Trash and Treasure

Once a year there is a long lineup of expectant strangers who arrive early at our church, queuing up outside the gates, eagerly awaiting them to be opened. No, it’s not on Christmas Day, nor even Easter Sunday. The crowd gathers at 6.30am to be the first ones into the carpark for the annual church carboot sale.

Like anyone, I love a bargain. My book collection has been greatly enhanced by the volumes I’ve discovered when visiting charity shops, near and far. My longsuffering husband and kids are accustomed to spending time on holidays waiting for Mum to have a quick peek into stores that we pass along the journey.

It’s good to have hobbies and interests and things that help us to learn and develop our talents. It’s not so good to make things your god – to love them and spend all your time, effort and money in acquiring them, storing them, exhibiting them and disposing of them in order to make room for new ones. It’s not so good to use things as a symbol of your success or self-worth. Things only give us a false and temporary sense of importance, comfort or happiness. Things will never love us back in the way that we love them.

More and more, I wonder what we’re doing with our church sales. The people who line up to come to church at 6.30am – are they in danger of missing out on the greatest treasure they could ever own? Are they just a source of extra income for that new building or mission trip? Or are they in themselves people that we in the church should be praying for and witnessing to and reaching out to?

Could we have something to freely give the unchurched strangers walking through our church gates? How about prayer, company, pocket testaments or other gospel materials, compassion, friendship, refreshments and most of all, the knowlege of the greatest treasure any of us can ever have - that of being in relationship with God- our Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

“What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ”  Philippians 3:8