Faith June
23, 2019 Ps. 22: 19-28 Galatians 3: 23-29
We
give our hearts to the Lord eagerly and sincerely. That presupposes a commitment to our
faith. It assumes that we know the love
God has for us and understand its implications in our lives. But it also means that it excites us! This is a wonderful thing!
How many of you have
heard the expression that “the heart wants what the heart wants”? That expression is usually used to justify
someone’s behavior when the head “knows better”. There is an emotional desire in defiance of
an intellectual agreement, if we can divide a person up so crassly.
In that expression, the
heart represents the emotional part of our being. If there was some part of the human anatomy
used as an analogy of the coming together of heart and mind, it might be the
gut. I have a gut reaction to
something. It feels right or it feels
wrong. It’s an emotional reaction, but
more, it is informed by what my mind is telling me-often working faster than I
can track.
In
the language of our faith, in the expression ‘giving our hearts to the Lord…’,
the heart is better understood metaphorically as ‘the gut’. The heart is the gathering of emotion and
intellect. If, for example, we decided
to use the metaphor that the spleen represented our emotional lives, we could
talk about the heart being the gathering of our minds and our spleens.
Yes, I know that really
does not work very well.
We
see both emotion and intellect being appealed to in Scripture. We see that fairly clearly in our passages
for this morning.
Our
passage from the Psalms is of the emotional appeal. In time of need, we call upon the Lord, in
salvation, we offer thanks and praise, as in verses 21-22
Save me from the mouth of the lion! From the horns
of the wild oxen you have rescued me.
I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
It appears that David is writing as the king,
asking for deliverance from something that threatens the nation. It is in the nation, that David offers his
praise in return. But this is not just
an emotional outburst, it is built upon the knowledge David has of his
God. David here sings to the Lord
because of what he knows, what he relays in verse 28: For dominion belongs
to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.
In Paul’s letter to the
Galatians-from God Eats Pop Corn in our New Testament-Paul is laying down a
more academic lesson. The Jews coming to
Jesus were governed under the law of Moses.
The claims of Jesus are that he has come to fulfill that law. What does that mean? This is what Paul is explaining.
3:23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and
guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.
3:24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,
3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
3:24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,
3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
In other words, the law was a guide to
understanding sinful behavior, the prescriber of punishment for our sins. Jesus came to give us justice, to justify us
instead. In him, by faith, we are made
children of God, not by following a code of conduct designed to tell us we are
wrong.
Yet this knowledge does
not stand on its own merits. It provokes
an emotional reaction, the triumph of Jesus in our lives, “There is no longer Jew
or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female;
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” In Christ, all that
divides us from one another, all the barriers of race, of privilege, of gender,
all that creates power relationships in our lives, those things that provide so
much sin in our lives, those things are undone when we are in Jesus Christ and
that is a cause to celebrate!
Our
faith is a gathering of our emotions and our intellect, our head knowledge and our
emotional expression of being children of God.
Yet Christian worship can stretch these to extremes. We Presbyterians are on one end,
sarcastically known as God’s “Frozen Chosen”.
This is a quiet, more reverential form of worship, more intellectual in
its intent, from the head if you will. In
the extreme, the sermons seem more like academic theological lectures. A bomb could go off and the people would
offer a quiet “Amen” while composing a protest to the Worship committee about
the rollicking that took place before God.
The
other extreme comes under the sarcastic title of being “Sloppy Agape”, it is
arm waving, singing, call and response, if the pastor has a cold and blows his
nose, the people will respond with a huge “AMEN”! In the extreme, the sermons seem more like
choruses from a praise hymn, providing a dance beat more than anything
else. In the movie “The Blues Brothers”,
there is such a scene, with James Brown playing the pastor. It provides the extreme flavor quite well.
Most
worship services can be viewed on a spectrum between these extremes, to get a
little mocking, somewhere between the dirge and the disco. It reflects a tension of our faith between
our thoughtful selves and our emotional selves.
Both are at work, but at any given moment, one may be more prominent
than the other.
Offering
our hearts to the Lord, eagerly and sincerely is offering our hearts to the
Lord emotionally and thoughtfully.
Coming to Christ, truly coming to him, it is like the spark of a new
romance. The power of God-the power of
love-is made manifest in our lives and it is overwhelming. Could be a miraculous healing. Could be a dignified ending to a life well
lived. Could be a moment of acceptance
when no one else is accepting us. For
isn’t that the start of a relationship in life?
A spark? A moment? A glance?
Saying ‘yes’ to coffee? And while
God might not ask us out for a cuppa, when we feel God’s love, there is an
eagerness to experience more.
The
trouble comes when the things of life happen.
Someone whose relationship to the Lord is emotional, but uninformed,
upbeat, enthusiastic, but without depth, when things happen, its like the rug
has been pulled out from under them.
Jesus loves me….but…how? God is a
disappointment.
But our relationship with
God is not just about that romantic opening.
To continue using human love as an analogy, what begins as the
attraction of love becomes something deeper.
God not only loves us, but God has saved us! God is not just our miracle worker, God is
working to change our lives to be more like Jesus. God is not just in it for us, God is in it
for the whole world. Loving as God loves
is the greater fulfillment to things of the earth. How does the old song go? “Getting to know you…getting to know all
about you…” When we experience the love
of God, we have a sincerity, an authenticity about our faith that others will
see.
However,
if our relationship to the Lord is simply academic, a grand thought experiment,
it’s comfortable, but empty. Where’s the
love? Where is the caring? Enthusiasm is anathema. In the end, that faith is boring.
To
give our hearts to the Lord eagerly and sincerely means that our faith is
invested emotionally and thoughtfully, that these are brought together in the
hearts we offer up to the Lord’s service.
It means, in turn, that when we look out to the world around us, we see
a world of opportunity for God’s work to be done.
It
means that every place where there is need, there is opportunity for the Lord’s
power to be brought to bear. In those
moments, the wonder of God increases in our own lives. We know, as the Psalmist does, that God has
dominion over all the earth. Yet when
someone actually cries out in need, when we come before the Lord and ask for
deliverance, when we take seriously that prayers are answered (and we are
willing to listen to what those answers are-not just what we think they should
be), we can be ever more sincere in the offering of our hearts because we KNOW,
proof upon proof that God is in control.
We
know, as Paul did, that Jesus’ death and resurrection, that we are justified by
faith, that we are made right with God, that we are not servants, not slaves,
not destined for punishment and death because we have sinned against God, but
that we are healed, that we are forgiven, that by grace we have been made free,
made children of God, made new, that we are taking the first steps into the
renewed heaven and the renewed earth, here, now, in this place, in this time,
that in Christ, everything that separates us from Him and from our brothers and
sisters is breaking down, that true equality as God’s children can take hold…
As
we KNOW these things to be true, the power of that truth, not just for
ourselves, but for our fellow human beings, the expression of the loving power
and mercy of our Risen Lord comes in our eagerness to take this faith and see
it lived out in the world around us.
In
our thoughts, in our emotions, in our hearts, in our minds, in our bodies, in
our beings, in our souls, in our spirits, in all that is US, we will know the
power of love that IS God, we will find expression of our faith, and it will
change the way we live.
So then have we given our
hearts to the Lord. Amen
Rev. Peter Hofstra
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