Where Your Treasure Is

In Luke 12:32-40, we are again confronted with questions about our priorities, our orientation, our focus. Are we oriented towards God, or towards the pursuit of things that are not of God? “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (v. 34).

A couple of weeks ago, in the sharing about Emmaus, Armidale Congregation was reminded of the importance of facing up to our real priorities: where our money, time and energy actually goes, not where we think it goes, or want it to go, but where they are actually directed, and what that means for what is our real focus in life? On Sunday 22 August, we’re going to focus on Stewardship from Thanksgiving. We’ll share lunch, give thanks for God’s work in the life of our congregation, and re-consider our own priorities.

In creation, God calls us to be stewards of the resources of creation. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God invites us to be partners in healing and reconciliation, stewards of God’s grace. The Spirit works within the people of God as God’s stewards for the benefit of all creation.

If we experience stewardship as acting out of guilt or fear, then we may as well not bother: guilt and fear are not our calling in God. If stewardship is an act of thanksgiving for God’s gracious gifts to us in creating, reconciling and sustaining us as God’s people, then we just might be part of God’s building of a new commonwealth of justice and peace in our world.

So what is it that you are thankful for in your life, the life of the people of God, the life of the world? And do your real priorities reflect your thankfulness; or are they directed towards the “musts” and “shoulds” of other people’s “priorities” and preoccupations?

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (v. 32). Focus then on the things that are of God: the good creation; reconciliation in Christ; and the gift of the Holy Spirit enfolding us into very life of God. Your priorities, your real priorities will follow this focus as you celebrate the life we have in God.