You can’t take it with you
Readings: Matthew 6. 16-21, 2 Corinthians 5.20 – 6.10
‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘you can’t take it with you’. It’s an encouragement to use what’s given to you, particularly in relation to money, you can’t take it with you so you may as well use it for your benefit now. Live in the moment it says. And in some ways its perhaps a slightly bleak phrase, soon we will be dead and buried, and what use will the money be then, better to use it to enjoy life while we can. And today we are faced with our mortality. As we are marked with Ash, and remember the dust from which we come and the death to which we move we are called to reflect on our mortality. But not in the hedonistic way that phrase is often used.
Because as we are reminded of our mortality today, we are also reminded of God’s goodness and mercy. How, in Christ, he has brought us back into relationship with him. For us, the end is not just dust and ashes, but the glory of heaven and eternal life. There are two actions that mark the service, ashes as a sign of our mortality and our repentance, and the Eucharist, the sign of Christ’s saving death and resurrection and the foretaste of the feast of heaven. Those two things held in tension, that is what we are to have before us today, throughout Lent, and always. Our own weakness, sinfulness and mortality, and God’s mercy, forgiveness and everlasting life into which we are drawn.
And so I want to use that phrase ‘you can’t take it with you’ in a slightly different way. What are you carrying that will not join you in eternal life? What would you be better off putting down.
When I was in university in Reading I was in the Christian Union and one of my roles was leading the sound team. The CU would meet in a lecture theatre on campus and so each week myself and a small handful of others would take it in turns to set up the speakers and mixing desk and microphones and everything for the band who led worship and for the visiting speakers. But in the summer term, because of the exams going on, we couldn’t use our normal room as we made too much noise. So we met in a Church just off campus. We couldn’t use their kit, and so had to bring our own, but very kindly they let us keep it there for the term.
But that meant it had to get to the church in the first place. Two big speakers, a mixing desk in a shoulder bag, and a whole sports kit bag full of microphones and power leads and audio cables. The sensible thing would have been to ring a friend with a car, load it up and drive it over. However at this point in my life I was stubbornly independent, and I didn’t like asking for help. And so I decided the best option would be to lug all of this over to the church myself. Now, I didn’t want to be going back and forth all day, so, to save multiple trips, I thought it would be quicker and easier to take it all at once.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that this was a terrible idea. Out of the building I went, across the quad, and needed to take a break. Then down past the students union, another quick break. Then round the lake, and each break is getting more frequent and lasting longer. I get to the edge of campus, exhausted, realising I’ve made a terrible decision but am also now a bit stuck, I can’t just abandon half of the kit. So what did I do? I’d like to say I then rang for help, but no, I struggled on. And eventually after far too long, I arrived at the church and unloaded all of the kit into the cupboard they had cleared a space in for us. I got someone to drive it back at the end of term.
This picture is so often what we do in our lives. We pick stuff up and we don’t put it down again. We pick up bad habits and never check them so we carry them with us. We’ve fallen into a particular sin and have never really got to grips with it so it goes with us too. We’ve sinned in some way, or feel like we’ve messed up somehow. And whilst we’re turned from it, whilst we’re doing better now, the gnawing guilt and shame hasn’t gone away and it goes with us. Or our pride has been hurt, or we’re jealous, or we’re holding onto anger and fury. And we’re gripping it tight, we can’t put it down because then they’ve won.
We’ve picked up and are holding onto so much, and so when St Paul (in 1 Corinthians) tells us to run the race set before us our main thought is; how?! We’re like me beside that lake, overburdened, over encumbered. There’s little chance of us running.
Back to my phrase, can you take any of that with you? Will any of that stuff make it through death to eternal life? Will that bad habit go with us? That sin we keep committing? Absolutely not. Jesus came to cleanse us from all sin, and in the new creation there is no more sin, it is gone forever. Our guilt and shame that we feel, will they follow us into eternity? Well I certainly hope not, and we know from Scripture, from Revelation, that there will be no more mourning or crying or pain there. What about our hurt pride, our jealousy, anger and fury, will they follow us into eternity? By no means.
Which leads me to ask, if you can’t take any of that with you, why are you carrying it today? Why are you holding onto that stuff? Yes when we die, or Jesus returns, and we enter into glory, all that stuff will be purged away, but why wait? What is to stop us living that way now? And yes, perfection is beyond us in this age, we will not be perfect this side of heaven, but that’s no reason to simply wallow in the rest of it.
We talk about giving things up for Lent, and that’s no bad thing, but this Lent let us instead talk of putting stuff down. What are you putting down and leaving behind? What do you need to lay aside so that you can joyfully run with Jesus on the way to glory? You may have stuff you’ve already thought of, or things that have come to you as I’ve been speaking. But this isn’t a one day thing, we’ve got 40+ days to do this. We have this period of time set aside to examine ourselves, our lives, to look at what we’re carrying and to lay it aside. If you can’t take it with you, why are you still carrying it?
And this same question should make us reassess a lot in our lives. Our money, our time, our consumption, of food and everything else. If we can’t take any of it with us, if we won’t need money in eternity, if we get a lifetime and more of time back in eternity, if we will have in abundance then, how can we use what we have now? How can we spend and use it for the glory of God and to bless others. If that stuff is limited for now, but bountiful later, how can we generously give it away? If you can’t take it with you, why are you still carrying it?
But what about the stuff you can take with you? Your relationship with God, your growing into the likeness of Christ, your praying, and reading of Scripture to grow in the knowledge of and obedience to God, your witness to him that others may come to know him too. What will you be taking with you? Are you spending enough time with those things? With the Lord? In putting down what we shouldn’t be carrying we find space, space to take up the things that last. In refusing to place our treasure in this life, we find our treasure in the life to come. If it’s coming with you, are you spending enough time there?
Lent begins. And we do not make this journey alone. The putting down and picking up as we journey through the wilderness. We do it with our brothers and sisters. And sometimes we need their help whether to put something down, or to be accountable for trying to pick something up. If so, arrange to speak with a trusted Christian friend about it. Or arrange to speak with me or one of the other clergy in the area, we’re always happy to chat and work things through with you, we’re not to busy, this sort of stuff is the priority, the paperwork can wait. And as we journey together we do so with Jesus at our side, walking with us through the wilderness. With him the wilderness is not as barren as we fear, but rather makes space to talk and to listen. And as we walk we learn to recognise the wilderness in our lives, and as we do we find him filling them with new life, hope and healing.
My brothers and sisters, St Paul urges us saying ‘See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!’ So let us not put off the work which is at hand, to examine our lives, to put down and to pick up, rather let us set to it now and for these 40+ days. That come Easter we will know that the grace of God to us has not been in vain but rather, in coming back to him, we have found life, and that his grace is bearing fruit in our lives. Fruit that lasts not just now, but on into everlasting life with him forever.
Amen.