"The Chewing Moth"

(Heb 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40) JG White

Sunday, Aug 10, 2025, FBC Amherst

Look at the moths on the front cover of today’s leaflet. I took these photos one July morning on the screen tent of my brother and sister-in-law’s campsite. After a night with a lightbulb burning, many moths of many patterns and shapes and sizes were attracted, and rested for the day, on the tent. The orange and gray ones were small; the green one - a luna moth - was large. All beautiful, when you take a close look. Though plenty of people might not want one to get into their house and fly around and land. Sometimes these nocturnal insects are a bit creepy. Hence the legends of Mothra or Mothman. Their frantic flying as you try to get in your door can be offputting.

Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom… Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes and no moth destroys.

The destroying, chewing moth. Obviously, the little moths that get into clothing and into the dry food in our kitchens and whose grubby caterpillars munch, munch, munch have been known ever since food and clothing were invented. After speaking about no worries over what you will wear or what you will eat, Jesus speaks this. Do not fear. Gather and keep things of eternal value, not things the carpet moths can devour. 

The moth becomes a symbol of decay. And whether it is chewing moths, or stealing thieves, or corroding rust, there seems to be something to slowly (or quickly) wreck most everything we have around us. Even our own bodies. 

I had a doctor’s appointment last week. I went to my GP because of a pain in my side that lasted for a month after I had a fall during a train run. Just a pulled muscle. I also took the opportunity to get a fresh measles shot. For the most part, Dr. Soma is not too concerned with me and my tiny ailments. I think I am probably as fit as I have ever been in my life, thanks in large part to you, Amherst, and my fellow runners. I am in the prime of my middle-age. 

But I am just about the age my father was when he had to have quite a series of prostate cancer treatments. I am the same age his mother, my Nana, was when she died, after seven years of cancer. Then, her husband, Grampie, lived to be forty years older than I am.

We may have planned or unexpected ups and downs in our health, in our relationships, in our bank accounts, in our home and clothes and food supply. Do not fear, little flock. Make purses that don’t wear out, where no moth destroys. 

So many of us in this room are, like the confessional prayer we will use, calls us: class-bound. We are safe and sound middle-class people. Safe and secure from all alarms, most of the time. Quite privileged also: white privilege, some of us have male privileges. Education perhaps. 

So we listen, we hear the warning again, from Jesus. Don’t store up treasurers upon earth. Oh, it can be so easy to do this, to accumulate, to enjoy, to protect ourselves and prosper. But there is a prosperity above and beyond our material goals. And the chewing moths can’t get that. 

It is actually about community, it is about fellowship, it is about being a neighbour, it is about togetherness. I start off with Jesus’ words, “Do not fear, little flock.” Not, “ Don’t fear little sheep.” ‘You, one sheep, don’t fear.’ Nope. He speaks about a flock of sheep. 

So the sharing of our goods, even our daily necessities, is a beautiful possibility in community. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. We invest ourselves in the real community around us, our actual neighbours, and our heart grows for them. 

We received a powerful, tag-team sermon at Oasis on Friday evening in Wolfville. Rob Nylen and then Lennett Anderson spoke on being truly, TRULY welcoming to others in our neighbourhoods. Not just into our pews or into our picnic, but into our lives, into our cars, into our homes. The opportunity to include many races in God’s kingdom is here. The opportunity to open our hands and hearts to people not like us is real. The opportunity to practice sacrificial hospitality is now. 

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Like moths to a flame, so our love can be attracted to those unlike us. Often, it starts with the steps we take, the things we try, the risks we take - then our hearts will follow. We already have experience in this. And still there is room for us to grow, and room for more at the table. Our table. Which becomes their table once we truly offer our heart-felt welcome. Once we offer ourselves.

To invest in other people is an investment in the Kingdom of God. As we can also say, the Kin-dom of God, where we discover we all are kin, all family, all belong. For Christ loves all. As I said in yesterday’s funeral message here, from Romans 8, Jesus wants to be the first child in a huge family, all the rest of us and them, siblings.

This is the fellowship of God. This is the Church Jesus is building, and no evil kingdom can stand against it. No moths can infest it. No rust will eventually corrupt it. No thief can steal it.

Maybe we can imagine being moths, drawn to a light. Drawn to the neighbours Jesus died for and lives for. Or you might prefer to be a butterfly, or something. I might imagine us as junebugs. 

Maybe you don’t like junebugs. Sharon and I remember so well a beautiful early summer evening a decade ago, at a cottage. The campfire was vibrant, way off from the cottage, by the cliff overlooking the ocean. A little group of us, family, were gathered around. Some marshmallows were roasting. And then the junebugs started flying. They were attracted to the light of the fire. In great numbers! Some dive bombed it, and quickly died, of course. Some clumsy beetles were hitting us. What memorable fun!

Soon, people decided to get out of there, and flee to the cottage for the night. I got back to the camp first. We had left the lights on in the sun porch. So… of course… upon the screen door were twenty junebugs, plus the ones on the window screens! It was quite a sight. 

Oh to be attracted, like clumsy junebugs to a lightbulb, as disciples of Jesus who pursue ways to share our lives with new people. And surely we don’t have to be the outgoing, sociable, extroverts to have the ministry of hospitality. It takes quiet, caring people to look and see and pay attention to some people who are not getting noticed, not getting welcomed in the community. 

There are moths that chew clothes; there are moths that spin silk that becomes beautiful clothing. There are moths that eat our flour and rice; there are moths that are beautiful green or pink, or brown and orange, and delight us like special visitors upon our houses. As people who take the name ‘Christ’ upon ourselves, by the grace of God, let us be silkworms, let us be luna moths. 

I remember, years ago, friends who had a nickname for a fellow around their town. He had a reputation for dropping in late in the evening if he saw you lights were still on. Of course, they called him “The Moth.” Let us celebrate our calling to be becoming those whom others are happy to see. And becoming people who flutter in with the hope of Christ in our wings.

For we need not fear. Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Creator is so pleased to share an infinite Kin-dom with us all. To give it to us. We don’t need to work for it to earn it. The Jesus story shows us the door to the Kin-dom is open. So we dwell upon the things of the greatest value. And the most valuable stuff is not things at all, it is people. [Keep] an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes and no moth destroys.  In sharing with others we are investing in people. You are doing it! This is God’s economy. Praise be!