GENESIS SERMON SERIES

Woman of Gold or Woman of God

Matthew 6:19-21

Rev. Elaine Swigart October 19, 2014 Skyline Presbyterian Church

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

I was complaining one day to my daughter that I wanted something…I can’t even remember what it was, but it was something I really didn’t need. It was a frivolous want, some piece of jewelry or clothing or maybe even a new car. I don’t know why I was so fixated on something like that, but I was. After listening to me for quite a while, she simply said, “Mother, are you a woman of God, or a woman of gold?” It shook me to the core. What was I, a woman of God or a woman of Gold? Where were my priorities? What was most important to me?

I was really dumb struck! Could I possibly get caught up in this world’s fixation with things? Never! Well, I could and I did. And, then I remembered what Jesus said about storing up treasures on earth. What was I doing? I was failing God, failing my family and failing my own morals, ethics, beliefs and integrity.

Have you ever done that? Of course, you have. We all do. The pressure to amass wealth, to have things and to get more is such a huge presence in our lives that we get caught in it – probably daily. I rarely watch TV. I don’t like anything that is on. Strange that when I was a child and had only three stations, there was so much to watch. Now, I have a satellite dish with 500 channels and there is nothing much worth watching. (Unless of course, you are a sports fan and then you have 200 channels to choose from.) However, I must admit that I am addicted to Chopped and like to sit through about four back to back programs on Tuesday night. But, I am bombarded with four minutes of ads every five minutes – four minutes of ads for every five minutes of show time! Fortunately I can pause with Dish Network and so can continue knitting or beading or whatever I am doing as I wait for the four minutes to pass, so I can get back to my program. If I watched those ads, I wonder how many of them would tempt me… tempt me to get more of something, more treasure of the material kind?

Treasure. So what is it? And, is the injunction to not store up, or not get treasure? What is the difference between earning, getting and keeping? Are we to all live in poverty? For some, true, it is not enough to not store up, they must also live as the poor, with the poor. What is it exactly that we are supposed to do and not do? If everyone is poor, who will build…who will share…who will give? I truly honor those who live among the poor and suffer with them, but I don’t feel called to do that on a permanent basis. Is there a better use of my money? Must we all be like the rich young ruler whom Jesus called to give all he had to the poor and follow Jesus? Must I give up all I have to be a disciple?

Proverbs 15:6 says: “In the house of the righteous is much treasure; but, trouble befalls the income of the wicked.” Well, what is that about? What is our treasure? What is the treasure worth storing up? How do we store up treasure for heaven? What is the treasure of the righteous?

Jesus warns against “storing up treasures on earth.” In context “treasures” refers both to other peoples’ good opinions and to material goods. The Greek phrase used indicates that Jesus is telling his hearers to stop doing something they are already doing: Stop storing up treasures on earth, where they will be eaten away. Treasure up heavenly treasures instead. How can someone store up treasure in heaven? You know the old saying, “There is never a U-Haul behind a hearse.” If God’s approval is our greatest treasure, then we will direct our hearts and minds and wills to loving God and our neighbor. Then, indeed, we will have treasure in heaven.

But, what is it that we are not to store up? Well, the first thing we think of is material goods. But, I think Jesus is also talking about hatred, animosity, grudges, anger, hostility, covetousness and all the other mean things we think of, dwell on and make part of our personality.

So, it would seem that righteousness is treasure and unrighteousness is poverty, whatever our material wealth.

What we really have to do is look at the whole Sermon on the Mount. This sentence is really just summing up what Jesus has said in so many other ways. Treasure is living blessed; it is being the salt of the earth. It is being the light of the world. It is praying with your whole heart. It is never giving in to hatred and anger. It is living in blessed and holy relationships. It is living with your word as truth. It is giving to everyone who asks. It is loving enemies as well as friends. It is praying in right heartedness. It is forgiving others. It is fasting for the sake of your love of God

Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount are all about telling us how to live in deep, abiding spirituality, not external exhibitionism. Our relationship with God must be true, abiding, and never bring advantage to us socially or economically. We are to be light and fire that gives illumination to the world. When we open our hearts and minds to the ways of God, to the peace, justice, mercy and grace that is ours through righteousness, then we become the change agents on a journey that will usher in the reign of God.

That journey basically involves repentance. But repentance is not really about feeling guilty about our sins, or even about making reparation. There are two meanings for the word “repentance” in scripture: on the one hand, we are to “return” to God, to “reconnect” with God. On the other hand, it means “to go beyond the mind that we have” –in other words, the minds shaped by our culture and society.

Marcus Borg has said that dying to an old way of seeing and being and living and identity, is being born, raised, into a new way of seeing and being and living and identity.

That story of my getting caught in the trap of choosing between being a woman of gold or a woman of God was quite a while ago…but, I will not forget it. Those words of wisdom from my then twenty something year old daughter have stayed with me. I wanted to have a different way of being, living, and a different identity than a Woman of Gold. I wanted to be more like a woman of God.

How old do we have to get before we begin to understand that wealth, possessions, gold, property…all fail us and cannot add to our lifespan, our happiness, our relationships or our health. What we can and cannot do with wealth is amazing. What we can and cannot do when in poverty is also amazing. When I have sat with the dying, the sick and the hurting, rarely does the subject of wealth come up. How can I get well, where can I get the medicine I need, who will care for (someone) after I am gone, what have I given, how have a shared, was my life worthwhile? These are the questions at the end of life…not, I sure hope my money continues to get interest after I am gone. I wish I had spent more time working and less enjoying my family. I wish I had more things, more money.

Most often people, when dying, talk about relationships, about God, about life, about the things that really mattered. They talk of their real treasures; family, time well spent, what they did for justice and peace, who matters most to them, what they regret and what they feel they accomplished with their life. Rarely do they talk about money, power, or prestige…those are all gone at the end.

So, if we build up treasure on earth, we lose it all in the end. If, however, we build up treasure in heaven, we get it all in the end…and probably a whole lot more that we don’t even know of.

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I think this is very important, our heart follows our treasure. Our treasure does not follow our heart. We have to work minute by minute to make sure that all the treasure we have is of a heavenly nature…for our heart is sure to follow it. If we amass treasures of an earthly nature, then surely our heart will be here and we cannot begin to live in the heaven that we are to be part of bringing to earth.

How can we be salt, light, lovers of our enemies, justice bringers, peacemakers…if we are so busy amassing treasure of the material and fleeting kind? Or worse, if we are amassing treasures of hatred, bigotry, anger and self-seeking how can we even see God? If, however, we begin with loving, caring, sharing, giving, helping, and all the other things Jesus says build treasure in heaven, then what we do have will be enough and we will be salt, light and lovers of humanity. We will all be men and women of God, and whatever gold we have will be used for the work of God on earth.

I read a great article online that talked about “Cleaning out our closets.” It is as if our life is like a room and we can fill it with whatever we want. We can fill it with things or we can fill it with love. What do we need? And, what can we do without? And, strangely there is always a closet where we hide the things we do not want anyone to see. We want to make sure that our greed, our anger, our littleness and sometimes even our golden treasure is not visible to others. We like to present a picture of the perfect Christian man or woman to the world. Heaven forbid that anyone should see in our closet and find out what we really treasure.

It is like the little girl whose daddy told her to clean her room. In a very short time she called down and said, “Daddy, my room is all clean.” He came up to her room and was amazed. It really was clean…really neat and tidy. But, daddies can be very suspicious people. So, he looked under the bed; all was neat and clean. He looked behind the curtains; nothing there. But, when he moved toward the closet, the child cried out…not there daddy. But, it was too late. Daddy had opened the door and out tumbled everything from soccer balls to dirty socks.

Just as you cannot hide your stuff away from your daddy by cramming it into the closet, you cannot hide your greed, your need for stuff, your amassing of wealth beyond what you need, your constant craving for more and bigger, nor your keeping to yourself when you should be sharing. God doesn’t need to open the door to your heart closet; God sees what you have stuffed away in there.

Perhaps it’s time for us to clean out the closet and quit stuffing things in. A little charity, a little repentance, a little less for me and more for others, a little more living like salt and light, a little more focus on the treasures of the reign of God – peace, justice and mercy.

What do you need to get rid of? What do I need to get rid of? What has been stuffed in our closets? You can’t hide it from God, so you might as well fess up and begin the work of ridding yourself of the things that don’t matter – things, stuff, junk, more than you need, even things you regard as treasures are just things in the end. And, don’t forget that while cleaning out the material junk to get rid of the personality stuff; hatred, anger, bitterness, jealousy or just plain nastiness.

What treasures are you storing up in heaven? Have you taken an inventory lately? Do you check your closet daily? Are you, like me trying to be a woman (man) of God and not a woman (man) of gold?