By Father Casey

The big, colorful heart in the corner of the Gathering Space is a symbol of our theme for the fall: Where Our Heart Is. If you haven't seen it yet, I hope you'll stop by this weekend, and feel free to post a picture on social media. It is highly Instagrammable, as they say.

The phrase, "where our heart is," comes from one of Jesus' more provocative teachings: "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Jesus was talking about the connection between our values and our actions, between what we believe in and what we choose to give our lives to. Most of us would assume that what we love determines where we spend our money and time. But Jesus, our spiritual cardiologist, knows that it actually works the other way around: how we spend our money and time shapes what we love.

In a few weeks, we'll begin our fall fundraising effort, when we'll be asking everyone to think about how well our giving to Transfiguration matches our feelings about Transfiguration. It will be an important campaign, both for our spiritual health and our church's future vitality.

But I think Jesus' teaching has implications far beyond money; he's speaking to the direction of our entire lives. Our hearts will come to be with those people and places to whom we give our time and effort. We may say that our hearts are with such-and-such a person or place, or such-and-such a cause, but if we are hardly ever with that person or in that place, and don't give time or money to that cause, we are just fooling ourselves.

But by choosing to give our energies to something, we can actually direct our hearts closer to it. I know someone who retired from a demanding job a few years ago and began regularly volunteering at Genesis Women's Shelter. This is a person who had enjoyed a successful career in finance and law, who now spends his time taking out the trash and doing light repair work at the shelter. And just as Jesus predicted, it didn't take long for him to go from admiring the mission of Genesis to his heart being with all those abused women and children.

How we spend this day, this week, this month…is how we're spending our lives. And how we spend this day, this week, this month…is determining where our heart is. We may think we'll "get around to it," "make time in the future," or "give when I'm no longer having to pay for (fill in the blank)," but our hearts will be wherever we spend the precious energies of our lives.

This is true for churches just as much as for individuals. No matter what our mission statement may say, how we spend our energies as a church is the best indicator of whether we're truly "seeking and serving Christ in all persons." This is why it's so important that we go to Austin Street Center to serve dinner every month. This is why we're expanding our support for nearby Spring Valley Elementary, where a majority of the students are low-income. This is why we're actively exploring how to participate with the brand new St. Jude Center at Park Central (LBJ and 75), which is an amazing new public-private housing facility for the homeless right here in North Dallas.

This is also why we're encouraging everyone to take a couple of "Small Bites," and try out a new ministry or two. Because what we give our energies to will determine where our heart is.

So I wonder, where do you want your heart to be? Once you know that, it's no secret how to make it happen. For where the energies of your life are spent, there your heart will be also.

Father Casey +