Where your treasure is

Investment is an interesting concept. It wasn't until relatively recently (1545 in England) that making some money with your money was an accepted practice. Sure the blacksmith could "invest" in iron and make money selling horseshoes, but it wasn't that the local blacksmith was giving his money to the local farmer to buy seed in hopes of a return on his investment come harvest.

Reading Jesus' famous words on the value of money struck me today. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." I wonder if it really has to do with money the way we, consumerist as we are, read it to be. Did Jesus really equate wealth with treasure? I'm guessing no. I'm thinking that perhaps Jesus' sense of treasure had more to do with the whole of one's being.

As I invest the money I set aside to pay quarterlies in a high-yield interest account, I don't think of it as placing my treasure in ING's hands. I think of my treasure as my time, my relational energy, my love and affection. These things I place in important places. I give my time to my God, my wife, and my Church. I give my relational energy to the same. I give my love and affection right there too. That is where my treasure is, and by default (love, time, relational energy) my heart is there also.

I know I'll be preaching on the Feast of St. Claire. I know that her vow of poverty, along with that of St. Francis, is world renowned. I understand that Jesus did have something to say with how we use are money, but I have to imagine that he had a lot more in mind by treasure than an economic system.

Still, the lesson remains the same, doesn't it. I may not be giving ING my treasure and my heart, but I give it to a lot of things that are not needful of it. I give my time to the remote control as I channel-surf for a show I know isn't on. I give my love to thinks undeserving; material goods that in no way bring me closer to the man Jesus would have me be. I waste a lot of my treasure on things which are unnecessary thereby stretching my heart awfully thin. "Where your treasure is, there you heart will be also." Maybe it doesn't mean just money, but I still have a lot of work to do getting my treasures in the right places.