Second Sunday in Lent
21st February 2016
We Presbyterians are a “heady” bunch. We’re one of the most
educated denominations in the body of Christ.
We value education—at all levels.
We believe in an educating our ministers. I remember hearing as a boy
that the call of a Presbyterian minister is the life of the mind in service to
God. Our seminaries are among the best
in the world. Yes, we are a brainy bunch
of Jesus lovers. We love to think,
rationalize, and analyze our way into God’s Kingdom.
The downside to all of this is—we’re a brainy bunch of brainy
Jesus lovers! Sometimes we get stuck in
our heads. We can get easily lost in our
ideas, impressed by the brilliance of our thoughts, enticed by the beauty of
our theological expositions. Sometimes
we’re so good at analyzing something that we never get around to actually acting; we get caught in the paralysis of
analysis.
Yes, to be sure, a thinking faith is indispensable for a
mature Christian life. A thinking, critical,
even rational faith is essential, especially in an age such as ours where there’s
a lot of poor thinking going on in the Church, with Christians (some holding
public office, others in the public square) saying a lot of foolish
things.
Thinking is required.
But we have to be careful that we don’t reduce the Christian experience
into thought, turning Jesus into an idea,
turning his teachings into ideas or principals, and, thus, turning Christianity
into a philosophy.
Decades ago, it was George Macleod (1885-1991), founder of
the Iona Community in Scotland, writing about his vision for the future of the
Church who said, “The nature of the new order will be revealed not by the
searchlight of high-powered brains, but in response to the obedience of
convinced persons. …For Christ is a person to be trusted, not a principal to be
tested. The Church is a movement, not a
meeting house. The faith is an
experience, not an exposition. Christians
are explorers, not map makers.”[1]
These words have been at the center of my heart for a very long time.
“For Jesus is a person to be trusted, not a principal to be
tested”—a person, a person with a heart.
It’s helpful for Presbyterians to remember Jean Cauvin’s (1509-1564)
personal motto. As our theological
forebear, Cauvin or Calvin was a brilliant thinker, an industrious preacher,
writer, and scholar. Educated in Paris.
Trained as a lawyer in Orléans. He was logical and methodical in his
theological expositions. He was one of
the brains of the Reformation. He was
one of the leading theologians of Church, along with Augustine (354-430) and
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and Karl Barth (1886-1968). Yes, Calvin had a brain, a good one. And he used it. But what mattered most to him—and this might come as a surprise—his
heart.
Yes, a thinking faith is good, but thought needs to be rooted
in something deeper, it needs to be rooted in the heart. And as the psalmist
knew, the heart must take the lead.
The psalmist cries, “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be
gracious to me and answer me! ‘Come,’ my
heart says, ‘seek his face!’ Your face, LORD, do I seek. Do not turn your face
from me” (Psalm 27:7-9).
“Come,” my heart says!
My heart says, “Come!” The heart.
The heart has wisdom and a will, a desire. In the Bible the heart is considered the
center of the self, not the brain or the head.
Thought and feel and action all flow from the heart. The heart is the core of one’s being. The English word “core” has its root in the
Latin cor, which translates “heart.” You see this connection in French; the word
for “heart” is coeur. In the Hebrew Scriptures
the heart is the center, the core of the physical, emotional, and spiritual
life of human beings. The heart is the
center of all vital functions, including intellectual life. From a Jewish perspective, we could say that
we think with our hearts. The heart is the source of emotions and
feelings. It’s the center of our
spiritual lives, our relationship with God.
The heart is also the source of so much pain and source of
our alienation from God. Jeremiah wrote,
“The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah
17:9). In Proverbs we find this warning,
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life”
(Prov. 4:23). You can see why the
psalmist prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit
within me” (51:10). We find God’s
promise in Ezekiel, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will
put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give
you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).
This same understanding of the heart is found in the New
Testament, in the teachings of Jesus.
Did he not say, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”
(Matthew 5:8)? And did Jesus not say, “For
where your treasure is there will your heart be also”(Luke 12:34)?
From a Jewish-Christian perspective it’s the heart that influences
the brain. Contemporary science seems to
support this idea. There’s a fascinating
article in Scientific American from
several years ago, which makes this point.
Scientists are discovering (rediscovering what our forebears knew?) how
psychology impacts our bodies; the body shapes the mind and the mind the
body. In particular, they’re discovering
the role of the heart in social life. A healthy heart is not only critical for survival;
the heart has a relational dimension to it, it helps us to relate to others. This is known as the Polyvagel Theory, put
forward in 1995, named for the discovery of the Polyvagel nerve that runs from
the heart to the brain.[3]
This is just one study; there are many others like this one. The heart and the mind are more connected
than previously assumed. I wonder to
what extent so many of our problems in the world is rooted in this disconnect
of head from heart, from action divorced from the compassion of the heart.
Perhaps there is a
deeper wisdom, deeper feeling, deeper knowledge within the heart, with the core
of the self, than in our minds? Where is your mind, after all? Is it really in your head? What if in our thinking—assuming that the
self is centered in the brain—we’ve become divorced from our hearts, from the
depths of who we really are? Did not Augustine confess, “You have made us for
yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you”?[4] Heart, not mind.
Several years ago I took part in a three-day men’s retreat
in the mountains of West Virginia, led by Richard Rohr. It was one of the most transformative
experiences of my life. It was
intense. After the retreat, I drove home
in a daze, not exactly sure what I had just experienced. I usually listen to music in the car; I
listen to a lot of music throughout the day, mostly classical. I was not ready for anything except
silence. Eventually, I did put on the
radio. A familiar instrumental piece by
J. S. Bach (1685-1750) was playing. All
of sudden I realized some things. First,
I was struck by its beauty. Something so familiar struck me in an entirely new
way. Second, something occurred that I
never experienced before. I wasn’t
listening to the music with—or better, through—my ears. I was listening to it from the core of my
being, it was resonating from within, as if bypassing my ears altogether. I was listening from my heart.
What would happen if we focused more on our hearts and
allowed our hearts to lead us? What
difference would this make in our lives—in our feelings, in our thinking, in
our service? How would this shape our
ministry? It’s not that we don’t have a
heart now, because we do. But as we go
deeper in our commitment to Christ, it’s the heart that must take the lead.
I recently became aware of a Presbyterian Church in
Arlington, VA, that was declining in membership, but situated on a valuable
piece of property. What should they do? The Session started a discernment process that
began with this question, “For whom are our hearts breaking?”[5] After much prayer and struggle and discussion
they decided to close as a conventional church, to tear down the sanctuary and
replace it with 173 affordable apartments, desperately needed in that part of
Virginia. Doesn’t the psalmist say, “The
Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18)?
On this Sunday when we ordain and install new officers,
called by the Spirit through the voice of this congregation, may they, may we,
all of us, together, offer our hearts to the Lord, the center of who we
are. And let us listen to the depths of
our souls, to the voice and wisdom of the heart, hearts that long to seek after
the presence and love of God. Let us pay attention to where our hearts are
breaking, either our own or others, and then sense in that breaking place ways
that Christ might be calling us to offer healing and wholeness. Let us listen to what the Spirit is
whispering or shouting in “here,” in our hearts.
Calvin said it so well, in his Commentary on Psalm 27, “The voice of God,…ought to resound in our
heart, like an echo in hollow places, that from this mutual concord there may
spring confidence to call upon him.”[6] Mutual concord. Heart to heart. This is the way that brings
us to life—and life to the Church and, through us, life to the world! Thanks be to God!
 |
| Commemorative coin designed by the Swedish medalist Arvid Karlsteen, 1683 |
[1]
From a sermon preached in August, 1955. Cited in Ron Ferguson, editor, Daily Readings with George Macleod: Founde rof the Iona Community (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 1991).
[2]
John Calvin, Tracts and Letters,
Volume 4 (Banner of Truth), 280-281.
[3]
Adam Waytz, “Psychology Beyond the Brain,” Scientific
American (October 5, 2011).
[4]
Augustine, Confessions.
[5]
Patricia Sullivan, “The church is not the building. It is our faith and people,”
Washington Post, December 26, 2015.
[6]
John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 1. Christian Classics Ethereal
Library.
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