Hello everybody. Thank you for taking the time to listen in to this podcast. If you are new to STC, this short recording includes a thought for the day, a Bible reading and a worship song. My name is James Brown – I’m part of the team here at STC and I’m taking on the daily podcasts from Alan Ward who did an incredible job last week. We continue to look at the Sermon on the Mount. This is Jesus’ outline of what he wants his people to live like in the world.

REFLECTION:

Today we’re looking at Matthew 6:19-34 but focusing on verse(s) 21-23: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.”

In this reflection we are talking about treasure. Ah ha! I hear you say. I don’t know about you, but as a parent, when I think of treasure I think of CBBC’s “Swashbuckle”. A firm favourite in our home. The premise is simple: a band of naughty pirates have stolen Gemma’s gems and a band of daring young adventurers are to win them back. We are big fans.

Gemma’s gems are obvious treasure. But are our treasures so obvious? Todays focus verse is sandwiched between a two part teaching on money. At first glance it seems oddly out of place. Like a tangent, much like my early Swashbuckle illustration. But these comments about the health of our eyes relating to the light in our body must have something to do with money because he talks about it before and afterwords.

I’ve heard this explained very simply. Money can blind us. We tend to know when we are doing other unhealthy behaviours. If we lie. We know about it. In most cases we make a conscious choice to do something that we know is not good for us. But few of us think that we have an unhealthy approach to money. If we find ourselves saying, “I don’t have a problem” … it could be likely we do. And unlike other unhealthy behaviours, money has a way of darkening our eyes, of hiding unhealthy habits in plain sight. And so we are being warned to keep a healthy eye on it.

When I was doing the training year at STC, my colleagues and friends, Alan and Helen Ward, taught on the unholy trinity of money, sex and power. Year upon year they got some serious feedback for their approach to these topics. It was great but, boy, did they ruffle some feathers. One of my big takeaways from listening to them share on money was that if we watch our bank accounts carefully it becomes really obvious where our treasure is, the thing our hearts want the most.

The best way to see what your heart wants the most is to follow the money. For example, verse 21 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Don’t let the simplicity of this phrase fool us. Let’s reflect together on what these words mean: If we want to know where our heart rests, if we want to know what our heart serves, what our real source of self-worth is: then watch where our money goes most effortlessly, most joyfully.

I don’t know about you, but for me it can just easily fly out of my bank account to those purchases. For me, it can be a variety of things. Sometimes my appearance; I do really like nice shoes. Sounds a bit odd to say on a podcast but it’s an image thing. If I don’t control it I could find myself spending a lot of money on shoes and my heart feels happy (or another vice is new coffee shops!).

What about you? Where is your treasure? Where do you find security or satisfaction? In saving for something in the future… that can be a way of control too. In appearance? In information, knowledge and art, like books, podcasts and films? Where – if we don’t look – does the money just go and what does that tell us about our Christian life?

It’s not all doom and gloom. If we recognise that we are disproportionately putting our trust in something that is not God,