In one of his popular teaching sessions, Jesus told his disciples to store up for themselves “treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). As children we all liked a good treasure story or a fun treasure hunt. Who wouldn’t like to find a treasure chest in the attic or discover buried silver coins on an abandoned island? Many of us remember the classic novel Treasure Island by Robert Louie Stevenson.
Seeking treasures on earth is one thing, but storing up treasures in heaven, how would you do that? Where is heaven, anyway?
Making sense of Jesus’s words
Assuming Jesus is not just spinning a fairy tale when talking about storing up treasures in heaven, there must be a way of making sense of his words. But how?
We might begin by observing that in the same context where Jesus exhorted his disciples to store up treasures in heaven, he also told them not to store up treasures on earth (Matthew 6:19). And why would that not be a good idea? Because, as Jesus says, earth is where “moth and rust destroy,” and where “thieves break in and steal,” whereas heaven is the place where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal (6:20).
We are familiar with the uncertainties of the stock market and the employment market. Here today, gone tomorrow. Sometimes even big banks collapse (some of us remember the 2008 crash of the New York mega bank, Lehman Brothers, the bank that couldn’t fail). By contrast, Jesus says the bank in heaven will never fail. Which raises the question, How, then, do you lay up treasures in heaven’s bank? Heaven feels like a long way away. Or is it?
Treasures as practicing kingdom values
In the context of Jesus’s teaching, “heaven” does not stand so much for a particular place as for the sphere of God’s rule, otherwise referred to as “the kingdom of heaven,” or “the kingdom of God.” In other words, storing up treasures in heaven is simply another way of referring to a life lived in conformity with the values of the kingdom of God.
What are those values? Several of them come to the fore in the Sermon on the Mount. For instance, according to the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-10, they imply, among other things, humbly recognizing one’s own poverty of spirit, as well as standing up for justice and righteousness, even in the face of persecution (Matthew 5:3,10).
Elsewhere Jesus explains that those values entail being salt and light in the world (5:13-16), ready to turn the other cheek (5:38-39), loving one’s enemies (5:43-48), sharing with those in need (6:2-4), praying for the kingdom of God to come and ready to do God’s will (6:10), forgiving others (6:12-15), refraining from worldly anxiety (6:31-32) and corrosive criticism of others (7:1-5), doing to others what you would have them do to you (the command that “sums up the Law and the Prophets,” 7:12) and, as if that were not enough, doing all this and more without grumbling, pride or fanfare (6:2,5,17-18).
That’s why Jesus also exhorts his disciples not to spend time worrying about what to eat or drink or what clothes to wear (6:25-30). Instead, he urges them seek first the kingdom of God, that is, to live by heaven’s priorities, and then see how all other necessities of life will be provided for (6:33). C.S. Lewis put it this way: “Aim at heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in.’ Aim at earth and you get neither” (Mere Christianity, Chapter 10, “Hope”).
Lewis’s way of expressing things is simply another way of saying, “You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24). The Rich Young Ruler tried to do both. That’s why Jesus had to tell him to sell his possessions and give to the poor so that he might have treasure in heaven (19:21). It’s not that the possession of riches was the problem for the young man, but that his heart was bound up in them. He had forgotten the simple truth, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (6:21).
The best treasure hunt
No wonder, then, that Jesus told his disciples to store up for themselves “treasures in heaven,” that is, to invest in the kingdom of God by means of one’s lifestyle and resources. Living like that should make for the best treasure hunt ever!
