“Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven , , , where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Jesus in The Gospel of Matthew, chapter six.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” 

“One person’s nuclear waste is another one’s potpourri.”  The Grinch

“The trash and litter of nature disappears into the ground with the passing of each year, but man’s litter has more permanence.”  John Steinbeck.

“Where does all that trash go?”

Did you ever ask that question as you were throwing away your garbage?

For many of us we put our trash in a bag, put it in a large container which is picked up by a truck and then magically taken away.  And we don’t give it a thought.

I remember as a kid growing up in the 60’s we used to burn or bury our trash on our own property.  It was pretty common for people to throw garbage out of their cars.  Some of you might remember the commercials on TV that encouraged people to beautify America.  One was especially poignant and made an impression on me; it featured the face of a Native American man who, as he gazed over a landscape covered with litter, shed a tear that slowly slid down his cheek.  Our 4-H used to regularly gather gunny sacks (burlap bags), and we would walk the roads in the area cleaning up the bottles and cans that had been thrown out by cars.

Statistics show that we generate a LOT of garbage.  In America it averages out to almost 5 pounds per person each day.  That’s a LOT!  Almost 300 million tons total in America, of which 1/3 is recycled.  Where does all of it go?  In landfills and the ocean.  Evidently there is a massive island of plastic the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean.

This isn’t going where you think it is—I’m not going to try and convince or coerce you into being more environmentally responsible—though that would be an admirable goal for each of us to set for ourselves.  Rather, I’d like to use trash as a metaphor for what we accumulate in our spiritual lives.  Maybe for a few moments replace the word “sin” in your faith vocabulary to trash.

What trash are you carrying around inside of you?  To what extent does your spiritual life resemble a landfill?  What refuse from life, or religion, have you buried deep within you, like so much compost, hoping that it will somehow be picked up and taken away?

We all have things that stink spiritually within us.  Most of us try various methods to deal with whatever “it” is.  Most of these are not only ineffective, but actually harmful.  We learn them not only from observing others, taking cues from the surrounding culture, or giving far too much credence to whatever religion we might have been raised with or are currently practicing.[1] Denial, Guilt, Shame, Repentance, Penance, Good Works and such may help to assuage one’s conscience for a time, or to hide whatever garbage one has in their life, but I don’t believe it is beneficial in dealing effectively with the spiritual waste or religious rubbish that we accumulate.

Here is where Christ’s teaching on redemption—dare I call it “recycling”?—might be helpful.  To redeem something is to take that which has no value and turn it into something that does.  Transformation is the word.  We see this on full display in the life of Christ.  His suffering was transformed into something beautiful and beneficial.  Death becomes life.  “Sin” leads to “salvation.”  The shame that people were carrying, be it the lepers, paralytics, or the woman at the well, became their glory.  Consider for a moment how Christ takes the trash of people, the world, and transforms it into the very means by which we become valuable to God.

Recently at the little church that I serve an Alcoholics Anonymous group has begun meeting.  Guess who is facilitating it?  Yes!  A recovering alcoholic. One person’s trash becomes another one’s treasure.

I would like to invite you to consider for a moment what trash you’ve accumulated during your life.  What have you done with it?  Or what have you tried to do with it?  Is it still buried somewhere deep inside?  Have you tossed it into a closet in your mind, hoping that eventually it will be composted somehow?  Have you kept it hidden away in some faraway place—only to catch a glimpse or whiff of it when something in life takes you to that place again?

Why not redeem and recycle it?  Why not use it for something good, that will in fact be valuable not only to yourself but others?  Whatever the dross might be in our life can be melted down, purified, and turned to gold in the lives of others. 

In Christ, one person’s trash truly can become another’s treasure!

---

[1] For example, the common practice in some Christian traditions is to start a church service with the practice of confession, which in my opinion serves to dig up, or perhaps reclaim and uncover, the trash that has been collected during the previous week, month, or even and especially during a lifetime.  To me it’s akin to having thrown your garbage away, only to go looking for it again for the purpose of reclaiming an bringing it back into your house.