Luke 12: 32-40
August 12, 2007
The Rev. James Richardson
Interim Rector, All Soul’s Parish

What do you hope for? Where do you want your heart to be?

Good morning. This is my fourth Sunday with you, and it feels very good to be in one place for awhile. Thank you for making that possible, and thank you for the warm welcome you’ve given me.

For the past year, I have been on a journey from congregation to congregation, and I feel a bit like Abraham and the nomads mentioned in the Epistle who have “set out for a place” together. I’ve been serving in a variety of congregations, and I’d like to tell you about one them this morning – Holy Trinity Church in Willows, California.

Willows, for those of you who may not have been there, is a small farming community in the northern end of the Central Valley. Holy Trinity has only one service on Sunday – at 10 a.m. – and I checked around town, and no church starts before 10 a.m. The reason church never starts early is people have chores to do before they come to church.

In some ways, Holy Trinity is very traditional. The old, white wooden church was built in the 1920s, and the vision statement is embroidered on a sampler inside the front door. The women make sandwiches and cook pies for the social time after church and the men have rough, calloused hands from their work.

Now, before you think this is out of some kind of a nostalgic Norman Rockwell painting, I want to mention one curious thing. The church has an electronic organ, but not just any electronic organ. This organ has a computer chip with the hymns programmed. A guy sits in the back with a remote, and punches in the hymn number, and we sing “Rock of Ages.” I call it the karaoke organ. (Christopher, you have nothing to worry about!)

Please don’t think I am making fun of them. These folks are not afraid to break the mold, and it is deeper than the karaoke organ. Holy Trinity is a church that has had not one, but two women rectors in their history – they’ve called women priests long before many other supposedly progressive congregations. They are exploring new ways of doing ministry that is not dependent on clergy, and they are really leading the way.

I hold up the church in Willows for a particular reason. The people in Willows have taken seriously the question that Jesus poses to us today:
Where do you want your heart to go?
Where do you want your heart to go?

Do you notice something, well, rather odd about the gospel passage today? Jesus does NOT say put your treasure where your heart is. That would be too easy. Instead, Jesus puts it the other way around: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Where do you want your heart to go? Put your treasure there, and your heart will follow. This is really a call to transformation, to change.

Where do you want your heart to be? Jesus tells us how to make that change. Put your treasure there. If you want your heart to be somewhere, put your treasure there first. Your heart will follow. Where do you want your heart to go? That, I would suggest, is the most important question facing All Souls Parish in the next year and in the years beyond.

As a congregation, you are opening a new chapter in your life together. You are getting immersed in all of the details of choosing a new rector and the details of the ministries you hope to pursue. As immensely important as all of that is, let me suggest that those are the details of the heart. Where do you want your heart to go as a congregation? What do you really want to be about? This transition time is the time to reflect and ask: Where do you want you want your heart to go?

That might even be the most important question facing each one of us as individuals. It doesn’t get more personal than that. Most of us, I would venture, have our heart in many places – with family and friends, with people we love, and people who are gone from us. Many of you have your heart in All Souls parish, at least I hope you do. Or, maybe this is the first time you’ve ever been here, and there is something in your heart tugging you to be here. If you really want your heart to be here, put your treasure here. Your heart will follow your treasure. Well, you might ask, what is my treasure?

It is many things – it is your time and your talent and, yes, your money. Your treasure is the sum total of your life – the life God has given you. And that means how you spend your treasure isn’t just a financial issue; it is a spiritual issue. How you spend your time is not just an issue of your calendar. It is a spiritual issue. What you do with your talent isn’t just a career issue; it is a spiritual issue.

Let put this another way: What is it that you pray? Think of prayer as everything you say, everything you do, every dime you spend, every moment of your life. What is it that you pray by what you say, by what you do, and by how you spend your money? Your prayer is more than what you do here on Sunday. Going to church once a week is what our culture thinks of prayer, if it thinks of it at all.

But think of everything you do as a prayer – as the conversation you have with God every moment of your life by how you live your life. Think of every penny you spend as a prayer. What is it you are praying by how you spend your money? We often talk of prayer as a special time set aside for reflection, meditation and worship on Sunday. And yes, that is hugely important in the spiritual journey. But if we detach what we do on Sunday from the rest of our week, then that prayer then it is very meager prayer.

What is it that you pray by how you lead your daily life? You will know where your heart is by where you put the treasure of your life. Where do you want your heart to be? Put your treasure there. All of us – every single one of us – can transform our hearts because every single one of us has treasure from God that we can put where we want our heart to go.

I want to lift up of an example of some extraordinary people who put their treasure where they wanted their heart to follow. These people are right here in your midst – the young adults and their chaperones who went to New Orleans to help those whose lives were upended by Hurricane Katrina. Our young people raised $11,000 – including money out of their own pocket – so they could have the privilege of spending a week doing grimy work and sleeping on the floor of a church. Those of you who contributed to their mission trip put your treasure where you want your heart to follow.

The people in New Orleans were not the only ones changed by your gifts – you were changed by your gifts because, I will venture, your heart followed your generosity.

I am discovering that this congregation is blessed with many gifts and much abundance. God is very generous with this congregation. The abundance shows in the commitment people at All Souls have to sharing their time, talent and treasure to do God’s work here and in the world. All Souls has a heart – and that brings us around to the question Jesus us:

Where do you want your heart to go? Put your treasure there.

Amen.