Like many other All Saints’ parishioners, my wife and I have a safety deposit box at a local bank. In it we keep things we want to protect in the event a catastrophe hits our condominium—including, among other items, legal documents, assorted monetary mint and proof sets, a few Krugerands, and an external hard drive containing all of our digital and scanned photographs. Twice a year I update the file on the hard drive so, if anything happened at our condo, we could recover nearly all of our photographs.
Our condominium is also protected with a fire and burglar alarm. It’s second nature to us to turn on the alarm each time we leave the condo. We’re glad that whenever we are away, the belongings we’ve accumulated in more than forty years of marriage will be protected.
While we do not refer to these items as “treasure,” they are very personal to us.
We’ve owned these items for many years. We’re very familiar with them. We’ve traveled a long road together. They’re our friends.
Jesus’ words remind me not to become so enamored with these friends.
Instead, he admonishes us to nurture our friendship with “heavenly treasures” that hold eternal significance.
Things like “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). Known as the “fruit of the spirit,” these items have true eternal significance and can be nurtured through our personal relationships we have with each other and with God.
No alarm system or safety deposit box can protect them.
During this Lenten season, let us focus on our relationships and cultivate the fruit of the spirit in our lives—true treasure that lasts an eternity.
Wally Buckner
All Saints' Episcopal Church
