Our Treasure
What Do We Treasure?
Don’t store up treasure on earth. Moths and rust will eat it away, and robbers will break in and steal it. No: store up for yourselves treasure in heaven! Moths and rust don’t eat it away there, and no robbers break in and steal it. Show me your treasure, and I’ll show you where your heart is. Matt. 6:19-21
This section of the Sermon brings us back face to face with money and how we handle it. But it speaks of more than money. It speaks of our treasure. It calls us to come to terms with what we value and what we focus on. I am reminded of earlier in the Sermon, when Jesus taught us to give without hypocrisy, and now again, he is calling us to focus on eternal things that matter, not simply on things that will not last.
What do we value the most?
What do we treasure?
What fills up our calendars?
What is our money spent on?
Jesus has been teaching about giving, prayer, and fasting, and now he is taking us again to the heart of the issue.
Our earthly treasures are temporary. D.A. Carson states, “Jesus forbids us from making mere things our treasure, storing things up as if they had ultimate importance.”[1] The issue, however, is not simply owning things (though it is easy to argue that we in the West especially own WAY more than is needed). The issue “is the selfish accumulation of goods.”[2] Most of us have been around long enough to see how stock markets can crash, thieves can steal our stuff, and a freak storm can destroy a home. Or, as happened to us this week, a truck can plow straight into the back of your car through no fault of your own.
So, as Bonhoeffer asks, how do we distinguish “between legitimate use and unlawful accumulation?”[3] Jesus does not offer a strict rule, stating how much one might accumulate or how much food one should have. Instead, he pushes us to examine ourselves and examine our hearts. What do we dwell on and make our priority?
Theologian Jonathan Pennington writes, “One’s relationship to money is not a neutral matter but affects and reflects the inner person.”[4] Discerning the difference can be challenging.
It is not bad or unwise to save our money and plan for the future. Having a retirement account is not simply good stewardship of our money but also possibly very generous to our children. Our economic system is not remotely similar to the economic system of Jesus’ original listeners. They would have lived much more like those in the village where we lived in Kenya, where one must work during the day for food that night. Most of us are far removed from such a system. One of the beautiful aspects of the villagers’ way of life was that their investment and their treasure often was in the people around them. When they had a surplus, they shared it with others so that when they had a drought, they would have others who might be able to repay them.
I love the way Richard Rohr sums up this passage. He writes, “If I had to summarize the social teaching of Jesus in one phrase, it would be the doctrine of non-idolatry.”[5]
We slowly become what we repeatedly value.
Are we investing in people? Are we investing in relationships? Are we investing in things that are eternal? Or are we investing in an earthly portfolio that has no eternal value?
Do we hold on to our money, or do we give it away generously?
Do we work simply to buy a bigger house, or do we work to bring glory to God in our day-to-day activities, working for his kingdom here on earth?
Do we invest in our retirement for financial prudence, or do we obsess weekly over the stock market?
In this passage, Jesus is calling us to check our hearts just as he called us to check our hearts when it came to giving, praying, and fasting.
Where is your treasure?
[1] Carson, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World, 99.
[2] Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount (ESV Edition), 211.
[3] Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 175.
[4] Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, 138.
[5] Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan, 119.