"Heart" Marks the Spot...

PPLP – Langenburg / Churchbridge SK

9th Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary 19 – Year C

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Psalm 33:12-22

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Luke 12:32-40

Watchful God,

kindle a new flame in our complacent hearts

and take from our hands the burden of worthless things,

so that we may be ready to receive a greater gift:

the love of Jesus Christ, our Servant King. Amen.

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It’s interesting that the ‘takeaway quote’ from today’s gospel is “Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.” (Lk 13:34) Because, in reality this phrase, spoken by Jesus, by the Messiah, the Christ, sums up our entire journey of faith.

The letter to the Hebrews has some great words for each one of us, today.

In a world where we always seem to focus on the tangible, on what we can see, feel, smell, or bump up against, talking about those glorious intangibles, that sustain us in the tough and the easy moments off our lives is so much more of a challenge for us to embrace, to talk about, or even to teach, isn’t it?

I mean really when talking about those ‘toy’s’, or tangible items of progress and affluence, we can go out to the parking area and compare vehicles. We can talk about the colour, the features, the distance we can get on a tank of gas, right? But how do we describe to someone who doesn’t know what a vehicle is what it is were’ talking about, without the visual clue of “here, sit in it and see how it feels.”

But that’s our challenge.

To learn how to talk about and teach those parts of our lives that keep us going when the going gets tough, those intangible benefits of a life lived in faith, is even more difficult to discuss when the going is easy.

Yet Jesus tells us: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.” (Lk 13:34)

Or, maybe the challenge we face is that our faith, our assurance of the love of God in and for our lives is so ingrained that it’s like trying to explain why our eyes are the colour that they are, instead of the fact that our minds’ eye is focused on what cant be seen except in our hearts – our faith, our trust, our assurance that we are guided and love and held by God, always and forever.

“Faith makes us sure of what we hope for and gives us proof of what we cannot see. 3 Because of our faith, we know that the world was made at God's command. We also know that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen.” (Heb 11:1, 3)

Perhaps this is the challenge that lies before us: how to communicate living into this faith to those who come after? After all, living a life of faith isn’t easy, and it isn’t tangible.

I was speaking to someone recently and posited the idea that perhaps part of the problems facing the longevity of the church, in general, is the fact that there isn’t a clear, easily set out, possibly union directed, fees schedule. After all, when we go to an auto mechanic, we know that they start billing us at “this” amount plus whatever work is needed to be done to keep our vehicles working and roadworthy.

And some of the more flamboyant evangelical expressions of faith will send a team from a committee to review your past income tax returns to determine your amount of annual financial giving, and they’ll help to get you involved in the work of the church itself through your time, and your talents.

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.” (lk 13:34)

And we see this as a sense of “law” where we try to apply the “gospel” of encouraging people to give from the first fruits of what God has given to us, including our time and our talents.

But it’s not the way our society, today, calculates success, is it? Success in life is calculated, unfortunately, in large and flashy ways. We’ve embraced the axiom ‘whoever has the most toys wins,’ like it’s a goal that often comes with more debt than benefit to our lives.

Having said that, though, how many people do we know would rather be out in the world with their ’toys’ than in a church on a structurally uncomfortable seat face with ethically difficult questions that don’t have clear cut answers or timelines?

Now, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have an easy and relaxed Sunday morning, obviously, but I do know that there are enough people in the world who prefer such a conclusion to their weekend before getting back to the ‘grind’ of their jobs, their work life. And yet, under the casual, laid back surface of the Sunday morning mattress worshippers, is a level of stress about their work lives that re3ally would be able to benefit from mediation on Paul’s message, on Jesus words, today.

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.” (lk 13:34)

But now we’re travelling in circles, aren’t we?

Looking back at the text, we’re told that several generations of Abraham’s family came and went before God’s promise to Abraham was begun to be fulfilled. And then at least another generation or more before they began to occupy the land God had marked out for the people of Israel.

Does this mean that Abraham and his descendants had more faith because they believed in a promise that was unable to be fulfilled in their lifetime?

Hebrews tells us: “11 Even when Sarah was too old to have children, she had faith that God would do what he had promised, and she had a son. 12 Her husband Abraham was almost dead, but he became the ancestor of many people. In fact, there are as many of them as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand along the seashore.

13 Every one of those people died. But they still had faith, even though they had not received what they had been promised. They were glad just to see these things from far away, and they agreed that they were only strangers and foreigners on this earth.” (Heb 11:11-13)

There was an email that circulated, quite some time agon, about a well-respected gentleman who suddenly stopped coming to church; so the minister went to visit him at home.

When he arrived, he was told that the gentleman knew why the minister was there, and there wasn’t anything that he could say that would change his mind about not returning to church.

So, they sat and had coffee before the gentleman’s fire in companiable silence. After about 30 minutes, or so, the minister got up, took the fire tongs, and removed a coal from the heart of the fire and placed it on the hearth. Then he resumed his seat and his coffee.

As they watched, the coal gradually lost it’s light and its heat. At this point the gentleman turned to the minister and said “So, I’ll see you in church on Sunday.”

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.” (Lk 13:34)

Living a life of faith isn’t a life lived in isolation. We’ve learned that quite poignantly in the past couple of years. It’s not a life lived in austerity.

Rather it’s a life lived in community where each one of us is able to support and encourage each other.

A life of faith means our family boundaries are greatly expanded beyond the biological to include all of those who surround us with love and hope and faith as we do for them, in return.

Sure, there’s a sense of “law” in how we live our lives; but there is more “grace” when we live by faith.

I had a great uncle who was born mute, but his expression of faith was so great that he was loved by all. At the same time, if you tried coming to breakfast in your bathrobe, he would take you by the hand and lead you back to your room door to encourage you to dress for the day.

We are reminded, today, that faith is an assurance and a continuation of things that can’t be physically held or quantified.

Faith is like a good night’s sleep: it gives us benefits but is only quantifiable by the results of that good nights sleep, not by what we can hold onto.

In the same way, then faith is like eating a good meal. It gives us the energy we need to keep going, to keep moving forward and to grow in our lives.

The letter to the Hebrews gives us great examples of those whose faith in God’s promises was greater than the expanse of their lives because these promises were eventually fulfilled.

We are in the same position as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We wait for our treasure to be revealed, not just in our expectation of the Kingdom of heaven to be revealed all around us, but in the expectation of the Second Coming of Christ.

So, our challenge then, is living into these promises.

Our challenge is to not grow weary with not seeing the promises of God fulfilled within our lifetime. After all, Abraham travelled the length and breadth of the land that would one day belong to his descendants without actually settling anywhere.

Isaac lived his life as his father did, moving about the countryside and raising his family.

Jacob became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel and did his best to be a good parent.

These days, we may look back and see how long we’ve been waiting, but perhaps what we’re looking for isn’t what God is ready to reveal.

Our challenge, in life, is to promote the intangible, the faith, the assurance that we are loved and guided.

Our challenge is to not get too caught up in the ‘war of the toys’ that can distract and pull us into a world that isn’t yet ready for Christ to come again.

But when he comes… we’ll be ready, because we rest in our lives of faith, in our “assurance of things hoped for, … conviction of things not seen.” (Heb 1:1-2)

Amen.