A Social Studies teacher gives an assignment to a 7th grade class on the first day of school. The assignment is for the whole year. “Think of an idea to change our world and put it into action.” Most kids clean up a vacant lot, or do some recycling, nothing radical, but at least they get engaged with their world and that is the teacher’s point. But one child, Trevor, is special. He takes the assignment really seriously. Trevor has seen some stuff: his mom’s alcoholism and how they live on the edge financially. He sees the homeless folks who basically live in a deserted area near his home. He decides to change the world, one person at a time. He invites a homeless man to live in their garage, without asking mom’s permission, to give the man a second chance.
By now, if you didn’t figure out what movie this, Joe from our band did before this point in the sermon, we watched a clip now from “Pay It Forward”. We watch as Trevor’s mom finds the man, and confronts him. He is fixing her truck. Trevor has given him his life savings. That has given him a chance to buy shoes and clothes and with that, he has gotten a job. He has made himself homeless with a drug habit, but now, with this leg up from a kid. Now the man has an assignment.
Trevor’s idea, if you haven’t seen the film, is that he helps three people who need help. They then have to help three other people, not him. They have to pay it forward. So three people becomes nine, nine becomes twenty seven and as the man says as he explains the concept to Trevor’s Mom, “I’m not very good with math, but it gets big really fast”.
Now if you’ve see the film, you know that it’s not all sweetness and roses. It’s real human stuff. Some people do well with their blessings and others not so well. But the point is this, the assignment was to change the world, to make the world a better place, and there is no question that Trevor’s plan has that effect. Because here is the thing, the boy has a good heart. He loves his mom. You can see, that his mom, even with her struggles as an alcoholic, and as a single mom trying to pay the bills, she loves her son, and she is trying to do right by him. She has raised a boy with a heart big enough to want to give his life savings to give a homeless man a new start. That’s a big heart for a little boy.
“You put your treasure, where your heart is.” That’s what our scripture for today says. Show me where a person put their treasure and I’ll show you where their heart really is. Or to put it another way: The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.
Listen again to what Jesus said in his preaching; "Don't hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it's safe from moth and rust and burglars.” And then he sums it up: “You can't worship God and Money both.” Think about that again. “You can't worship God and Money both.”
Our collective mission here at The Village is to “follow Jesus and change the world.” Trevor certainly claimed the mission to change the world. We claim to do it in the name of Jesus. We have decided to live our lives in the Way of Jesus. We believe Jesus’ way of peace, justice and compassion is an excellent Way and so we have said “YES” we will commit our lives to this path, instead of the other choices out there. We are here today because we’ve chosen that path. So what does that mean?
Well, every now and then, we need to take a look and see if our actions match up with our stated values. Another way of saying it is this: “Are we putting our money where our mouth is?” It’s a phrase we use when we want someone to prove that they are really committed to something, isn’t it? We could say, put your TIME and your MONEY where your mouth is, because our time and our money show what we value. If I want to know what is most important to you, I need to see two things: your calendar, and your bank account. That will tell me volumes. Now, I could write an essay for you about the 5 most important values in my life, but until you match that up with how I spend my most valuable resources, my time and my money, you really would not know if I am serious about those values – or if they are just some pie-in-the-sky ideas about how I wish I might live my life. Maybe they are the values I think I should have, or that I think you want me to have, or that my mama wants me to have. But until you SEE how I spend my time and my money you don’t REALLY know what is important to me, do you?
So I could have you take out your calendars right now, and tell me how you spend your time and then we would know what we value. If we value you equality for the oppressed, or compassion for the poor, then how are we giving our time toward that? If we value deepening our relationship with God, then you are here today, that is great, but what else? You have 168 hours in a week. If we value you time with family and friends, or value our health, then are we making time for exercise. . . you see where I am going.
Then I could ask you to take out your family budget or your checkbook. Now I am really getting nosey. If Jesus were to sit down with us and look at how we spend our money, what would it show Jesus about what we treasure? What percentage of our money goes toward compassion for the poor and working for equality for people who are oppressed? We care deeply about those two things here at the Village. What percentage goes toward The Village Church so that we can be a welcome place and a healing place for people who want to find the love of God? One long accepted goal to strive for is the tithe. We give 10% of our money away to God, to our church and other charity and we keep the other 90%. It seems like keeping 90% for ourselves would be plenty. But very few people actually give 10% away. What does this say about our treasure?
It’s not easy to re-order our priorities. Kurt and I worked really hard to go from giving away about 5% of our take home pay to our church to about 10%, but it took us years to work up to that practice. It was a sacrifice for us to do that. And we had to pay off some credit card debt along the way. But finally, we got there.
It’s not easy for me to re-order my time commitments so that I take some time for myself to go to yoga class and care for my body, even though I treasure self care like we talked about last week.
But here’s the point: the world will tell us what values to have. Certain people will call us to particular values. Advertising will call us to values. We got a telemarketing call last night at the house that Kurt took. But we have chosen to follow Jesus and his values for us. It is a free choice. I would argue that it’s the best choice. But if we are going to make this choice – then let’s take it seriously, like Trevor took seriously that class assignment. If we’re going to follow Jesus, let’s don’t just do it half way.
Where is your treasure? Where are you putting your precious resources of time and money? And what are the places that each one of us do not line our time and money with the way you think Jesus would want you to use them?
Now, if you are in financial debt and you are in over your head, you may need some help. There is a course, called the Financial Peace University that we are going to offer later this year that some other churches have offered. It’s a great class to help folks get a hold of their finances and get out of debt using good financial principles and Christian values. Several people in our congregation have used it and seen amazing results. One even was able to use it to pay off $17,000 in medical bill debt. If you are someone who would like to help other people, or who needs help, would you let me know that you will help with this class.
If you want to talk more about the challenges of living as Jesus’ followers day to day, then come to Bible study on Monday nights. Tomorrow night we will talk about this scripture in particular, and I will be leading the class, as Pat is out of town.
My challenge for you today is this. Consider this question. Where is your treasure? And does it match up with your where you want your heart to be? If you want to consider this more deeply, later today or tomorrow, get out your calendar, and your financial records, and take a close look at what they tell you about your treasure. And then pray over them. And ask God, “how you are doing?” God will tell you. And then let God show you your next step. It’s all about taking the next step closer so that our treasure and our hearts are together.
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