Where your treasure is
Klaus Huber reflects on a short Bible passage in the context of reparations.
I live in a small town. Two years ago, thieves broke into the mediaeval parish church and stole the church silver. When I heard about this, I had to think of this passage from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:19-21 King James Version)
For the March meeting of the Reparations Working Group, I was asked to choose a reading for the opening worship. I looked into all kinds of texts – until I suddenly thought that this Bible passage may fit quite well. Why did Quakers in the past enslave other people? One of the reasons is that they were seeking “treasures upon earth". As a result, there hearts were no longer where they should have been.
Well, this is one way of looking at this text. It occurred to me that Quaker enslavers might well have preached this passage to “their" enslaved. And lo and behold, the very same words then become a way of continuing social injustice. The enslaved are told to hope for some future treasure in heaven after their life on earth has ended.
Challenging Quaker histories
Has my imagination carried me away now? I don't think so. Last year, I took part in the Woodbrooke course “Challenging traditional Quaker histories". Amongst many other things, I learned about George Fox's tract “Gospel Family Order", written in the 1670s for the Quaker community in Barbados that included many enslavers and plantation owners. Fox reproached Barbadian Quakers for some of the more excessive mistreatments of enslaved people he had witnessed during his visits to the island. However, he did not challenge slavery itself. The point he made over and over again in this tract is that the enslaved would be “set free" by bringing them to Christianity. A purely spiritual “freedom" without any change of their status in society.
“Financial and other reparation"
Let's come back to the 21st century. Minute 27 of Britain Yearly Meeting 2022 asked us “to consider deeply how the Society of Friends in Britain might make financial and other reparation for our part in the wrongs of the transatlantic slave trade." Trying to tackle what the financial reparation might look like was one of the main items at the March 2026 meeting of the Reparations Working Group. It is still an ongoing process.
No amount of money will be able to repair the wrong. However, if our heart is in the right place, we should part with a significant part of our earthly treasure for some time to come. It has to be enough to make a real difference for those who are living with the legacy of enslavement and exploitation today.
If we are bold enough, maybe we can help build a better and fairer society – and one in which everyone has a say in how it is run.
