In the risen Christ, I am being given a whole new way to walk, a whole new way to talk, a whole new way to see, a whole new way to operate as I go through the days that God gives me on this earth.  We are talking about living in a kingdom of God orientation, which means a radical re-orientation of our hearts.  We talked about things getting shaken up on Good Friday and Easter Sunday in the death and life of the risen Jesus.  (He is risen! He is risen indeed!) Last week, we talked about how such an orientation affects our relationships with other people in terms of honour and insults, and slights, and retaliation, and enemies, and actively seeking peace and good for everyone.  This is what we’re talking about: our relationship with stuff and money.  Let’s ask for God’s help as we look at Jesus’ words for us today.

These are Jesus’ words for us today.   If you ever wonder or anyone has ever asked you what kind of relevance a book written thousands of years ago might have for today.  Consider these quotes starting with a current world leader: “This is a great time to get rich, richer than ever before.”  “We’re going to become so rich, you’re not gonna know where to spend all that money.”

“Love?  Love fades away. But things?  Things are forever.” Aziz Ansari as Tom in Parks and Recreation, 2013

“Lunch is for wimps.”  “Greed is good.”  Michael Douglas as Gordon Gecko in Wall Street 1987

“They do not rejoice in what they have, no matter how much it is, so much as they lament what they still lack.  Their soul is eaten away with cares as they compete in the struggle for success.” St Basil the Great, 4th cent

“Wealth, even without its own altar, is the most honoured God among the Romans.”  Roman poet Juvenal, 2^{nd century}.

Into the midst of this speaks Jesus.

“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 thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Someone has said that being a disciple of Jesus, learning Jesus, is to be cultural atheists, “disavowing the myriad gods of popular life.”  I was speaking recently about prophetic action, and I’m feeling this!  Maybe the beard has me feeling more prophet-like.  I heard or read once (I’m sure I didn’t dream it) of a preacher who stood in front of the church, took out a $100 bill and burned it, saying, “We reject your gods!”  I decided not to do this, what with the fire code and thinking, “Well, that $100 could have been given away.”  The point is well made, though the question is ever before us.  What do we treasure?  In what or whom do we trust?  Do we treasure our TFSAS, chequing accounts, real estate, and safety deposit boxes?  Not that there’s anything wrong with any of these things, of course.  The love of them becomes a problem.  Trusting in them for our well-being and for our good becomes a problem.

We are confronted in this passage with two very different views of things or money.  What does conventional wisdom have to tell us about money and stuff, and where is that getting us?  The question that Jesus is putting before us is one of allegiance.  What do we treasure?  We are talking in these Eastertide weeks about a re-oriented heart – the centre of our will and volition, the centre of our being.  He’s talking about his followers living with a kingdom orientation, and he’s using language to shake us up.  Language that asks us to imagine what living with a kingdom orientation that might look like.  This is what we want.  When we pray “Your kingdom come,”  part of what we mean is “right here!” (points to heart)

We talked about Jesus speaking of antitheses last week – You have heard that it was said/but I say to you. “Opposites.  Here, Jesus lays out the difference between treasuring money/stuff on one hand and Kingdom of God values on the other.  Jesus speaks of two treasures, two types of eyes, and two masters.

“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.”

What do we treasure?  Someone has said that nothing enslaves more than that which we think we cannot live without.  What is the thing that we think we cannot live without?  “What are we striving for here?” asks Jesus.  Things that get eaten by moth or rust?  Things that may be stolen or lose their “value” when the bottom drops out of the market?  Things that in the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Jesus (and we must never forget who is speaking these words) take on eternal significance?  Grace.  Mercy.  Open-handed living.  Forgiveness.  Compassion.   Note too that Jesus is not saying where your heart is will determine what you treasure, but that where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be.  The question for us is “What do we treasure?”

Next, Jesus speaks of the healthy eye versus the unhealthy eye.  The sound eye versus the unsound eye.  The single eye versus the unsingle eye.  “The eyes are the lamp of the body,” Jesus says.  He’s reflecting an ancient idea that people saw because of light which came from the body and out of our eyes.  The idea is that living in a Kingdom orientation means that what we see is illuminated by the light of Jesus, which is life.  We talked last week as seeing everyone we encounter in the light of God’s love – people who are made in the image of God and loved by God.  This means not seeing or valuing people by how much money they have.  This is completely antithetical in a world that so often judges people as units of production and consumption and values them accordingly.  The other way to see this is to think of the eyes as windows to the soul.  Let our eyes be healthy or single or sound.  Let our eyes be windows into a soul that that undivided and lit up by the love of God. divided heart, this is lit up by the love of God.

I say undivided because you gotta serve somebody, and you can’t serve two.   NHL and NBA playoffs are on right now for those interested. If a player is traded and the team that traded him or her meets their new team in the playoffs, it can not be a question of divided loyalty for that player.  You can’t serve God and wealth.  The quest that should govern our lives is the quest for God’s reign in our lives and God’s reign in the world.  Lord, help us to be undivided in our loyalty to you and your kingdom and service to you and your kingdom.  Oftentimes, it’s the prophets who speak most bluntly and pointedly.  We remember John the Baptist and his “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”  We remember the words of the prophet Elijah and what great imagery this is, and these words were not just meant for the people of Israel – they’re meant for me and they’re meant for you: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him.”  How long will we go limping with two different opinions?  If the LORD is God, then follow him, but if wealth, follow it.  God grant us the will to follow and the will to make our following of Christ look like something different in our lives.  It is not for nothing that Jesus talks in a parable about the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choking the word of God.

Speaking of cares, we have this lovely passage, which I hope puts us right in the middle of the scene as Jesus speaks on the side of that Galilean mountain.  They say it’s good for us to be out in nature, and no wonder.  The truths that we are able to grasp more deeply in God’s good creation.  I like to think that Jesus pointed to birds or maybe even one bird that was flying about, maybe landing near him.  I like to think that Jesus pointed to the wildflowers that were growing around where he and the people were sitting.  Jesus wants to shake us up.  Jesus wants to stir our imaginations.  It can be hard in the city to be reminded of God’s providence and care for nature.  I hope we can get to some grass or a park if we’re able.  Single-hearted devotion to God and service to God lead to trust in God. Listen to the words:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,[a] or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look 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? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?[b] 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But 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?

You of little faith.  We remember those words spoken to Peter as Jesus was holding onto him on the stormy sea.  I think we can hear those words spoken gently to us from the one who said he is gentle and humble in heart.  I hear those words spoken with a lot of compassion as Jesus says, “Look around!”  You want to worry about what you’re going to eat?  Look at these birds that the Father feeds.  Are you not of more value than them?  Remember that not one such bird falls to the ground outside the Father’s care.  You want worry about what you’ll wear?  Look at the beauty of these flowers and know that no designer could make a dress to compare.  Seek the kingdom first and its righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  We’re never left alone in these commands.  This is not something Jesus is calling for us step into through our own wills.  Like the non-retaliation and love of those who may seek us ill that was commanded last week, this striving for and allegiance to the reign of the risen Christ above all else is impossible for us to do on our own.  Someone has put it like this:

“Possessed by possessions, we discover that we cannot will our way free of our possessions. But if we can be freed, our attention may be grasped by that which is so true, so beautiful, we discover we have been dispossessed. To seek first the righteousness of the kingdom of God is to discover that that for which we seek is given, not achieved.”

Or as I would put it – We are able to do what is beyond us because, in Christ Jesus, God has done something for us which was beyond us.  God has brought us back to himself.   God has forgiven us.  In Christ, God calls us his children.  Jesus calls us brothers and sisters.

The call not to worry or be anxious is not about situations like clinical or chronic depression or anxiety.  Someone has put it like this:

“What is being prohibited is the energy-draining, chronic, paralyzing anxiety that is futile and even self-destructive. Not only does it not “add a single hour to your span of life” (Matt. 6:27), it sucks the life right out of you. It shortens lives and makes what life we do have a fretful misery. Instead of expending ourselves in needless, unproductive, debilitating anxiety, we are invited to trust in God and seek first God’s reign and righteousness.”

There’s another way to know life in Jesus.  Jesus is not saying don’t plan.  He’s not saying don’t look after others because God will.  He’s not saying don’t work.

He’s saying, remember what’s first.  Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things will be given to you as well.

Let us not miss the moments that we are in and have them ruined by fear of an unknown future.  You might consider that a banal platitude, but as David Foster Wallace once said, “in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance.”  Life or death.  Blessings or curses.  God or wealth.  The choice is before us every day, my friends.  We’re talking about a radical reorientation of our inner being.  We’re going to come to the table now, where the invitation to meet the risen Christ is here, as his body is not dependent on how much we can afford.  The price of admission has been paid.

This will be the last time we look at the Sermon on the Mount for a while, but do read it over and come back to it.  Let us be people who strive for, who seek after poverty of spirit, gentleness, mercy, justice and righteousness, peace, reconciliation, faithfulness, truth, love even for those who hate us, fellowship with our Father.  That we may be children of our Father in heaven.  All of this in and through the one who loved us even unto death, who is risen, who is with us, whose Spirit lives in us, who is coming again to make all things new.  Thanks be to God for the indescribable gift of Son and Spirit, through whom we have peace.

Amen, and peace be with you all, dear friends.