A Reflection for Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.
But store up treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. (Matthew 6:19-21)
There is a temptation to simplify Jesus’ message in today’s Gospel to “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Whenever someone trots that out, I think about the comedian Daniel Tosh’s response: “Don’t you love that one? ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness.’ Do you live in America?” he asks. “Because it buys a waverunner. You ever seen a sad person on a waverunner?”
Still, you can’t take that waverunner with you. We all leave the world with the same number of earthly treasures. There is no tomb, no box, no cemetery that will remain untouched by the moths, decay and thieves of history and entropy. So Jesus’ point about not building up treasures on earth is well taken.
Yet all too often in the spiritual life we focus only on prohibitions: what not to do. There is another side to Jesus’ message. Don’t build up treasures on earth—but do store up treasures in heaven.
But what are the treasures in heaven that I store up? They aren’t our worldly possessions: not our baseball card collections, nor our kids’ artwork, nor our waverunners.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. Where do I want my heart to be in the afterlife? I want it to be with God. And like I think most of us do, I want to be with the people I love who have died, and will die.
I think I have felt glimpses of what heaven will be like here on earth. And I am never alone when it happens. Sure, staring off at a sunset on a solo hike is nice, but it does not compare to belly laughing with a group of friends, or breaking out the good wine with my wife, or telling my mother that she’s going to be a grandparent.
I believe that the community we build on earth will have some bearing on “where our heart will be.” Of course, I don’t know. But I know that my heart desires it. And I think it’s reasonable to trust that God will make good on that desire.
