Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 - Ash Wednesday - February 18, 2015         
Where Our Treasure Is

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  “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” 

There’s something about wise sayings that if you say them enough times and really think about them they stop sounding all that wise and begin to sound painfully obvious.  Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  A treasure is what you love.  You love with your heart.  So: Where what you love is, there is where you will love it.  It really is that obvious: Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  But this is what makes it so wise.  Because it isn’t readily obvious.  It needs to be told to us again and again before it sinks in.  Such a simple truth to which any child can say no kidding needs to be drilled into our heads because of how hardheaded we are.  The enigma of what Jesus says is not in the words themselves — Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also — No, the enigma is in the fact that sinners are so foolish as to think that they can treasure something without that something claiming their love and stealing their heart. 

Sinners think they can serve two masters.  But they can’t. 

A man thinks he can love his money, and then have it not affect how he regards those who work for him or who depend on him.  A woman thinks she can love her power of influence without it affecting how she regards her husband and head, or, for that matter, other women.  A young man thinks that he can love the beauty of women without it affecting how he sees his wife.  A young woman thinks she can love her worldly accomplishments without it affecting how she regards those who seem to get less done, or how she sees her children who keep things from getting done.  Sinners think they can balance their devotion to their stuff with their devotion to God.  But we can’t.  It’s all or nothing.  We cannot serve two masters.  There is the constant choice.  Obviously we must have priorities and balance all sorts of responsibilities.  But when it comes down to it, something is always simply more important than the other. 

Our natural reason and strength look for our treasure in all the wrong places.  Our hearts are tangled in a mess of ungodly and harmful desires that all seek to be our master.  Right after our Gospel lesson, our Lord Jesus proceeds to warn us against the false god of mammon.  Worldly possessions can capture our hearts and steal our souls like nothing else.  Yet our flesh is constantly striving to get what doesn’t last.  How foolish!  But no!  We need a greater treasure than earthly wealth.  We need what moth and rust cannot destroy and what thieves cannot break in and steal.  We need what we do not naturally seek. 

And yet if there is something that entices us even more than money and the stuff we spend it on, it is what Jesus warns us about in the words we just heard him speak to us a few moments ago: public respect, honor, notoriety, admiration.  We want other people to think highly of us.  This is the most enticing treasure.  Half the time this is the whole reason we want money in the first place.  Yeah, sure we can buy material pleasures.  That’s one perk of having money.  But material pleasures are fleeting.  And we kind of know it.  What we really want is to have what makes us look good.  We want to impress people and get them to think of us in a good way.  We want people to envy us and to know that we are just a little bit (if not a whole lot) better than they.  We want to convince ourselves, too, that we really have it all together – all our ducks in a row.  This is the greater temptation than mere wealth.  It comes down to pride.  This is the treasure of natural man. 

It was what the devil cherished more than the face of God.  He was self-important.  And it was for this reason that he tempted our first parents who were made in God’s image to turn away from God’s gracious face.  You will be like gods, he said.  You can be important too.  Even God will have to admit that you’re something worth commending.  

But being our own gods doesn’t pan out any better than having mammon as our god.  We disappoint ourselves just as surely as lots of money disappoints us.  We delight in ourselves until we leave ourselves betrayed and empty.  Moth and rust destroy our stuff, yes.  But greed and insatiable conceit destroy our souls.  We make pretty crummy gods.  So when we delight in ourselves, our hearts never really get what they desire.  The devil lied.  We are not like God.  Our hearts are left striving to have what they can never have.  We need what lasts.  We need Christ who died.  We need what God has offered for our eternal salvation and delight: the blood of him who now lives forever: 

One thing’s needful; Lord this treasure
Teach me highly to regard;
All else, though it first give pleasure,
Is a yoke that presses hard.
Beneath it the heart is still fretting and striving,
No true lasting happiness ever deriving.
The gain of this one thing all loss can requite
And teach me in all things to find true delight.

So here we come to another wise saying from Holy Scripture that when said over and over sounds just as obvious as the words of Jesus: “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).  But this is such high wisdom that it only looks obvious to a fool.  One might think that whatever you delight yourself in will fill your heart.  But it’s not true. 

The things that sinners delight in might seem to fill the heart.  But they only fill the heart with worry and resentment.  Oh, the heart is filled.  But not with what we want it to be filled with.  Pride breeds bitterness toward others who have more, indifference toward those who have less, and indignation toward God who seems to be holding out.  Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.  Very true.  But this does not mean that the heart will gain anything thereby.  A child who stares through a store window may never get what he covets.  A man who is addicted to pornography will never know true satisfaction.  A woman who competes with her husband for the right to rule will never rest content with mere so-called equality.  The quest will not end.  These desires only perpetuate a war within.  Such endeavors only occupy the heart enough to keep it from desiring what gives true rest and peace and lasting satisfaction. 

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  We need to know where our treasure is so that our hearts can be occupied with something worthwhile.  For this we turn to the word of God.  God fills our desires.  As the hymn puts it:

Hast thou not seen
How thy desires all have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

God grants what we desire where he ordains those desires to be met.  He gives us marriage, and there in our duties toward each other we find our true joy as God intends it.  He gives us family, and so likewise, with children’s duties toward parents and siblings, and parents’ duties toward children, we find joy that money can’t buy.  He commands us to work for our daily bread, and in honest labor we find the satisfaction of being useful as well as the opportunity to be charitable to others.  We find our desires fulfilled where and when we do what God created us to do.  Righteousness produces true joy. 

And God still grants such joy.  Marriage is still good, family is still wonderful, work is still useful.  But what makes these things not so delightful is not that God withholds.  It is that we are sinners.  We are not righteous in ourselves.  We cannot enjoy these things as we ought either because we worship the gift over the Giver or because we make these things the means by which we should be worshipped.  Our sin turns these things into idols and tools of iniquity.  And all because our hearts are in the wrong place. 

Dear God, we are in desperate need.  No part of our lives is unmarred by our own idolatry and lust.  Nothing you grant is unstained by our twisting and perverting it into something it should not be.  No gift delights our heart as it should, because no gift can cleanse our heart from the sin that dwells therein.  Have mercy, Lord. 

And thank God that he answers this prayer.  Thank God that he beholds in mercy his fallen and self-absorbed creation and offers us something that no amount of sin can defile.  He who knows no sin becomes sin for us.  And yet in his purity he remains unstained in order that his righteousness might be ours.  God gives his own Son to share in our flesh and blood, to know our misery, to be tried in every trial that burns us, to suffer every punishment that would leave us crushed and despondent.  And yet this Son of God does not despair.  This Son of God does not fall to the devil’s wiles, but holds fast to the Word that is our strength as well.  This Son of God does not curse his Father, but blesses him even as he bears in his body and soul the weight of divine wrath against all human sin and selfishness.  This Son who dies and rises and even now sits at the Right Hand of the Father is our lasting treasure, our one thing needful, our heart’s desire.  He is the Lord in whom we delight, because it is in him that we have the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life and inexpressible happiness. 

This treasure fills our hearts not with the dim sense of satisfaction and relief – so many things can do that if we put our minds to it.  No, this treasure fills us with himself.  He claims our sin and all that claims our hearts.  He takes it away and replaces it with the joy and confidence that only a true child can have toward his loving father.  He gives us a good conscience and the hope that attends it.  He who died and rose now fills our hearts and makes his home wherever this cry for mercy is expressed.  He has mercy.  He teaches us to ask for it in boldness and confidence.  He teaches us to seek him where he may be found – now in the acceptable time. 

It is as St. Paul writes by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and no doubt with his own earnest desire that we might take heed:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:1-4).   

And here we find Christ.  We find him above.  We find him where he is.  We find him in the secret place with the Father, which Jesus mentions in our Gospel lesson.  We find him by faith in his word.  “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  This means that faith grasps what cannot be seen.  It is hidden from those who seek their treasure in material things and in the social rewards of the world.  But for us who know the need – not to be praised by men – but to be accepted by God – ah, then this secret place is wide open to us.  What was hidden from the disciples on Sunday – the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus – is not hidden to us.  It is here where your sins are forgiven, where our Lord makes his abiding presence known and tangible in the Sacrament of the Altar, where our need is met and our life appears.  We find in this our treasure.  And so we find our hearts’ desire.  We find the love that God has for each one of us.  We find the reward of the righteous freely given to sinners like us.  

Dear Christian, our reward is in Christ.  And so we live our lives as Christians with him in mind.  Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.  Yes, it is true.  Yet he who became dust for us and tasted death as our Substitute, has borne the curse of old and reversed it into blessing.  He is risen from the dead to exalt our weak flesh unto his likeness.  This is our hope.  And so our hearts are free.  We are free to be charitable, knowing that he who loves us accepts our kindness as to himself.  We are free to ask for anything in prayer – whatever our hearts desire – knowing that he who pleads for us in the secret place will grant us what is best.  We are free to deny ourselves, to fast, to suffer want, to focus our hearts and minds with spiritual discipline – especially during this Lenten season – knowing that he who owns all things will see in secret and strengthen our reliance on him who is our treasure.  This is our eternal reward. 

Amen. 

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.” (Psalm 91:1-2)