Matthew 6:14-24; Micah 6:8 Rusty Treasures 7 29 18

What do we treasure? On earth we have monetized time and

dehumanized each other.
Time
Minimum wage $8.25/hour, $1,400/month. (Before taxes)
Lawn care company $20/hour
Princeton Univ professor $62/hour
For $150/hour you have to be an underwater welder
For $1,700/hour you have to be Michael Dell of Dell Computers

The monetization of TIME corrodes our perspective of people – we begin to

equate what people do with their time with their intrinsic value.

Human life
Consequently, as a whole, society values less those of us who are retired, those
who are incarcerated, unemployed, those who work for minimum wage, or are
too young or are disabled and unable to work. Because money is attached to
doing, those who do less or are paid less for what they do, are considered worth
less.
Even worse, this valuation of each other has extended to public policy and
legal constraints. We are in a world of trouble when we deny entry into our
country for people seeking refuge and the hope of a new life. We are in a world
of hurt when our leaders make pronouncements that the country they represent
values less those that come from the middle east or the southern hemisphere.
We are in a world of self-destruction when those same leaders makes a public,

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published statement on the international stage That non-European migrants are
corrupting the social fabric of the [European] continent itself. 1
Time and humanity are becoming corroded by this practice of giving more
or less worth to life itself. So we seek out ways to counterbalance this practice.
We seek out ways to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.
One way the Equal Justice Initiative seeks to rehumanize our society, is
through the installation of a memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. A recent New
York Times article invites the reader into the experience of being there, and
walking in the intentionally rusted installation:

From the bottom of a gentle grassy slope a

hundred feet away, the rusted steel columns look like
nothing remarkable. Lined up in rows under an open-
air shed, they could be abandoned I-beams or castoffs from an old railroad bridge.
Then, before you know it, you’re among them. Hundreds of reddish-brown hulls,
each maybe six feet tall, surrounding you. Each bolted to a thick metal post
anchored not to the floor but to the ceiling.

Then you see the names. Simon Jenkins. 7.17.1877. Frank Harrell.
02.09.1893. Unknown. 08.08.1883. Stenciled into the face of each column, the
names of the men and women hanged, shot, drowned, beaten and burned
because of the color of their skin. The columns — more than 800 — are the heart
of the stunning new National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opens on
[April 26] in Montgomery, Ala. They represent the counties throughout the South
and across America where lynchings were carried out with impunity. So far

1
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/donald-trump-culture-wars-britain

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researchers have documented more than 4,400 killings starting from the end of
Reconstruction in 1877, a campaign of racial terror by white people against black
and brown people lasting more than seven decades.2

As if to further remind us of the value of human life, when it rains, the rust
on the steel columns runs red – blood red – across the names of precious lives
lost to the steady dehumanization of the earth.
But this rusted monument has the potential of being a place of
transformation. These steel columns stand as a strong witness to how we need to
repent as a society and regain our humanity here and now in the context of
earthly time. The memorial is a clarion call to become better people, denouncing
racist attitudes and xenophobic actions. This day and time requires us to be more
attuned to the worth of all people as children of God.
This is where the church comes in.
Frankly, things are odd in the church. A leader in the community may
prefer a following role in the church. Those who are voiceless in wider society,
find voice in the church. Our identity lies in our ability to communicate to each
other how much we value each other’s contributions to the life of Christ in this
place. At our last Council meeting, our moderator, Anne Trompeter, started the
meeting by asking each of us in turn to say something we value about the person
sitting to our left. It was a wonderful experience all the way around the room.
We were more connected, affirmed and emboldened to engage in the work of the
church after sharing these things out loud.

2
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/opinion/alabama-lynching-memorial.html

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 Church is the place where all are valued the same. A person who is retired
and one who is leaving a $300/hour job to attend a meeting, are valued the same
here. Whether carrying a PhD or junior high school diploma, one’s contribution to
the choir or the soup kitchen or teaching Sunday school is valued the same.
Whether someone is here twice a week or twice a year, part of a committee or
part of this worshiping body, we are all valued the same.
For those of us who like things crystal clear – this is stewardship! Listening
to the voices, contributing to the upbuilding of God’s work, donating money,
spending time, and naming together what it is that we value, this is the whole of
stewardship. How we use the unique functioning of the church to be a witness to
the world is by doing justice, such as advocating for immigrants; loving kindness,
such as seeing ourselves as no better or worse than our neighbors; and walking
humbly with God, such as praying for forgiveness for the atrocities and neglects
of our past.
We may still be rusty and corroded in parts, but we are the church! We are
becoming the people we were created to be – treasures valued equally in the
sight of God.

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Matthew 6:17-24
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust
consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do
not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body
will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of
darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one
can serve two masters; for a servant will either hate the one and love the other,
or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and
wealth.

Micah 6:8
The Lord has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of
you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?