“Where Treasure, There Heart”
"Where Treasure, There Heart"
Matthew 6:19-21
David A. Shirey
Broadway Christian Church
A poll was taken among preachers. The question was, “What is your least favorite part of the ministry?” The top response? The annual stewardship campaign. And I can’t help but believe that if a similar poll were to be taken among churchgoers, the response would be the same. Like preacher, like congregation.
I guess I’m in a distinct minority when it comes to Christian Stewardship. It’s not my least favorite part of ministry. I enjoy talking about giving. What gave giving a bad name, anyway? How did give become a four-letter word?
Jesus had no problem talking about stewardship. This morning he’s at it again. He’s teaching his disciples about the rightful disposition of their “treasure.” Three times in three verses he uses the word “treasure,” beginning with what he calls “treasure on earth” as in the treasure we keep in our pocketbooks, purses, piggy banks and wallets, the treasures we store in our closets, garages, attics, and basements. Our earthly treasure and what we do with it was a favorite topic of our Lord's. Did you know that of Jesus’ 43 parables, 27 have to do with money and possessions? Or that one-tenth of the verses in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, a tithe of the Gospels (288 verses), deal with money? If you thumb through the Scriptures you’ll find 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 on the topic of faith, but more than 2,000 verses on money.[1] Well, Jesus is at it again this morning and as he launches into yet another stewardship message Peter rolls his eyes and mutters to John, “Here he goes again. I wish he’d quit talking about money and just stick to the Bible. Whereupon John says, “It is the Bible, doofus” And it is. Smack dab in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount no less, Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”
This is all to say we might wish Jesus would stay out of our pocketbooks and stick to heaven, but Jesus often mentions pocketbook and heaven in the same breath as if there’s a relationship between the two. This morning's scripture is a case in point. Says Jesus, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Hear that? Treasure – pocketbook. Heart’s desire – heaven. As if the two are connected. Dick Hamm, former General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), translates Jesus’ words, "Wherever you invest your treasure, your heart will surely follow." Or, "If your money's in it, your heart will be, too." The equation is this: Where treasure, there heart. It’s a spiritual truth. If you discover where a person's treasure is, be assured their heart is close by.
Take my two grandfathers. First thing in the morning, my maternal grandfather would get the paper, sit in his chair, and turn to a section with a whole bunch of itty-bitty letters and numbers all lined up together in columns. Later in the day, around Noon, he would reach out and turn up the volume on the radio when the announcer said something like, "Today's mid-day stock reports are brought to you by...." And later in the day, I remember Poppy sitting in the den and watching the 6:00 news, leaning in when Doug Adair, the Cleveland TV announcer, reported "Today's Dow Jones Industrial averages." What I noticed was that Poppy’s mood seemed to swing all day on what he read in the paper, heard on the radio, and watched on television. Up. Down. Up. Down. Happy. Sad. A yo-yo of emotions. What was up with that? Jesus explained it this way: Where treasure, there heart.
My paternal grandfather was different. Gabe Shirey was a rounder. When I was little, he used to take me to watch horses run around a big dirt track. Now, I liked horses. I enjoyed looking at them. But I noticed Grandpa liked some horses more than others – a lot more. In fact, he was real happy for them and liked them a lot when they ran faster than the other horses and he was real sorry for them – even got angry with them – when they didn't run as fast. Why was that? Jesus said: where treasure, there heart.
As for me back then, I could care less about Poppy's little letters and numbers or Grandpa's horses. My treasure and heart were elsewhere, namely, in a shoebox in my closet. I caught my little brother once when he was about six or seven years old in my closet in my treasure chest. He had opened the shoebox where I kept my baseball cards I’d bought with my hard-earned money from my newspaper route … and he had folded my Willie Mays card right down the middle. At that moment, I saw no reason to go on living! My treasure folded; my heart was broken.
I tell you: be careful what you deem as your treasure, because your heart will be hitched to that treasure, and as goes your treasure, so will go your heart. Jesus spoke truth: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
So, where is your treasure? On Wall Street? On hangers in the closet? On four wheels in your garage or docked at the lake? Is your treasure invested in a hobby? In your business? In the roof over your head, the furnishings in your house, the art on the walls, or the lawn wrapped around your property? Is your treasure in a safety deposit box or salted away for retirement or set aside for your children's education or stashed in a shoebox in the closet? Where is your earthly treasure?
Let me pause for a moment and note there’s nothing wrong with our using our earthly treasure to provide for our earthly needs and responsibilities. We all have needs for food, clothing, and shelter. Meeting those needs requires a certain amount of earthly treasure and God wants all God’s children to have adequate food, shelter, and clothing. That’s why the Lord’s Prayer invites us to ask God to “give us this day our daily bread.” (Now, we’re not to pray for cake and frosting. Just daily bread.) On top of that, we’re citizens of a city, a state, and a nation that makes us responsible for paying taxes. God expects us to be responsible citizens. Sorry, there are no bible verses excusing you from paying your taxes by tomorrow. And we’re to use our earthly treasures to exercise responsibility toward our families. Says Paul, “Whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Which is all to say that God expects us to lay aside a portion of our earthly treasure to meet our personal needs as well as to meet our responsibilities to family and nation. Jennie’s and my budget and I trust yours, reflect this.
But here’s where being a disciple of Jesus makes a difference (or is supposed to, anyway). In addition to laying up earthly treasure for ourselves, our loved ones, and our homeland, Jesus wants us to provide ourselves with “treasure in heaven.” How so? By creating within our budgets “a budget for blessing” – designating a goodly (or godly) portion of our earthly treasure to do heaven’s work. Which is what a pledge is. The prayerful filling out of a pledge card to Broadway Christian Church is an investment divine, a storing up of “treasure in heaven.”
I’ve pondered Jesus’ words on “storing up treasures in heaven” a lot as I’ve grown older. “Where treasure, there heart.” If that promise is true, then given the way Jennie’s and my earthly treasure has been invested throughout our marriage, our hearts are shareholders in the congregations of which we’ve a part over the 40 years of our marriage in TN, MO, NC, IN, AZ, and KY. We invested a lot of our treasure in those congregations and since “where treasure, there heart,” we invested a lot of our hearts in those places, too. And frankly, what better home for our hearts, than those dear churches. The way I look at it: forty years of pledges to precious people in precious places = treasure in heaven. I told you last week Jennie and I are investing in you, Broadway, by making a pledge for the upcoming year. We’re also putting you in our will. Our daughter Laura, her sister and brother, know their parents’ massive estate is divvied up into four quarters: ¼ of our earthly treasure to Laura and Ryan, ¼ to Betsy and Travis, ¼ to Will and Kassie. And ¼ is to be divvied up among the churches we’ve served, Broadway now included. A portion of our treasure and a portion of our hearts is invested here. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
I remember a story told years ago by the late Rev. Dr. Bill Nichols of when Victoria was queen of the British Empire. Once, while she was visiting India, she was told a young prince of a minor province wanted to make a presentation to her. The young prince – just a child – came in and knelt before the queen. He then stood, reached into his pocket, and held out a small cloth bag. The queen's attendant opened the bag. A large diamond fell into his hand. Everyone gasped at the size of the stone. Queen Victoria thanked the young prince profusely and promised his gift would be part of the crown jewels in London.
Many years later, now a grown man, the prince made a trip to England. He asked to see the aging Queen. He asked if he could see the diamond he had given to her many years before. It was brought from the vault and handed to him.
He then said, "Your Highness, years ago when I was but a child, I gave this diamond to you. At that time, I had no idea how much this stone was worth. Now I know how much it’s worth. May I give it to you again, this time with my whole heart?"
Bill Nichols said, “Every time you make a pledge to God through Christ’s Church, every time you make an offering in the plate or online, you are saying to God, “I made my confession of faith when I was much younger. Now that I know how much life in your Light and in Christ’s Church is really worth, I give myself to you again with my whole heart.”[2]
Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
I can’t think a better place for our earthly and heavenly treasure and our hearts to be than right here. (Place pledge card on communion table).
Let all God’s people say again with their whole hearts, AMEN.
[1] Herb Miller, Money Isn't/Is Everything: What Jesus Said About the Spiritual Power of Money (Discipleship Resources, 1994), p. 3.
[2]I heard Dr. Nichols tell this story in person years ago. It appears in print in Dan Moseley, “May I Give Myself Again?,” Joyful Giving (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1997), pp. 1-4.
