Today I am preaching from Matthew 6:19-24. This small text from the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount provides guidance for life–and is about more than our money. This is a text about life.
In preaching and in life, few tasks are more difficult than discerning what matters, what is important, and to what we are called. We are surrounded by the siren songs of multiplied missions, opportunities, numberless challenges, and pressing needs. What shall we do? Where shall we spend our time? The trivia of the urgent often finds actuality impoverishing possibility.
To turn from the trivia of the urgent to the priority of the essential is a first step toward wisdom. In life, there are plenty of opportunities to spend our money, cut an ethical corner, and do our own thing.
Trust and treasures—where we spend our money
Wisdom literature sharpens our focus and defines our priorities. In ministry, I must ask myself, where is my focus–on Jesus or on self? What shall I think about? tomorrow? next Sunday’s sermon? For ministers, this is a special problem, for our tomorrow is often intimately wrapped up in “kingdom things.” My very life is “kingdom things”–at least I can rationalize it so. Can I really be focused on kingdom things if I am not focused on Jesus Christ, the king? Can I really be focused on kingdom things if I am relying upon my own abilities to get my tasks done?
Everyday life presents the same challenge for every one of us. Dependence and trust lets go and lets God. We can only store treasure in heaven when we see the temporary nature of this world and decide that storing up things here is ultimately foolish.
Trust and tactics—law and ethics
How will I get it all done? Ministry is always a place for dependence and a time for trust. Where can I find refuge, focus, direction, priority? Jesus says such are kingdom issues (Mt. 6:33-34). In ministry as in life, our answers are in the kingdom matters, not in the material world.
Merely quoting the verses provides no panacea. The passage demands interpretation, because Jesus responds to our questions with the same words, “Seek first kingdom things.” Can following Jesus really be that demanding? Are priorities really that important? What price are we willing to pay—even to compromising our own ethics? If law and wisdom merge in Jesus’ sermon, we must see that the ethics of the law have not been removed—they have been exalted to a higher place where they are no longer an exterior concern but an interior reality.
Trust and tasks—doing my thing or God’s things?
My task is not to identify your kingdom things. My task is to remind you that all of life is in finding your one thing–“your kingdom things”–and pursuing it. Pursue it according to your talents, abilities, inclinations, personality, preferences, and opportunities. But pursue it trusting in God’s power, not your own. Find your kingdom role; seek God’s power to fulfill that role. To say, “don’t worry about what you cannot do–do what you can do” raises the wrong issue. Today I will seek God’s will and God’s way by God’s power, for today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. That is trust.