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| Heart poster from Ork Posters |
James 1:17-27
Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around [Jesus], they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
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In July of 2012, astrophysicist Summer Ash underwent open-heart surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm caused by a congenital heart defect known as bicuspid aortic valve disease.
Her successful surgery left her with a healthy heart and a healthy body once again. It also left her with what she refers to as her “bionic” heartbeat. Her heartbeat is so strong now that she can feel her heart thumping against her chest. She can hear it. People who hug her feel their bodies rock in response to it. When she leans her chest against the edge of a table, ripples echo through water glasses. Friends sitting still in a quiet room with her can actually hear it. No stethoscope required. It’s like living in an Edgar Allan Poe story.
Now, doctor after doctor has assured her that her heart is healthy, strong, and doing perfectly what it is supposed to be doing. And yet one quite knows why it is beating so loudly or so strongly.
For Summer, her physical recovery from open-heart surgery has been far easier than dealing with the emotional and psychological repercussions of having an impossibly loud, impossible strong, impossible to ignore heartbeat.
She says,
“At first I thought my bionic heartbeat bothered me so much because it felt like something must still be wrong. Why else would it be so loud and so forceful? Surely it must be trying to tell me something. But it’s not fear [that I feel these days], it’s anger. Really raw anger. …This might be the best description of faith that I have ever heard.
My heart, the organ that gives me life on a moment to moment basis, lied to me. It violated my trust. When it was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.” (Heart Wars Trilogy Part 1: The Bionic Heartbeat)
When my heart was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.
The heart is the center of our body, the life-giving muscle that gives warmth to our extremities and carries oxygen to our brain. It beats in rhythm, keeping time, circulating life through our very being. The heart is the metaphorical center of our soul, our passion, our deepest longing. When we are speaking our deepest truths, we describe our words as being "heartfelt." When we experience the pain of loss, we talk about having a "broken heart."
And when we talk about faith, we also talk in terms of the heart. The Bible says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart." God says to Ezekiel, "I will give you a new heart and a new spirit." The Psalmist sings, "Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart.”
When John Wesley, theologian and founder of Methodism, had a deep experience of God's presence, he described it as feeling his "heart strangely warmed."
In the same manner, when each of us come to fully grasp God's grace through faith, we feel it in our hearts. James today talks about "welcoming with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save our souls." This implanted word - the gracious love of Christ - takes up residence in our hearts. And through faith, God works on us to make our formerly silent, failing hearts healthy and loud once again.
When my heart was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.
Jesus said, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile; for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come."
The scribes and Pharisees have just tried, once again, to catch Jesus on a technicality. Nevermind that he and the disciples have just fed thousands of hungry people or healed countless sick and infirm in the villages. The Pharisees care only about whether the disciples have correctly ritually cleansed themselves before eating.
Jesus gets a little angry.
“You accuse me of abandoning God’s commandments?” he says. “As if God really cares so much about whether a little dirt gets on our food and into our mouths? It is not what goes into the body that determines whether you are pure in God’s sight. God is concerned with what comes from within. God cares about what comes from the heart. If your heart is filled with evil intentions, no amount of hand-scrubbing is going to make you pure.”
The scribes and Pharisees had been following the traditions and laws of the elders for so long that they hadn’t noticed that their hearts had gone silent; that there was something wrong deep in their bodies, that their hearts had been silently lying to them about what faith was all about.
Our hearts silently lie to us, as well. We trick ourselves into thinking that everything is fine if we belong to the right denomination, attend the right church, or worship the right way. We let ourselves believe that we are spiritually healthy so long as we are generally responsible, decent citizens in public. We let ourselves think that we are still doing God's will when we serve our neighbor even if we judge or insult them out of earshot.
Jesus tells the scribes and the Pharisees and us that it is time for a check-up. It is time to stick on all the electrodes and to pump up the blood pressure cuffs and to take our pulse. Because God is concerned, first and foremost, with making our hearts healthy. It isn’t just about believing or about doing, but it is about being changed by God from within, that whatever good things we do in faith come straight from our healthy hearts.
When my heart was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.
For God seeks to work in us constantly to destroy the evil intentions of our unchecked hearts: our selfishness, our impatience, our greed, our carelessness with one another and our creation; to move away from violence and cruelty, anger, revenge, dishonesty, neglect, wastefulness; to release our grudges, our prejudices, our desire for haphazard justice - "you get what you deserve."
God is always working on our hearts us by his Spirit, so that, like the Grinch who Stole Christmas, we might feel our hearts grow three sizes, transforming us into people who, from the very depths of our being, are loving and gracious, kind, generous, perceptive, helpful; slow to anger, patient, dutiful; careful, peaceful, forgiving, merciful, and compassionate; self-giving, modest, humble, and honest.
I'd be straight-up lying if I were to tell you that this transformation of the heart is anything other than slow and painstaking work. Beautiful work, certainly, but work that takes a lifetime. For God in Christ is freeing your heart and mine from layers of brokenness and shame, fear and regret. Christ is breaking down the walls around your hearts so that it can grow and change; so that you can grow and change. God wants your heart to beat through your chest, that every good deed and every good intention might come straight from the implanted word of Christ, which has the power to save your souls and the whole world.
When my heart was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.
Can you hear your own heart?
Can you feel God working in you, not just calling you to do good things, but changing you day by day into a closer picture of who you were created to be?
May God bless you with a bionic heart
that beats in time with the divine.
May God bless you with a new heart and a new spirit,
transforming you from within.
May God bless you with a healthy heart
that just won’t shut up.
Amen.
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