Treasure Hunt

August 10, 2025 homily on Luke 12:32-34 by Pastor Galen

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” – Luke 12:34

A Treasure In a Landfill

For the past 12 years, James Howells has been trying unsuccessfully to gain access to his town’s landfill. He even offered to buy the landfill from his town, but to no avail.

It all started one day back in 2013 when James was cleaning out his office, and mistakenly threw away an old computer hard drive that contained the private key for the 8,000 Bitcoins that he owned. By the time he realized it, the hard drive had already been taken to the landfill and was buried under 25,000 cubic meters of waste and earth.

Now, I don’t really understand how Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies work, so it’s OK if you don’t either. The important thing to know, in order to understand this story, is that at the time, the piece of computer hardware that he threw away was essentially worth over 800 thousand dollars. Today, it would be worth over 800 million dollars! 

With that much money at stake, it’s not hard to understand why James has been seeking permission to dig through the landfill to search for his hard drive. He’s even developed an elaborate plan for how he would search for the hard drive if given the opportunity. It’s a plan that would cost about 8 to 10 million dollars, and would involve using artificial intelligence, a mechanical arm, drones, robotic dogs, and a team of people. Unfortunately for him, the town will not give him access to the landfill or even sell it to him, citing safety and environmental concerns.

…There Your Heart will Be Also

To me, this story illustrates Jesus’ teaching, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34). I’m going to venture a guess that James Howells rarely, if ever, thought about his town’s landfill until his valuable piece of computer hardware ended up there! But ever since he realized it was there, and ever since he knew how much money his computer hard drive was worth, there probably hasn’t been a single moment in which James Howells hasn’t thought about his town’s landfill. Ever since he realized that his treasure was buried in that landfill, his heart has been there as well.

Several years ago, I heard a sermon about “giving” that revolutionized my thinking about Jesus’ words here. The preacher pointed out that Jesus did not say “follow your heart,” or “give to the causes that you are passionate about,” as we hear so often today in our society. Instead, Jesus says the opposite. Where you treasure is, that’s where your heart will be.  Wherever we give or spend our money or time or resources, that’s what we will care about. For example, if you want to care more about a particular company, invest in its stock! I guarantee that whenever you hear that company’s name, your ears will perk up! Similarly, if you want to be the type of person who cares more about missions or feeding the hungry, then give to people and organizations that are doing those things, and your heart and prayers will follow.

Guarding against Greed and Worry

Jesus’ teaching in Luke 12:32-34 was prompted by someone in the crowd who wanted Jesus to convince his brother to share his inheritance with him. Hopefully, none of you have ever been embroiled in that sort of family dispute. It certainly sounds unpleasant!

But Jesus’s response was not to rebuke the brother who was refusing to share the inheritance, but rather he turned this into a teaching moment, warning everyone in the crowd to be on guard against greed, and reminding his listeners that life consists of more than an abundance of possessions. Jesus then went on to tell a story about a farmer whose land produced so much food that he didn’t know what to do with it. He decided he was going to tear down his smaller barns and build bigger barns to store all of his food. He planned to spend the rest of his life in luxury, surrounded by abundance, not knowing that his life was to be cut short, and all of the food that he had stored up for himself would either rot or be taken by others. 

Jesus then proceeded to tell his disciples not to worry about what they were going to eat, or wear, and he used the example of the ravens, who “neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them” (Luke 12:24). Jesus reminded his disciples that if God takes care of the birds of the air and even the grass of the field, then how much more will God take care of us!

And so in this section leading up to our text for today, Jesus is telling his followers to be on guard against the two things that can be a temptation for everyone when it comes to money and resources, no matter how much or how little we have: greed, and worry. And these two things tend to feed off of each other. When we have insufficient resources, we’re tempted to cling to the little bit we have and to look longingly at those things that we cannot afford. But even when we gain more wealth or resources, we’re still tempted to hold onto those things that we have, for fear that they might slip away and we might be left with nothing. 

But no matter how much or how little we have, we can rest assured that our Father in Heaven is looking out for us. God cares about us, and sees us, and God knows what we need. This doesn’t mean that we will never go through times of scarcity. In the Bible, the Israelites traveled through a desert wilderness where there was no food to be found, and yet God miraculously provided for them, providing water out of a rock, and manna from the sky, and even quails so that they could have protein to eat. Even in the desert, God provided for God’s people. Surely God can provide for us even in ways we least expect.

Where Your Treasure Is…

And so after being warned by Jesus to be on guard against worry and greed, we come to our Scripture text for today, in which Jesus tells his disciples, 

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:32-34).

For the apostles to whom Jesus was speaking, this instruction to sell their possessions was literal. Jesus was literally instructing them to sell what they had, and to give away the money, and follow him. Jesus didn’t want them to be encumbered by a lot of possessions, to try to haul a wagon of things around with them wherever they went. And he didn’t want them to be worried about leaving their possessions back home when he sent them out to preach the Gospel. 

For us today, we may not be called to sell all that we have and to travel around preaching the Gospel. Our call may be to invest deeply in the community where we live — to minister to the people who live next to us or across the street from us, the people we encounter at work or at school. 

But the same principles apply to us. Our possessions, our treasures, the things we own and accumulate, should never hold us back from serving Jesus. Our possessions are to be a means to an end, to help us live lives of hospitality and generosity in service of God’s Kingdom, rather than an end in and of themselves. Our treasure is not to be made up of things that we’ve accumulated on this earth, but rather we are to set our hearts on things above

If our hearts aren’t there already — if we don’t already care about the things that God cares about, then one way to align our hearts with God’s heart is to give to the things that God cares about.

Hearts that Continue to Grow

Recently, I was speaking with a family who used to attend our church and who still gives generously to support the ministry of our church. They said that for them, giving to the ministry of our church is an exercise of letting go. Letting go of not just money and resources, but also of power and control, since when they give to our church, they are entrusting us to use and steward their money wisely — to use it for the kingdom. They never attach strings to their giving, or tell us how it should be used — they just simply and faithfully send in their check every month as an exercise in letting go. And then the father turned to me and said, “Our hearts continue to grow for the ministry of Hampden United Methodist Church.”

This is exactly what Jesus was talking about here when he said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34). Would they still care about us even if they didn’t give? Perhaps. But something about the act of giving, the act of letting go, the act of entrusting their resources to this ministry has helped their hearts continue to grow, not just for us, but for God’s Kingdom.

Where is Your Treasure?

And so my question for you this morning is, Where is your treasure? Is your treasure buried in a landfill, along with so many of the things that you’ve worked hard to earn over the years, but have since become lost or obsolete? Are you constantly dwelling on the past, always lamenting and longing for those things you once had? Perhaps your treasure in your attic or basement? Is your life filled with things that you no longer need or no longer use, but you’re unwilling to part with them?

Or perhaps you’re constantly on the search for new treasures. Perhaps your life is consumed with worry and greed, and you’re always trying to accumulate more and more things because you believe that the more you have, the less you will need to worry.

But may I remind us that Jesus warns us to guard against worry and greed, and to store up treasures for ourselves in heaven — treasures that will never become lost or obsolete, or eaten by moths. One way we store up treasures in heaven is by letting go of those treasures we have here on this earth. Giving away those things that we no longer need, and sometimes even giving sacrificially of those things that we still want or need, because someone else needs them more. The act of giving is an act of letting go. And as counterintuitive as it may seem, the more we give away, the more stuff we let go of, the less stuff we have to worry about. 

A Free Gift

In closing, I want to point out that Jesus prefaces this section by saying that we should not be afraid, “for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). We do not give in order to get. We do not give our money or resources to the church or to charity or missions in order to gain salvation or earn God’s favor. Salvation is a free gift. Grace and mercy are free of charge, and there is nothing we can do to earn or merit God’s grace. Jesus has already paid the cost for us through his death on the cross. God our Father loves us and desires to give us these things, so we do not have to do anything to earn or achieve them. All we need to do is accept God’s free gift.

We do not give in order to get. Rather, we give as a response to what God has given to us. We give as an act of letting go — of worry, and fear, and power and control. We give and invest in God’s Kingdom because surely it is the best investment there is. And we store up our treasures in heaven so that our hearts will be there as well.

Amen!

Questions for Personal Reflection in Response to Today’s Sermon:

1. If someone looked at how you spend your money, time, and energy, what would they conclude is most important to you?
2. Is there something you feel God may be asking you to release or give away? How does that idea make you feel?
3. Which is a greater temptation for you right now—greed or worry? Why?
4. If you wanted your heart to grow for something God cares about, where could you begin investing your time, money, or skills?
5. In what ways can your giving be an intentional act of letting go of power, fear, or control?