Sermon – May 08, 2011 – How’s Your Heart?

Scripture:  Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Luke 24:13-35

Today, we encounter two of Jesus’ followers on Easter evening, probably on their way home to the village of Emmaus, some seven miles from Jerusalem.  They have heard the story that Jesus is alive, but clearly don’t believe it.  He is gone and now they are going home to try to forget Jesus and the great failure of his life.

In the midst of all the disappointment and horrors that had happened, these disciples of Jesus had lost heart.  They were hopeless.  And along comes this stranger and says to them:  Let me help you find what you have lost; let me help you find your heart.

“‘Acquire a heart and you shall be saved.’  These are the words of Abba Pambo, a desert father of the fourth century.  According to the desert tradition, the focus of ascetical practice and prayer was ordered to the acquiring of a heart, achieving purity of heart.  Finding one’s heart rendered one permeable and available to God’s mystery…”[1]

On the road to Emmaus, the road of hopelessness, some disciples had lost heart.  They needed to find their heart in order to be available to the mystery and presence of God.  As they reached their homes and the stranger began to move on, the disciples offered him their hospitality.  They  invited the stranger into their home and to their table.  And, as they sat down to eat, this mysterious traveler took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them.  And all at once, they recognized who was sitting right there at their table.  It was Jesus who had been walking and talking with them.  And as soon as they caught a glimpse of him, he was gone.  Jesus had done what he set out to do—because as they begin reflecting on their experience, they talk about their hearts.  “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?”  By Jesus’ gracious presence with them, they had found their hearts, and in so doing, became “permeable to God’s mystery.”  They were able to see with the eyes of the heart, they were able to reflect on their experience and to recognize the living Christ who was present with them all along their journey.  And they realized that their hearts were full of life and hope—and so they started back “that same hour” on the road from Emmaus toward Jerusalem to tell the story.

“The heart [in our tradition] is not simply a physical organ or seat of emotions; it is the core and center of our personhood as well.”[2] We talk about losing heart, taking heart, being broken-hearted; hearts can be full, sad, empty; hearts can be given; hearts can be hurt.  And when we speak in these ways, we’re talking about the very center of our being, the part of us that is most important and most vulnerable.  And today, we hear of slow hearts, of burning hearts, and of being “cut to the heart.”

If we are attending to our spiritual lives, we must attend to our hearts.  And so the question:  how is your heart?  Unfortunately, there are many, many heart-sick folks in our world—and all of us suffer from these maladies at some point in our lives and to varying degrees.

In the story from Acts, we hear that when those who heard the good news of Jesus Christ—and when they realized that they had participated in the crucifixion of this Holy One—they were cut to the heart.  They felt in the deep center of their beings the guilt, the responsibility, the regret of what they had done.  Some of us today may hear the Gospel and feel our hearts pierced with the word of gracious judgment—the judgment that reminds us of all that we might be, all that we could have been, all that we might have done and have not done.  Our hearts may be convicted of   having fallen far short of our high calling as human beings.

Some of us here today may feel like the disciples on the road to Emmaus.  We may have lost heart, feeling that our hope and faith is faint if not totally gone.  We may feel as though we’ve lost touch with our sacred center, with our sense of who we really are.  Our hearts may be broke, because of failure of ourselves or of someone else, or because of a loss or death.  Or still others may suffer from depression—that dull emptiness that hides our own heart from us, keeping us from feeling, from hoping, from caring.

Another common heart malady that is spoken of throughout the scriptures is called sklericardia, more commonly known as “hardness of heart.”  (this isn’t hardening of the arteries!) Hardness of heart is that hardening that happens sometimes as a result of anger, sometimes because of pain, sometimes because of fear.  It is a heart that is unmoving and unmoved, stubborn and closed-off.  A hardened heart turns away from others or keeps them at arm’s length and does this not only with other human beings but with God.  The hardened heart is unwilling to make room for God’s mystery and God’s desire, is unwilling to make room for the breaking in of newness and transformation.

These heart-sicknesses, the heart pierced by guilt, the lost heart, and the hardened heart are common.  But we mustn’t despair because there is more to the story.  There is another universal condition of the heart—and that condition is hunger.  Regardless of how we find our hearts today or on any day, our hearts are hungry.  This yearning is a holy hunger, it is a deep pang of longing and desire for God to be alive and present.  Just as the disciples on the road wanted Jesus to be alive and despaired because they couldn’t believe that it might be possible, so too, do we yearn for Jesus Christ to be alive and present.  I contend that even the most cynical among us, in our heart of hearts, want to believe it!  Even in our most broken or hardened moments, I believe that this deep hunger for the living presence of God is there, churning and growling, crying out to be fed.

And today we receive from the pages of scripture, an assurance—not just that Jesus was alive and came to some disciples on a road-trip over 2000 years ago—but an assurance through this story that Jesus is alive and that he journeys with us.  We may not be aware of him.  We may not always feel him near.  We may be too hardened to believe that it is really true.  But we are given this assurance today:  Jesus Christ is alive and walks your journey with you; even when you have lost heart—and maybe especially when you have—he comes to you in ways unknown.  We also receive the assurance that there are moments, glimpses, sparks of realization, moments of grace in which we are given the eyes to see Jesus Christ right in our midst.  Today, we are given the assurance that our deepest hunger, that hunger in our hearts for the living presence of God can be fed.

One of the abiding and beloved stories among United Methodists is the story of John Wesley sitting in a worship service, hearing the Word of God spoken and feeling his “heart strangely warmed.”  This was not simple emotion; it was not the first time he had heard the Word; it was not even the most important moment of conversion in his life.  But it is the story that we connect to and hold on to—partly because we are hungry for that moment in our own lives, hungry for that moment in which we know in our deepest part that love of God that warms our hearts and gives us the assurance of God’s presence with us.

How’s your heart?  Chances are there’s a little heart-sickness there.  Chances are that there’s a deep hunger there.  And the truth of the matter is that the sickness can only be cured by feeding the hunger.  God’s forgiveness and encouragement are the only cure for a heart pierced by guilt.  Christ’s abiding presence and promise of new life are the only cure for hopelessness.  The Holy Spirit’s transforming power and grace are the only cure for the hardened heart.  Each one of us needs to be attentive to our hearts, to recognize that “there is always a need for our heart to be transformed through an ongoing process of conversion—…[a] ‘relaxation of heart’—that is, letting the heart be gentled in such a way [that it] can make room for God.”[3]

Because we need God, we are hungry for God.  We need to be attentive to the state of our hearts and to repent—and I don’t mean simply to look at patterns of screw-ups and sinfulness—but rather to ask the deeper question of whether our hearts are made of stone or flesh.  Because hearts of stone are not permeable, they are not open to receive what they are most hungry for, namely the spirit of the Living God.

“The contemporary writer Kathleen Norris, in her book Dakota, gives us a wonderful description of repentance in terms of making our hearts permeable to God’s mystery.  She describes a conversation with a Benedictine friend, out of which comes this description of repentance:  “Repentance means ‘not primarily…’ a sense of regret but a ‘renunciation of…human views that are not large enough for God’s mystery.’  It means recognizing that we have not always seen grace where it exists in the world, and [it means] agreeing ‘to turn away from a stubborn…position that cannot accept what is new and different and therefore cannot entertain God’s mysterious ways.’  The word ‘entertain’ is used advisedly here, as the monk goes on to speak of hospitality:  ‘the classic sign of [our] acceptance of God’s mystery is welcoming and making room for the stranger, the other, the surprising, the unlooked for and the unwanted.’”[4]

The disciples on the road were met by a stranger.  They invited him into their homes and shared the food of their table.  In the breaking of the bread, they recognized the presence of the living Christ among them.  And their hearts were strangely warmed.  My hope and prayer as we gather here week after week is that what happens here—that the fellowship, a word spoken in prayer, a song, a symbol, a story, something—will help you find your heart, to acquire a heart.  And not just any heart, but a heart that burns with the love of God, with the compassion of Jesus Christ, with the assurance of the Holy Spirit.  I pray that something that we experience here by the grace of God will help us find hearts that are open to receive God and, as a result, are open to embrace the stranger, the other, the unwanted in our midst.  Because, if we learn anything today, it’s this:  you never know when Jesus Christ is sitting next to you or across from you, or walking alongside you.  The next face you see might be the very face of the living Christ.  I pray that we will be able to see with the eyes of burning hearts.