Wellspring UMC; Tenth Sunday after Pentecost; August 5, 2007: “The Heart Follows”:

Colossians 3: 1-4; Luke 12: 31-34

“If you’ve been raised with Christ, seek the things above...” “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The first phrase comes from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, encouraging the church to get focused. “YOU, brothers, sisters, have been raised with Christ, and because of that Truth, seek God’s way!” The second phrase comes from Christ, given in the context of letting us know that God’s greatest desire is for us to live in the Kingdom, so he says, “The focus of our lives and faith should be God’s Kingdom, and when we make that our focus, keep that central, then our hearts will follow.”

“If you’ve been raised with Christ, seek things above.” “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

As God worked on me this week I found myself joining these two phrases together to read, “Look to things above, then invest in those things, God’s things. When we do that, our hearts will follow, which is God’s ultimate desire.” Sounds nice and easy doesn’t it, and in fact, yesterday I typed out a nice and easy sermon, which was all ready for this morning, but deep inside I kept hearing that horrifying, frustrating word that can come to a preacher late Saturday afternoon...”But...”

Friday night my family went to Busch Gardens, and we had a great time. All of us had the opportunity to ride the rides we wanted to, and we even let the boys try their hand at winning a stuffed animal or two. It was great family time.

We rarely go into the stores, but since Caleb, my oldest, successfully road all 5 coasters, we thought it only appropriate to buy him a “Defy the Five” t-shirt. Caleb picked out his shirt, and Joshua a cool drinking glass. I hadn’t planned on our 2 year old, Anna, to get anything but wasn’t surprised when she made her way to a section of the store filled with “Princess Gear.”

They had Princess dresses, princess bracelets, and princess tiara’s. She was all excited, and handed me a tiara saying, “I want this.” But then she saw a Pirate hat. Yes, that’s right, from Princess to Pirate in a split second, and she said, “No, I want this.” So I put the tiara back, and headed toward the cash register, noticing that the hat was considerably more expensive than the tiara. But then, she stopped me again.

I turned around to see her hands, dug deep into a treasure chest filled with, what I call cheap plastic gems, but what she insisted on calling, “Precious Jewels.” She was digging deep, picking them up and letting them run through her hands. “Oh. Ah.” She loved them, and though a bag of these “precious Jewels” (worth about 50 cents to BG) would cost me 6 bucks, it would be less than the Pirate hat. So, I helped her fill a bag full of “Precious Jewels,” and we made the purchase with her happy as a clam.

On the way to the car she said, “Daddy, do you see my precious Jewels?” “I have precious jewels, aren’t they beautiful.” We got home, and she was still talking about them. In fact she loved them so much that when I walked upstairs, she was lying on our bed, swimming in her ‘precious jewels!’ As far as she was concerned, she was in the money, and everyone had to know it.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was struggling to figure out what God was calling me to share today, I thought of Anna’s precious jewels and began to wonder, “Did Anna’s passion for those precious jewels come from her heart, or does she really see and believe that they are treasures, thus leading her heart to be filled with Joy?” What struck me was just how difficult it is to distinguish whether the source of our passion comes from the heart or does the investment in the treasure lead our hearts to be filled.

So often we hear that phrase from Luke in reverse. We hear and live out a call that says, “Where our hearts are, there our treasure will be,” which is not what Christ said. Instead, he said, “The Kingdom of God is given to us when we invest in God’s treasures, when we live by God’s ways, and then our heart follows.” Christ says, “The Kingdom is found when we take the hard road. When we don’t go to Busch Gardens but serve at a homeless shelter, or when we don’t buy ourselves gifts at Christmas, but we give to those who are often forgotten.” “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

If I were to ask whether our hearts lead or follow, most of us would probably say, “Well it depends on the situation. There are times when what we invest in leads our hearts, such as when we are asked to be a part member of a committee in the church or serve on a Board in the community. When we invest in those things with our time or money, then our hearts follow. And yet I would guess that we would also say, “There are times when our hearts lead us to invest in things.” There are many examples for that, including being moved by a presentation then giving to help another, or seeing victims of a hurricane or a bridge collapsing and giving to the cause.” To both responses, I would say, “Yes, we do both, and both are important.” But what does that mean for us today to hear, “Look to things above, for where your treasure is, there your heart will follow.

Wellspring is a wonderful congregation. Our mission statement, “To care as Jesus cares,” is so appropriate, because this is a caring place. Part of that caring, and embedded in our mission, is heart. As a congregation we have compassionate hearts, which is a wonderful attribute, but what goes along with that is that we are also a congregation which can be emotional. Some of our greatest joys have come in following our emotions. Likewise some of our greatest struggles and most painful situations have come about because emotions were key to expressed dysfunction.

As I was thinking about my daughter’s acquiring of her precious jewels, those same questions of the source of her joy arose in light of where we are and who we are as a congregation and as individual members and friends of Wellspring. Does our heart lead to the Christ or do we allow Christ to lead us, thus capturing our hearts. “Where your TREASURE is,” Christ says, “there your heart will be also.”

We live in a society that is inundated with the notion, “If it feels good, then do it. If our hearts say, “Yes,” then that’s okay.” And yet at the same time we see the results of such thinking. From sexuality to poverty to environmental chaos, living by the ways of the heart is not always what it’s cracked up to be. We are a part of a world that is becoming more and more fragmented and individualistic, and as such what’s good for ‘me’ is not what is always best for society. The divorce rate remains high, wars are fought while leaders refuse to talk, and segments of society continue to divide into smaller and smaller pieces of the whole.

What gnaws at me about this Word today is that Christ says, “Look to things above, then invest in those things. That is, look to God’s things, live by God’s ways, and seek first the Kingdom of God, for in doing so, not only will the Kingdom be realized through us, but our hearts will be changed. Our hearts will follow our lives. Our hearts will follow God, and we will receive God’s ultimate desire for us, life with Christ.” And yet I don’t want to always live by those ways.

We don’t always desire Christ’s ways because if we invest in Christ’s ways, then we’d miss out on so much. We don’t always look to things above, because if we look up, we may miss something that everyone else is getting. We don’t always want to invest in God’s treasures, because if we do that, then there’s less for us. And yet, when we do invest in the Kingdom, when we do step outside ourselves, when we do seek God’s will and ways, then we are blessed in amazing ways.

Over the last 2 months, we have been seeking to give ourselves and what we have away. One could say that in fulfilling that call, we have been investing in the Kingdom. Did anyone find their heart moved to a different place? Anyone discover something new and different when we gave ourselves away? Anyone see things in a different way, experience life more powerfully? Anyone catch a glimpse of the Kingdom?

One of my good friends had a vision that simply would not go away. Some would call him crazy, and some are jealous of what he is doing, but my friend John is on the last leg of a 500 mile journey, walking to his home in Kalamzoo, MI from Sneedville, TN. A few years ago John was a computer programmer making good money, living the middle class life in Northern Virginia. He has been blessed, and yet, his life has not been that easy either. He’s been married numerous times, has recently declared bankruptcy because his business went belly up, and this past year came close to dying from a ruptured aorta.

Such life experiences should make one reflect upon life, but for many, I think they’d just count their blessings and keep pushing. These events for John, did move him to take account of his life and faith. His response was to begin investing in God and God’s work.

He continued to invest in the work of the church and branched out to do community work. He moved home with his mother in some part because of necessity but also to take care of her. But most amazingly, he responded to God, when God said, “When you go on that mission trip to Tennessee, walk home. I have some things to teach you on that 500 mile journey.”

Every week he sends out an e-mail to recount how God is working around him. Despite blisters that have sent him to the emergency room and having to hitch a ride for a third of the 350 miles he’s walked, I hear in his correspondence a warming of his heart.

I talked to him this week, and he said, “Do you know how beautiful God’s creation is?” Do you know how quiet it is when you’re walking a country road and no one is around?” And the stories he tells of who he is meeting and how God speaks through them, it is amazing. For me, when I hear his story, can hear Christ saying, “Look to things above, trust in me, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

When this vision first came to John he called me. He said, “I’ve had this crazy vision, and it won’t go away. God wants me to walk home from Sneedville.” We talked quite a few times as he was making the decision, and what was so inspiring to me was less the excitement of what he wanted accomplish in doing this, but he was focused on knowing that God needed him to do this. His response was more from obedience than it was from his heart.

As we come forward for communion today, I invite you to come seeking God’s treasure. Yes, the heart yearns for the spiritual food, but in this act, through Christ’s sacrifice we not only receive Christ’s treasured life, but we invest ourselves in Christ. We receive the food we need to live into the Kingdom, and as we do, our hearts follow, we are blessed, and God reveals to us the truth proclaimed so long ago, “strive for the Kingdom, and these things will be given to you...for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Amen.