St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday Sermon – Seventh Sunday after Pentecost – July 31, 2011
“Identity: Harley-Davidson Style!”
Text: Matthew 6:19-21

What’s with owning or wanting to own a Harley-Davidson or having a
house with a white picket fence around it? How many awards - medals
- trophies - job promotions have you earned and how much to they mean
do you? When’s the last time you saw a funeral hearse with a U-Haul
behind it or visited a feed-lot full of expensive cattle, even if
they weren’t your cattle?
With the help of a well-done DVD from Lutheran Hour Ministries Men’s
Network, the overall aim & purpose of these five special services
beginning with this Sunday is to lead us, myself included, to a greater
Christ-centered perspective “re-aligning” our hearts, our attitudes
& actions with Christ’s heart & with Christ’s teaching as it relates to
identity, significance, accomplishments, legacy, and the ownership of
things.”
My prayer is that by the power of the Holy Spirit there will be
something both amazingly real and spiritually edifying in these five
key topics for all of us.
Each DVD segment serves as an introduction to the message that
will follow, starting with “Identity – Harley Davidson Style”. Let’s
watch together.
(Watch the DVD)
So how much of who you are or how you see yourself at this point
in your life depends on what you have - or what you think you need to
have - or what you are really working hard to have?
Even though I have never had a desire to own a Harley or any other
kind of big bike, I can sure identify with how easy it is, how common
it is for us as sinful human beings to tie our identity to things we
have or want to have.
44 years ago Sandy & I were in our first year of marriage during
my vicarage/intern year serving Our Redeemer Lutheran church in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a time for us before kids when both
of us were working. I remember in the spring of 1968, we traded a
four-door 1962 Chevy Impala sedan which had been my parent’s car &
their wedding gift to us in August of 1967; traded that “family” car
for a beauti-ful, sleek-looking, 1965 bronze-colored, Chevy Impala, 2
door, Super Sport with a 327 V-8 engine, dual exhausts, white-bucket
seats, center-console with automatic shift, not a scratch on it, only
14,000 miles, and our payments were something like $33.00 a month on
a loan of $600 – 1968.
If ever there was a car I wish I had today to drive around the
square in Minden, it would be that car. Back when we had that car,
I went to one of those “do-it-yourself” car washes near our small
apartment once a week to keep that car looking sharp & shiny; and I

enjoyed it when others stopped to admire what a sharp looking car it

was. That was the “sharp-looking, excellent-running” car we drove
back to St. Louis for my final year at the Seminary, to get Sandy to
and from work, and we drove that care to my first parish in Burley,
Idaho where I drove it to make hospital calls & home visits. About
a year after we had arrived in Burley we had our first daughter and
reality set in. We soon realized having bucket seats and an infant
car seat didn’t really go together. Needless to say, we had no
trouble trading that ’65 Super Sport off for our first station wagon.
I’m not telling you this to brag or to boast or to give you
something to talk about over coffee. I’m telling you this to let you
know how common it is to “treasure”, to pursue, to impress others, to
enjoy being seen in terms of the vehicles, boats, bikes, property,
jobs, clothes, accomplishments, antiques, all the “toys” of life that
we think we have to have to be somebody.
Let me assure you, it’s not a sin to admire or to own or to enjoy
a certain kind of car or bike or pick-up or what-have-you. But it IS
a sin to let such earthly things - however beautiful or shiny or use-
ful they are - distract us to the point that such possessions, “toys”
end up defining & controlling & consuming who we are.
Where your treasure is, said Jesus. What do you treasure most?
Some people “treasure” buying things, owning things. They want to
keep up with the neighbors; they see the things others have and think
they have to have those things too; things they can’t do without.
Some people “treasure” knowing things. They can’t bear being left
out of the loop, they don’t like being in the dark; they have to know
what’s going on, they have their own opinions about everything.
Some people “treasure” controlling things. They have to be in
charge, want to run things, do things their way. They can’t let go.
And some people “treasure” changing things. They want to make things
happen; can’t stand anything staying the same; “gotta” be different.
It’s not that Jesus is against this or that treasure! Jesus concern
is about it’s location. The location of our treasure, that upon
which we expend the most energy and fix our hopes, determines the
direction of our goals and the shape of our behavior. It is OK to
own, to possess things, stuff, even “toys”, but it is not OK to
be possessed by them. There’s a fine line between identity and
idolatry.
Where your treasure is, whatever you treasure most, according to
Jesus, is not a peripheral matter but a matter of saving or losing
one’s whole being. Where your treasure is, what you value most, what
you live for, that’s where your heart will be also.
So the question is not do you have a heart? The question is where
is your heart? What do you value most? What Jesus calls for is not
a more measured, more enlightened view of the things we own or we
pursue for ourselves, but as the Son of God humbly born the Son of

Man who from His birth on lived a life of true humility & selfless-
ness, what Jesus sets before us as sons & daughters of God is a
“radical challenge calling for the redemption, for the re-orientation
of one’s whole life, away from wealth & possessions, away from know-
ledge & power & control, to a sense of worth & identity that is in
keeping with our heavenly Father’s will and purpose for us.
That’s what brought Jesus into this world; to do His Father’s will.
It’s what led our Lord Jesus to lay down His life on a cross that He
might be lifted up in humility and draw all men to Himself. Jesus
lived & died & rose again from the dead for us and for our salvation
not to be identified as a great success, but to be identified &
embraced as a selfless Savior.
Given such an ordinary, unspectacular, seemingly insignificant
life that Jesus lived and the cruel death that Jesus died on a cross;
and given what little Jesus had on this earth to call His own, no
college degree, no office, no company headquarters, no white horse,
no chariot to ride around in, no cabin on a lake, Jesus was still
100% confident of His identity as God’s own dearly beloved Son who
came into this world not to be served but to serve and to give His
life a ransom for many.
And that identity; that perfect, personal, righteous, powerful
oneness with God the Father that defined who Jesus was & is . . that
is the same identity, the same sense of worth & well-being with God
that Jesus imparts to you and me unworthy & undeserving though we
are. Nothing do we have to show God for our sense of worth, our
sense of who we are, other than the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
His empty tomb & His promise to be with us always.
What kind of “treasure” is this for us to treasure in our hearts?
It’s like this, writes Thomas Long . .
To come to the end of a day – or the end of a life –
with the satisfaction of having stood for what is good,
with the joy of having been loved and having loved well in return,
with the memory of having shown mercy,
and with the peace of having walked with God –
these are true treasures, the treasures of the kingdom for they
reflect an identity with Christ our Brother & Friend that far and
away is worth more than anything we can own or possess or accomplish
for ourselves in this life. (Matthew, Long)
Harley-Davidson – Kawasaki – Chevy Super Sport – GTO – corvette
– convertible – classic, antique car – shiny new Pickup – flowering
back yard – boat on a trailer – bigger crop yields - bigger barns –
bigger business to run – let these all be blessings to enjoy but let
them not be blessings to define who we are & whose we are.
If it’s the “open road” of excitement, prestige, adventure
you want to identify with, writes the pastor who does these DVD
segments, “Dive deeper into God’s Word, journey through the pages &

stories of Scripture and study some real people of God. These are
not super successful people; they are men & women with identity flaws
and men & women who desperately had to rely on God’s abundant grace
for their lives. Open up the throttle and feel the breeze of God’s
promises as they come full speed into your life; even if you’re over
40; if life seems too short; even if you’ve gotten pretty used to
being busy & comfortable & satisfied the older you get.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, even if you
or I don’t own a Harley.