Word to the Wise
Friday, June 20, 2008 - Friday in the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Kings 11:1-4, 9-18, 20 and Matthew 6:19-23]For where you treasure is, there also will your heart be.
I may have mentioned this experience here before but it illustrates Jesus' words above so well that I hope my congregation will bear with me. When I was in campus ministry at the University of Arizona, we sponsored three retreats each academic year. The third retreat usually took place in February and that is the one I usually signed up to lead. My reason was based on the tendency for students to be making important decisions about the future around that point in the academic year. There was an "exercise" that involved handing students some slips of paper on which they wrote down their five most important possessions, five most important activities and five most important persons in their lives. Then, sitting in a circle, they were each to decide in which order they would be willing to give these up. With each decision, they would crumple a slip of paper and throw it into the middle of the room. By the end of the exercise, there would be tears flowing all around. The challenge to determine where one's treasure (and therefore one's heart) lies is not easy. The incredible variety of material and personal options as well as activities (at a big state university) could be overwhelming. Other people have told me of the experience of finding out they have a potentially lethal illness and how that focuses attention on what is truly important - where the heart truly wishes to be. The Sermon on the Mount offers a similar challenge. Jesus warns us about a divided heart between material matters and serving the kingdom. The compromises we all make seem reasonable at the time until we discover how "things" can fail us and leave us empty. The bottom line might be characterized by the old statement: "You vote with your feet." Our conduct tells us and the world where the treasure, and therefore the heart, is, no matter how we may protest otherwise. Taking stock of this may be one of the most important spiritual "exercises" we ever do. AMEN
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