Where your treasure is . . .

Father Stephen Freeman's third answer to the question, How should we live?

...refuse to make economics the basis of your life. Your job is not even of secondary importance.

 This is truly the American temptation, I suppose. We tend to define success by profitability, followers, or the ability to monetize our gifts and talents. Is that a lonely voice I hear crying out in the wilderness? Tell that guy to get a job!

Of course the Bible addresses all this fairly often. Perhaps most famously in the "Parable of the Rich Fool."

One of the multitude said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" He said to them, "Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man's life doesn't consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses." He spoke a parable to them, saying, "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth abundantly. He reasoned within himself, saying, 'What will I do, because I don't have room to store my crops?' He said, 'This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. I will tell my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry."' "But God said to him, 'You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

And of course:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

 The question at hand is of course broader than the love of money. The question at hand is, what are you treasuring? It may be economic well-being (that sounds so much nicer than "love of money," does it not?), or it may be political power (even if it's just "owning the libs" in your latest tweet). It may be winning the approval of men or sexual gratification or having the biggest truck on the block, the most weed-free yard, the cushiest vacation.

To follow Jesus must always entail the proper evaluation of worth and priority. We tend to do this well when it comes to other people and poorly when it comes to ourselves. Am I taking an eternal perspective only when it costs me nothing, yet subduing the message of the Kingdom when there is a discernable cost?

Rembrandt's "Parable of the Rich Fool"