Years ago, the salesman for my company had a saying that showed how confident he was in his product. “Show it and sell it, hide it and keep it.” His product was good enough to sell itself, he thought, he only had to let people see it. Jesus must have thought the same thing about loving God. A love affair with God is so fabulous, he tells his disciples, they can just fling everything else aside and concentrate on enjoying God. That would be what my family means when a meal is particularly scrumptious and we say, “sell my clothes, I’ve gone to heaven.” This saying came out of the Depression, when my Grampa went door-to-door offering to beat rugs for a nickel so he could buy food for his family. If you’ve got a real meal on the table, you must be on the way to heaven. We don’t live that way anymore, nor do churches ask people to give everything up, just for the joy of following Jesus. We’re too busy, too extended financially, pulled in too many directions to literally sell everything and give the money to poor people.

In college we’d say, “home is where most of your stuff is” in recognition of the transient student lifestyle, moving between campus and parents, living out of boxes, bunking with friends or using what used to be your bedroom, but which is now someone else’s sewing room or office. Things change, kids move around, but the stash of treasures and memorabilia has got to stay someplace. Jesus says, where your stuff is—the things you treasure the most—that’s where your heart is. It’s more of Luke’s theology of “stuff” that we’ve been hearing so much about lately. Faith and stuff. As if the stuff we hang onto and the ways we spend our most precious commodity—time—says something about what we’re staking our lives on.

Jesus starts today’s talk by saying “Don’t be afraid,” and then he tells two stories which sound anxiety raising to me. In the first, the boss is coming, so look like you’re working (even if it’s long after your shift ends). In the second, we’re warned to watch out for burglars. But who can stay awake all the time? In fact, Jesus says no one can stay awake all the time. But—if we’re willing to make the parable leap from story to life application—we are supposed to live in expectation that something will happen. “What” will happen, according to Jesus, is the return of the Son of Man (himself), and the promise is that we won’t know “when.” Oh great. Is this good news or scary news? It’s that bumper sticker, “Jesus is coming; look busy.” What is an appropriately expectant activity? If Luke is right, we show what’s important to us by what we hang onto, and that will either help us or get in our way of living expectantly.

Sometimes I think Christians had it easier when more people used and understood those foofy, church words. Justification. Sanctify. Penance. Mortification. Conversion. I’m not going to burden you with all those words, because most of them are scary enough on their own. Two, though, are useful tools. Mortification and conversion. Mortification literally means “put to death,” and conversion literally means “turn around.” By virtue of our baptisms, we are people who say we want to be like Jesus. This means we are also people who want to live in expectation of his return, of the coming of God’s reign. So we need to learn how to use those tools that help us do that. Mortification and conversion. Mortification is the process of saying good-bye to the things that do not give us life, that keep us from experiencing true peace and joy. Putting to death the death-dealing things in our lives. It’s not about self punishment, it’s about hanging onto the fullness of life, rather than the things that suck the life out of us. Conversion is an inward turning, searching for the truth-telling of the gospel. That’s hard work, of course, since we are bombarded daily by messages about consuming and buying and doing to excess. But being honest about what is life-giving and what is death-dealing means we are better able to live in the kind of expectation that Jesus calls his followers to. It means slowing down and listening to God.

There was tai chi class offered at Summer Conference this year. Tai chi is a form of exercise which I believe grew out of Chinese martial arts, but it’s so gentle and flowing that it’s used by elders to build strength and to retain flexibility. I didn’t take tai chi, but we’d see small groups from the class all over the Linfield campus, practicing its flowing movements. It was beautiful to watch, and most times the practitioners didn’t notice you, so absorbed were they in their exercise. One of my friends asked the teacher how she maintained such balance while doing all that movement. “It’s not about staying balanced,” she said. “Tai chi is about constantly losing and regaining your balance. It looks effortless, but it is really a tension between balance and unbalance.” My yoga teacher says balance is a matter of practice, of building up your muscles and recognizing that some days will be good and some days will be bad. Her advice is to keep practicing and to focus on something stable.

This reminds me of mortification and conversion. Balance is always moving between losing and regaining itself, a matter of practice. So it is with conversion. There is nothing “evil” per se about luxury or alcohol, drugs, sex, tobacco, beauty products, food, new toys, hobbies, vacations, fun, work, travel. But too much of any of these things is death dealing. Too much of anything will eat us up if it becomes our focus. When stuff is our focus, and not Jesus Christ, when we buy the lie that we can buy happiness in pill or liquid form, mortification—giving it up—will bring us back into balance. Mortification is part of conversion, part of turning toward life and the life-giving truth of our Savior.

This turning is really taking care of yourself. It means recognizing yourself for who you are—God’s own beloved. The inward movement of conversion means treating yourself with reverence for God’s sake. I mean it—for God’s sake. The church is the Body of Christ so, and you make up the church so, like it or not, for some people, you literally are the only thing they see of Jesus. I wish I had a nickel for every person who tells me that the reason they don’t go to church is because of the hypocrisy of church people. At some level this is really an easy excuse, but there is also some truth to it. Often, unchurched people see us as people with faith on Sunday only, activity-obsessed, inflexible, hard driving people, too busy to be present as God’s peace and love to them, too stuck in the rules to convey the grace of Jesus Christ. If only we could live into St Francis’ advice, “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.” Our go-go-go lives don’t look like good news of the gospel to anyone, least of all ourselves. The church may as well be Martha Stewart with not-for-profit status. Christians show the gospel when they treat everyone with respect, stick up for underdogs, work for racial reconciliation, feed the hungry, staff homeless shelters, employ the handicapped, make time to listen sympathetically, work quietly without recognition, live simply so that others may simply live.

Which sounds like more activity, more time commitment, doesn’t it? Is spending time with your beloved yet another activity that takes up your time? Not. Just being with the one you love is enough reward for doing it. That’s what conversion means. Doing something because it gives you life. Doing your life focused on God’s love. Friends, showing the gospel by how you live is the Christian understanding of wealth, of living in expectation. That is flinging everything else aside to just live in the joy of a love affair with God. Because we are human, and because we’ll never get it down pat, a life of expectation will mean constantly losing and regaining our balance. Losing and regaining our sense of expectation. Losing and regaining our perspective on how God wants us to use our wealth, our time, our stuff for the coming of the kingdom. Sure, there’s some mortification—saying good-bye to the things that cause death. There’s some conversion —turning inward and focusing on God to learn how to live. But no one can stay awake all the time. Live expectantly. Get ready. Get set. Show it—show the gospel by how you live.