There Your Heart Will Be Also

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Lent is a time of turning toward God, a time of examining one’s life and planning toward the future. Lent is a journey. A journey that ultimately will take us to Easter. But before we get there, before we get to the celebration, we have to go to the cross. And before the cross, we have to travel in the wilderness for 40 days with Jesus.

What will we find on this journey? We have no answers yet. On Ash Wednesday we can only ask the question.

Part of getting back to God is to become as we all once were: vulnerable and powerless before the almighty. A striping away of all the extras . . . of all the treasures on earth.

Lent is a time for repentance. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “Repentance is an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness. Its motivations are remorse for the past and responsibility for the future.”

Remorse for the past and responsibility for the future. Could this possibly apply to us?



This lent we find ourselves in unprecedented times. Our whole country is figuring out what it means to live in these financial times: In fact, across the globe, all of those who are accustomed to money and financial power are figuring out what it means to live with less: less money, less security. Those who have always lived in impoverished nations already know what it is to do without, what it means not to rely on financial markets.

There is talk, in our nation, of repentance: of remorse for the past and responsible plans for the future. But there is also much blame, much doubt, much pessimism, and still, much greed. It is still remarkable, nevertheless, to hear criticism of greed and calls for responsibility and accountability in the market place. Many of us are indeed cutting back either because we want to heed the call to live simpler lives or because we can no longer retain the standard of living we once had. Some of us choose to repent, and others of us are forced into this attitude of penance.


Jesus tells us not to store up treasures on earth—not to consume ourselves with consuming material wealth. There’s a great distinction between goods and people. While not all material effects are bad, their purpose is to serve human needs, to give us nourishment, and shelter, even to help us celebrate in joy. But we are not meant to serve them: we are not here to have more “things” to have bigger and better, faster and fancier. Nor is our purpose to work so that others may enjoy the finer things, nor to infringe on the quality of life for others. We must consider the whole human cost of our lifestyes as well as the cost to ourselves.

Our recent downturn has demonstrated more clearly than perhaps ever before, just how interconnected, how interdependent we are with others around the globe. When one system fails, it causes many others to collapse. Perhaps this will cause a blow to our independence, a blow to our individualism, so that we may remember that we are all connected. And maybe we’ll remember that we can be connected in good ways too: in strength, beauty, kindness, grace, peace, love.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Our treasures must be those things that last: our hearts must live in treasures that cannot be taken from us and things that we cannot take with us. They must also not be the types of things that keep us from this journey of lent: that weigh us down and tether us tightly. We must be able to travel light.

As outlined in our gospel reading: we have three modes of travel for this season: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Give of your resources: your money, your time, your abilities, but not so as to earn praise from others, but in secret. Perhaps for us, this means an increase in financial giving, perhaps it means cutting back on one thing to be able to give more to something else. Maybe it means finding what we really need to live, instead of relying on the things that we think we need, and giving the rest to God.

Prayer. Again, not loudly or boastfully, but with humility, in secret. Our prayers this season are for repentance, for God to show us our sins and shortcomings, for God to show us who we are really meant to be, to help us find that way forward.

Fasting, not to receive pity for your piety, and certainly not to loose a few pounds. But fasting that reminds us that we truly hunger for God, that we rely on God for our very sustenance, that we do not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. In a land of abundance that we experience what it feels like to deny ourselves something, to know what it feels like for those who don’t have enough, to be in solidarity with the hungry, and to give praise to God when we have the food to end our fast.

For these things we will find reward on God’s terms. Done for the wrong reasons—for praise or material gain, we will gain nothing, no treasures in heaven, no spiritual depth, no riches for our hearts. For the season of Lent, none of us are forced to repent. We don’t have to go on this journey with Jesus to the cross. We can certainly say no. We can refuse the ashes of mortality and finiteness, humility and dirt.

In the words of Joel:
"Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"

Let it not be said of us: where is their God.

Amen.