READING:
Luke 12:32–40

Where Is Your Treasure?

A Reflection on Luke 12:32–40

I wonder what your most treasured possession is.

Not necessarily the most expensive thing you own, but the item you’d reach for if you had to leave everything behind. In a powerful refugee empathy exercise, participants are asked to pack a small rucksack with just ten items – ten things they would take if they had to flee home forever. Most people, even the most practical among them, find themselves slipping in one deeply personal object: a photograph, a necklace, a letter, a child’s toy. Something they can’t quite imagine life without.

So, what would you take?

What does that choice say about where your heart lies?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus offers a simple but piercing insight: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” It’s not a command – it’s a truth. Our hearts follow our treasures. They’re drawn to what we guard most closely. Which begs the question: where are our hearts anchored?

The passage begins not with demand but with tenderness.

“Do not be afraid, little flock,” Jesus says, “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Not a threat. Not a rebuke. Just a quiet reassurance, spoken into our deepest fear. Because underneath so much of our striving and hoarding and busyness lies fear. Fear of not having enough. Fear of being left out. Fear of insignificance, of failure, of loss.

And into that very human fear, Jesus speaks grace:

It is your Father’s good pleasure – not reluctance, not obligation, but delight – to give you the kingdom. The Kingdom of God, that state of justice and joy, peace and presence, isn’t earned through moral heroics or religious effort. It’s given freely. Lavishly. Joyfully. Franciscan writer Richard Rohr calls this the “divine flow” – a current of God’s love and generosity always moving toward us. The invitation is not to prove ourselves worthy of it, but to step into the flow. To trust it. To stop clutching and let ourselves be carried.

But that kind of trust comes at a cost.
Jesus goes on: “Sell your possessions, and give alms.”

Not because stuff is bad, but because stuff too easily becomes our security blanket. He’s pointing beyond clutter and consumerism toward the deeper scaffolding of our lives: what we value, protect, and centre. In a world that measures success by what we accumulate, Jesus offers a radical alternative: to live by what we release.

Giving alms, our money and possessions, isn’t soft charity – it’s revolutionary love.

It’s not a random good deed. It’s an act of redistribution, a refusal to play by the rules of systems that concentrate wealth and privilege in a few hands while many go without. When Jesus says “sell what you own,” he is inviting structural change, not just personal generosity. He is saying: if your heart is truly with the kingdom, then your treasure must be with the poor.

This is not about guilt – it’s about freedom.

Letting go is not loss when we do it for love. Letting go of treasure makes space for something else: for communion with others, for peace with ourselves, for alignment with God. The Gospel is not a call to ascetic misery. It’s a summons into greater spaciousness. Into a life less burdened by fear, and more rooted in trust. Less about possession, more about connection.

Then Jesus shifts the image:
“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those waiting…”

This isn’t a call to anxious vigilance. It’s an invitation to attentiveness. To be ready – not for doom, but for divine presence. This kind of readiness isn’t about doing more. It’s about living more awake. Being alert to the sacred woven into the fabric of our ordinary lives. God does not only show up in miracles. God arrives in the neighbour’s need. In the kindness of a stranger. In the slow, disruptive grace of unexpected moments. Readiness, then, is about relationship.

It’s not about clock-watching for the Second Coming. It’s about living as though Christ is already among us – because he is. In every act of mercy. In every vulnerable moment. In every breaking of bread. The question isn’t “when will Jesus return?” It’s “have I prepared space in my heart to recognise him now?”

And then comes one of the most astonishing lines in the whole passage: “The master will fasten his belt, have them sit down, and will come and serve them.”
Can you imagine?

The One we wait for turns the world upside down.

The Master becomes the Servant. This isn’t just role-reversal – it’s a revelation of God’s heart. The kingdom Jesus brings is not top-down rule, but self-giving love. The same Christ who will break bread at table and be broken on the cross, promises here to serve. To kneel. To nourish. To tend to us.

The kingdom, it turns out, looks like a meal shared. A servant God. A love that stoops. So where does that leave us?

Jesus ends with this reminder: “The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

And isn’t that always how grace arrives? In interruptions. In disappointments. In things we never planned. This is not a threat – it’s an invitation. To live open. To live light. To make space. To let go of what we clutch so tightly, so that we might receive what God longs to give.

So let me ask again:
Where is your treasure?
What are you guarding?
What might you need to release, so that you can live more freely, more attentively, more generously?

The good news is that the kingdom is not something we must build alone.
It is already God’s gift. It is already coming. Our calling is to receive it with open hands – and to live, as best we can, like it’s already here.