Rev. Victoria Millar

Covenant Presbyterian Church, Racine , WI

Sermon on Sunday, May 25, 2008

       “Treasure”

Matthew 6:19-34

Listen for the word of the Lord to us.

19 [Jesus said] ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and rust* consume and where thieves break in and steal;

20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

where neither moth nor rust* consumes and thieves do not break in and steal.

21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

---

22 ‘The eye is the lamp of the body.

So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light;

23but if your eye is unhealthy,

your whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light in you is darkness,

how great is the darkness!

---

24 ‘No one can serve two masters;

for a slave will either hate the one and love the other,

or be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and wealth.*

----

25 ‘Therefore I tell you,

do not worry about your life,

what you will eat or what you will drink,*

or about your body, what you will wear.

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

26Look at the birds of the air;

they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they?

27And can any of you by worrying

add a single hour to your span of life?*

28And why do you worry about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field,

how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,

29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory

was not clothed like one of these.

30But if God so clothes the grass of the field,

which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,

will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

31Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?”

32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things;

and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

33But strive first for the kingdom of God* and his* righteousness,

and all these things will be given to you as well.

34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow,

for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.

Today’s trouble is enough for today.

I’m hoping you have seen a production of the play, Our Town.

   Written by Thornton Wilder in 1938, it is an American classic.[1]

            The website YouTube has scenes from a fabulous production at the Lincoln Center .   

If you’ve seen any version, you’d remember the set is almost bare, minimal,

just a few pieces of furniture.

                The first character is called the Stage Manager

                      who narrates and philosophizes directly to the audience.

                              He introduces the setting, the small town of Grover ’s Corners, New Hampshire .

            And it is a play about ordinary life, about elements of every life.

It is a small play about big subjects such as love, family, and paying attention to the present moment.

The play begins on a May morning in 1901.

            And it follows Emily Webb

from her girlhood, through falling in love with a neighbor boy, through marriage

                                           and through death in childbirth.

                                                The play centers on the young Emily

and her place in the circle and cycle of life in the small town.

If you’ve seen this play,

            you’d remember that when the characters die

they move from center stage to chairs at the edge of the stage.

                              The rows of chairs are the cemetery

from which the dead have their own conversation and commentary about the living.

The most famous scene is when Emily,

                        distraught at joining the cemetery,

                                    is allowed to choose and re-experience one day in her past.

Emily returns to her 12th birthday.

And when she enters the scene of that day,

                        she participates in the past as her younger self  

but she is also an observer who can speak to the Stage Manager as her older self.

Her 12^th birthday,

like every morning,

            was shaped by routine—

            the milkman comes,

                        the paperboy delivers.

                                    Her parents, her brother, the household--

                                                it is a small frenzy of activity.

                                                Her mother is involved in the morning chores.

She speaks to Emily without actually pausing to look at her.

She hugs her quickly then pushes Emily away to continue her housework.

Her mother cannot hear as Emily cries out: 

                        “I can’t bear it. 

                                    They’re so young and beautiful…

I can’t look at everything hard enough.”

                                     “Oh, Mama, just look at me as though you really saw me.”

“I can’t go on” she says.

            “It goes so fast. 

                        We don’t have time to look at one another.”[2]
                        “Oh earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you…”[3]

                                    “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it, every, every minute?

The Stage Manager replies solemnly:  “No, the saints and poets maybe.  They do some.”

Our Town is still a powerful play because it is a wake up call to what matters most in our ordinary, daily lives.

In today’s text, Jesus is also sounding a wake up call to what matters in our ordinary, daily lives.

Jesus begins by advising what to do with treasure.

                        Which implies that everyone has treasure

because Jesus directs the crowd around him

to store up enduring treasure in heaven

instead of temporary earthly treasure.

Jesus is saying everyone has treasure.

This is strange because the crowd around Jesus

would have been poor, with perhaps a few rich patrons.

It begs the question:  What treasure is it that everyone has?

You and I, in our day and age, we know a lot about treasure.

From the perspective of world history, you and I live in a golden age.

                        The average American family now enjoys privileges which only a few generations ago

                                    were only for the rich:

                                                long life expectancies,

                                                            access to college,

                                                                        vacations,

                                                                                    home ownership and

                                                                                                cars in the garage.[4]

And recently, I was startled by a New Yorker article by Michael Kinsley who claimed:

                        “The baby boom generation in America …has found something approaching

                                    genuine happiness in material possessions.”[5]

And if he meant that the baby boom generation

                         is the largest pool of people

                                    who have ever enjoyed abundant consumer goods,

                                                then I’d have to agree.

But author Kinsley goes on to reveal he is 57 years old

        and his reflections have been profoundly affected by his 15 year struggle with Parkinson’s.            

           He writes: 

                        “Ask yourself:  what do you have now and what do you covet,

                                    that you would not gladly trade for, say, five extra years?

                                                They would be good years, of cross-country skiing

                                                or at least years in which you could still walk and think and read and drive…

            What would you trade for that?

Or, rather, what wouldn’t you trade?

                                                                        Is there anything in the [Sharper Image] catalogue

                                                                                                or any [house] listed on Realtor.com

                                                                                                            for which you would give up five years?

                                                                                                                        Of course not.”

Kinsley names very well the limits of what Jesus would call earthly treasure.                  

            But what Kinsley treasures is longevity which we will not all receive in equal measure. 

                        Which brings me back to my Jesus-inspired riddle:  What treasure is it that everyone has?

I think the treasure that everyone has is attention.

            The choice we face every day is to give our treasure=attention to things or to relationships. 

                        The choice we face every day is to ask God to be our highest relationship.

                                    And out of our relationship with God,

out of our prayer time with God,

                                                            we can seek the strength, wisdom, love, creativity, and humor

                                                                        to infuse all our human relationships.

And if our treasure=attention flows first to God then radiates out to others,

            then we will learn to worry less.

                        In today’s text, Jesus says:  “Do not worry about what you will eat or drink or wear.

                                    Can worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

The treasure that everyone has is attention.

            We can choose to give more attention to prayer and to people and less to worry,

                        especially the worry about our own ordinary maintenance.

Toward the end of his do-not-worry speech, Jesus says:

“Seek first the kingdom of God , and its righteousness.

And all these things will be given to you as well.”

And according to The Message, the Bible translation by Prof. Eugene Peterson,

Jesus ends today’s text with these words: 

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now,

            and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.

                        God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up

                                    when the time comes.”

I was recently touched by the wisdom in another New Yorker magazine story

about a woman who volunteered at a children’s camp. [6]

Her name was Alice Trillin and she usually gravitated toward the child who needed the most help.

Alice wrote:

“Last summer, the camper I got closest to, [Lisa], was a magical child who was severely disabled.

                        She had two genetic diseases, one which kept her from growing

                                    and one which kept her from digesting any food.

                                                She had to be fed through at tube at night

                                                and had so much difficulty walking that I drove her around in a golf cart.                                                                        We both liked that.

One day, when they were playing duck-duck-goose,

            I was sitting behind her and she asked me to hold her mail

                while she took her turn being chased around the circle.

                        It took her a while to make the circuit,

and I had time to see that on the top of the pile was a note from her mom.

Then I did something truly awful…I decided to read the note.

            I simply had to know what this child’s parents could have done to make her so spectacular,

                        to make her the most optimistic, enthusiastic, hopeful human being I had ever encountered.

I snuck a quick look at the note and my eyes fell upon this sentence:

            “If God had given us all of the children in the world to choose from, Lisa,

                        we would only have chosen you.”

Before Lisa got back to her place in the circle, I showed the note to Bud, who was sitting next to me.

            ‘Quick.  Read this,’ I whispered.  “It’s the secret of life.”

Alice is right.

It is the secret of life:  God made us to give our attention to relationships, divine and human.

And God helps us give our attention to relationships.

Contemporary author John Ortberg says it this way:

“I have never known anyone who failed at relationships—

who was unconnected, lonely, without deep friendships—

yet had a meaningful and joy-filled life.

History is littered with people

[whose great achievements did not offset their isolation.]

Conversely, [the people] who succeeded at relationships—

who cultivated great friendships, who were devoted to family,

who mastered the art of giving and receiving love…

       these are the human beings who lead magnificent lives…

And when they die,

                                                    not one of them regrets having devoted themselves

                                           to people they laughed with, cried with, learned with, fought with,

 danced with, lived and loved and grew old with.”[7]

But life is complex and we are always in need of wisdom.

Because we need relationships and also solitude.

Because we need to own things and we need achievements.

Because we need to live in the moment and also to plan for the future.

But Jesus pushes us to name our priority and our organizing principle.

Jesus urges us to live in the present and to live for relationships with the divine and the human

            and to let all our other needs fit in around that center.

                        In other words, love people and use things.

                                    Never use people and love things. 

So this is one of God’s ultimate and hourly questions:

            In the days you are given, what will you give your treasure=attention to?

Your answer will determine the shape and quality of your days.

                                    What will you give your treasure=attention to?

                                                For where your attention is, there your heart will be also.

 In the name of the Father who sent the Son and the Son who sent the Spirit.

They are for us the divine search party from whom we shall never be lost. 

Amen and amen.