In his epic novel “Les Miserables”, Victor Hugo writes about a rich, retired merchant who attended the church in the town — M. Geborand — who had accumulated an estate of 2,000,000 francs in the manufacture of cloth. M. Geborand had never given given alms to the poor, until the Bishop of Digne preached a sermon on eternity, and giving to the poor, and treasure in heaven. From the date of that of sermon forward, it was noticed that he gave regularly, every Sunday, ONE PENNY to the old beggar woman at the door of the cathedral. This beggar woman had 6 people in her family to share that penny with. When the bishop saw the rich merchant performing this “great act of charity, he turned and said to his sister: “See M. Geborand buying a penny worth of paradise.” (Les Miserables, p. 11)
You have to ask yourself, if out of his two million francs, he gave a penny of it a week away, how much did Monsieur Geborand really believe in Paradise?
And similarly we each need to ask ourselves today: what does the way that I spend MY money, tell about what I believe about heaven and eternity?
This is not unrelated to what Jesus has been talking about in the first part of Matthew 6, which was hypocrisy. Hypocrites do what they do hoping for the reward of being noticed by people here on this earth. So Jesus gets to the heart of the issue here, saying don’t make this world the place where you are looking for your reward. There is a better investment for you than that, by storing up your treasures in heaven. Continue reading
shawnethomas 