Proper 14C                R. Lundquist                                             8/12/05       

Genesis 15:1-6   http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=54025928

Luke 12:32-40   http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=54025959

“Where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third book in CS Lewis’ 7-volume Chronicles of Narnia, there’s the story of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, a boy with a name who “almost deserved it.”  He has a real bad attitude, he’s manipulative, and uses others to get what he wants.  One day he sneaks away from the other children, in order to avoid chores.  He falls asleep in a cave, on a mound of gold & jewels, and he undergoes a rather disturbing transformation.  He awakens near an underground lake…

“As Eustace bent towards the water, he thought for a second that yet another dragon was staring up at him out of the pool.  But in an instant he realized the truth.  That dragon face in the pool was his own reflection…  He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep.  Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”

The intentions of the heart have a way of become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Jesus also said:  God’s treasure is with us, with you and me.  So don’t be afraid – God wants to give you everything, the kingdom, everything that is!  Be ready.  The Christ is coming – so be ready.   Last month I told the story of the preacher who, having been asked to pray for rain at a town-wide revival, chastised the faithful for failing to bring their umbrellas.  Be ready.  Expect an answer to your petitions.  Bring your umbrella when you pray for rain. 

We’re too often distracted, busy w/ mere details of life.  We can find ourselves like the King in Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll:

            “I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.

            “I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone.  “To be able to see Nobody!  And at that distance too!”

A case of treasure and heart invested unwisely, focused on the mundane and minutia, looking for Nobody from a distance…

The God who has given us the kingdom is a generous God.  Abram learned of God’s generosity.  God promised him land, but Abram replied, saying, “What good is land if I have no offspring?”  So God promises Abram and Sarah the impossible – descendants as numerous as the stars from the ancient bodies of this elderly couple.  We are among them, children of Abraham – Jews, Christians and Muslims – offspring of the promise.  God’s generosity.

The only problem with God’s generosity, says Jesus, is our inability to recognize it!  A friend of mine loved this story so much that he began his book with it – it seems Farmer Brown lived way back in the hills, tending a subsistence acre, still plowing with a mule and a till.  One day a fancy car drives up the dirt road, and a man in a 3-piece suit got out and approached him.  “Farmer Brown?”  The farmer new even slowed down.  The man got in front of the mule and said, “Farmer Brown, I’m a lawyer hired to come give you important news.  Your name isn’t actually Brown, it’s Gates.  And your cousin Bill wants you to have a share of his treasure, an early inheritance if you will.  Come with me and we’ll get the details worked out.”  Well even the mule didn’t believe it, and started pulling the plow, nearly flattening the lawyer.  They say the farmer still lives on his small meager farm, without his true name or his inheritance.  He’s still plowing himself into a rut…

All too often we can live without our true name and inheritance.  “It’s your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  You are God’s heir.  So how do you respond to God’s generosity?  Jesus put it this way:  Sell your stuff and give to the poor.  Focus on heaven – not the “pie in the sky when you die” place, but heaven here on earth, which is living in awareness & presence of God’s love in each and every moment.  This is where to place your treasure. Your heart will follow.  And be ready to receive God’s messenger, your savior.

“Be rich toward God.”  We heard that in last Sunday’s Gospel lesson as Jesus taught his followers about discipleship.  It’s a two-way street, this Generosity Boulevard.  We say, “God’s Church has a mission.”  We sometimes think and talk that way, about the glorious things we do for God.  And we do -- St Paul’s mission and  ministry is a vital part of this community’s fabric.  Together we do good things!  And we catch glimpses of God’s kingdom.  The veil between heaven and earth grows thin at times, and we remember Jesus saying, “The kingdom of heaven has come near to you this day.”  “God’s Church has a Mission.”  But it’s much more accurate to say:  “God’s Mission has a Church.”  That puts the focus on God.  We, you and I, are that Church, the Body of Christ on Earth.  Paul wrote “We are treasures in earthen vessels.”  That is, we are divine gems in flawed, imperfect containers.  We hurt each other in so many ways, with words & actions.  That’s the very moment when we’ve got to dig deep for the treasure, the Godly inheritance, moving past the cracked pots, our broken shells.  Generosity – of spirit, of words, and of actions – reflects God.

“Invest where neither thief nor moth will assault.”  Now is the time to invest, or re-invest, in St Paul’s.  Withholding the gifts of your presence and your treasure will only damage this part of the Body of Christ.  Now is the time to strengthen the church you love, to do even more (not less) so that we may have the resources needed to do the tough work of turning our entire energy back to God’s Mission.

For the Christ is coming at an unknown hour.  Be ready, then, to serve and be served:

 by the only One who can bring forgiveness and reconciliation,

 by the only One who can bring wholeness and completion,

by the One who knows you and loves you beyond all belief & understanding.

            Amen.