"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, 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. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Jesus, Matthew 6:19-24

It's pretty obvious that we live in a materialistic society where advertising works hard to convince us that we desperately need things that, in fact, that we really just want. Pressing us to desire the new best thing, this culture pushes us to dissatisfaction with products that really are satisfactory, impels us to near belief that we are somehow deficient if we do not "own" or purchase some item and even derelict in our lifestyle if we fail to acquire whatever they are trying to sell. Then, pulling the final spin, they try to convince us that we'll feel/look/act better if we have that item and, finally, that their interest is only directed toward providing the espoused item, such as the famous McDonalds' slogan "We do it all for you." Well, of course they do.

The recently sputtering engine of capitalism is based on materialism and materialism is based on the human urges to be accepted and to have something new. I just received a pamphlet notifying me that the Toyota dealer would make me a great deal to turn in my old (2 1/2 years) Toyota for a new one and, I've gotta share the truth, I thought about it. Maybe it's a pervasive boredom or the subtle contempt we have for the familiar but we are often charmed by the simple fact of newness and novelty. Maybe it's a deeply rooted persuasion that our status is heightened if we have a newer and better item than our neighbor who continues to drive around in a wretched 3 year old car. I use the word "charmed" intentionally because we go shopping, for cars or watches or houses, maybe clothing or jewelry, whatever captures us, and we often enter a kind of trance, a hypnosis that dulls our sensible values and evokes a response kind of like Pavlov's salivating pups.

Now here comes the unexpected ringer: Jesus and the authors of the New Testament did not frown on acquisition, not from my reading. In a true sense, Christianity is quite accepting of materialism. It does not teach that material items are bad or degrading - some early heresies taught that. In fact, God's word teaches that the products of the earth and the items that come from the hands of craftsmen are to be enjoyed. The Bible and Jesus never tell us that money is evil.

Jesus does, however, say that "the love of money is the root of all evil" and we have a sterling example of that these past few weeks as Wall Street barons have taken obscene salaries as their companies sink into dissolution. The love of money and what it buys is greed, a ravenous hunger for ever more, never satisfied, always plotting to increase its total. Greed becomes a cancer that consumes its host as it convinces that host that more material goods are more important than the good of other people - stuff before people, accumulation before relationships, gotta get more.

Jesus is simply telling us to get our priorities right and to put things in correct order. Jesus never tells us to forsake all material items or pleasures. But he also never tells us to make that our life mission. In this passage from Matthew 6, Jesus tells us to store our treasure, our time and energy, with God where it will spiritually multiply. One thing I have to tell you, sisters and brothers, is that the history of the Christian church, from the start to right now, is full of bozos who hang out on the far tangents of truth. These are like the ascetics who believed that the route to spirituality is found by desiring and possessing nothing - abject poverty. No it isn't. The skinny, self-depriving ascetic who draws attention to his enlightened poverty is no more spiritually blessed than you and I are. And the fat cats who try to impress you with their lavish life-styles and expensive homes are not blessed by God. Don’t believe the charlatan preachers of the so-called "prosperity gospel" who tell you that your relationship with God is identifiable by the wealth you've accumulated. No it's isn't. Some people will pray for God's provision all their lives and barely get by. But they will get by and God will bless them with or without material wealth. And some people, by talent or circumstance, accumulate considerable wealth. That's not wrong - often God will use it and does so. Frequently these people are given the gift of contributing (see Romans 12) and delight in sharing their wealth privately.

So we know that God isn't fooled. God isn't impressed by rank or status or bank account. God sees what is in our hearts and in our behavior. If our desire is to accumulate wealth and material acquisition matters most to us, God will know that. If our heart is turned to God, seeking His will and way in our lives, He will know it and provide blessings. Jesus says you cannot serve both God and money. Which one, I ask you and me, do we portray as we go out to make our daily witness to the world? "Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His Righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Another way of saying the same thing: 'Keep searching for God's realm, God's nature, and He will provide everything you need.'