Trading Tinsel for an Unfailing Treasure
Proper 14, Year C
Art: “Favourite flowers of garden and greenhouse” by Edward Step
Jesus’ admonishment not to fear comes on the heels of a warning against false attachment to material things and the promise that God knows all our needs and provides for them.
Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
The scriptures are full of exhortations not to be afraid. That this is a regular recurrence undoubtedly has to do with the fact that we are prone to fear. Fear of the dark, the unknown, the monster under the bed. Fear of a loss of control, of not having enough, of our mortality, or for our future. Fear of not being able to keep up not only with the Jones’ but also the fear of not being able to keep up with our own expectations. Fear of finding oneself unloved and the fear of being alone.
In the first parable about the return of the master we are exhorted to be awake and alert, so that we would be ready for the return of the master. Fear, however, while it keeps us awake at night, does not equal alertness, for as we read in George MacDonald’s Princess and the Goblin, fear always sides with what we are afraid of, thus magnifies it, and so fear clouds our vision, makes us blind to the world around us, and blind to God. And because fear always holds on to what we’re afraid to lose, fear can’t let go when we need to let go, of expectations, of possessions, of control.
When Jesus admonishes us not to fear, he follows that up with why we should not fear, “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Pious readers may be inclined to receive Kingdom talk as talk about the time after we die but while the passage is concerned with eschatology, the passage wonders about what it means to live lives that believe that God reigns. That it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom means that we would inhabit that Kingdom, means that we may live as if God mattered more than empires and emperors. It also means that we ponder what this may look like so our life does not become a slogan but an offering.
That our treasure is where our heart is helps us along this path. If worry keeps us awake at night, instead of the expectation of our master’s return, then our heart is with the things we worry about.
In his biography of Howard Thurman, Paul Harvey writes that Thurman developed a sustained argument for economic relationships and the role of private property. Thurman argued, “When property becomes sacred, personality becomes secular.”¹ We have long sacralized possessions and value them over people, which explains why our societies cater to those who have while they take away even from those who do not have.
And so while the question about the location of our heart is a personal one, it is also a corporate one, for it addresses the systems in which we live. That Jesus calls us to sell our possessions and give alms reminds us that God’s economy is redistributive. In a way, our passage looks ahead to 16:9 where possessions are not a value in themselves but are to be used to build relationships.
As we contemplate what it means to live in and under God’s reign we must not despair of the expectations placed on us, for we know that the God who calls us into this life is a God who persistently gives, not only the things that are essential to our physical life (see v.12:28ff), but Godself, and who with good pleasure gives us the kingdom.
Paul Harvey, Howard Thurman and the Disinherited, Eerdmans: 2020 Grand Rapids, MI, p 95