whenever it happens.

Then there is a further surprise! When the master does arrive instead of sitting down to be waited upon and enjoying the banquet, he asks those of his slaves who were ready, to sit down and he comes and serves them. Soon after this episode in Jesus progress to Jerusalem, he will himself take a towel and wash his own disciples feet and it will be their turn to be amazed.

Jesus is saying that is how it is in the kingdom of God. There are no slaves or masters, there are no rich or poor, there are no important or unimportant tasks or people in the kingdom which Jesus has already brought into being by his presence in the world. And we do not know when we will be called to account for all that has been entrusted to us.

You and I are to alert and to be ready because we do not know when we will once again be surprised by God. We are in the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of love and anything at all may happen, even things beyond our imagining. Jesus has told us again and again: there is the story of the Father who gave a party to welcome home his wastrel son, the master of the vineyard who pays his labourers the same no matter what their working hours have been and many more.

If everybody had their right and proper place, we would be among the employed workers. But we have been told to strive for the kingdom which God has already planned to give to us.








The ultimate surprising story is that of the Son of God, born in a stable because there was no room for him, living a life rejected by the rulers of his day, put to death on across outside the city walls and buried in a borrowed grave. This same Jesus, raised and alive with us by his Spirit continues to teach us, guide us, strengthen, comfort and support us until we arrive in the heavenly city which is planned for us and where we will remain with him for ever.

It is in that kingdom, begun on earth and continued in heaven where our treasure and our heart will be together. It is a kingdom where we will be served by the host in the company of the faithful. It is the kingdom of love.


Prayer:
Loving and surprising God,
Help us to get our priorities right and to treasure those things which belong to your kingdom.
Keep us ever alert and always prepared to meet you
in this world and in the world to come.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray. AMEN