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Leading The Heart

Leading The Heart

  • Where have you come from?
    • Did you grow up Presbyterian?
    • Have you always been Presbyterian?
    • There are all sorts of ways to understand and theologize God
    • Roughly 4,200 religions in the world.
      • The Pew Study of 100 people
      • 47 Protestants
      • 25 Evangelical
      • 15 Mainline
      • 6 Historically Black
      • 21 Catholics
      • 2 Mormons
      • 2 Other Christian
      • 2 Jewish
      • 1 Muslim
      • 1 Hindu
      • 1 Buddhist
      • 2 Other
      • 23 Unaffiliated
    • 31 Presbyterian denominations in the US
    • But the common conception is that the actual doing is a bit more straight-forward
      • We serve
      • We worship
    • But these texts create some tension with the straight forward
  • The Heart of The Matter
    • The Pharisees are not the enemy
      • This might be better thought of as a family feud; an open congregational debate
      • They’re asking an honest question about something that they find important, if not necessarily canonical (the vegetarian options at the Ox Roast, or maybe the amount of different hymns vs. praise songs we choose)
    • Jesus gets to the literal heart of the matter 
      • Our structures don’t make much difference in our “doing” of faith if we aren’t examining the heart
        • In Worship
          • The cold, mumbling service or The Sunday concert church: both of them can get to our hearts and Jesus Christ can be there, ready to enter into our hearts.  
          • We, too, might get ourselves rearranged in Sunday Service: what we’re taking in vs what we taking out?
        • In our service outside of worship: It’s great do to all sorts of things, but where our hearts are means more than the actions themselves.
      • How do we feel about the people who Jesus spent most of his time with?
        • The tax collector, the criminal, the possessed 
        • We can think about doing service well with some folks and not the others, and our comfort and abilities are one thing, but what about our own denigration of those groups?  What happens when we’re the denigrated ones?
    • So our better bet may be to look at the heart first - look at what’s going on in us, and then start to figure out some of the doing, because our doing is likely going to be shaped by our hearts. (how cynical will we be?  How contemptuous might we be?)
  • Just Gimme That Vacuous Religion
    • In James, we hear some of the echos of Mark
      • Our hearts can be exposed to the logos - Word, also should hear Jesus Christ in there.
      • It is our heart that needs to change: our tongues need bridled, be slow to anger and quick to listen.
    • Worship/Religion
      • It’s not just what we do here, but also what we do our of here to have reverence to God.
      • Can you imagine heartless acts of service?  Heartless worship of God?  Or even the wrong-hearted way?  Doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons?
      • Ultimately, all of that becomes empty, vacuous.  Going through the motions of something with no value to us or the other person.
    • That might be one of the hardest things to hear.
      • Think about the things we’ve all done in service
      • But how easy, again, is it to talk about the people we serve: orphans and widows, being unstained isn’t glamourous.
      • Without the right heart, none of the things we do may be worth the time that we spend doing them.
      • That is a malaise that seems to be sweeping around culture anyway
      • Our Instagram posting society
        • When social sharing buttons and counters were introduced on popular social media platforms over a decade ago, it could be said that it changed the character of social media. It also changed the motives for engaging with it. 
        • Seeing numbers rise seems somewhat hardwired into us now, and provides incentive to contribute, and to contribute often, for the promise of this token digital reward. We spend long hours on these sites seeking to drive up numbers that are largely devoid of any context or direct transferable value. 
        • Somehow we feel we will be magically validated for posting more of the extraordinary (and mundane) moments of our lives.
    • Is that our heart?  Is our heart drawn into validation?  Exposing some folks and destroying others?  
    • It may be our heart at its most raw and unfiltered, but if any of you have been online and posted long enough, you also know it isn’t really fulfilling after all.
  • The Heart of Worship
    • Many of you know that song, right?  
      • It tells some of the story - we have to strip away things that may stop of from getting to the predominant relationship
      • But there’s something else here, too - what can we really bring on our own?  What won’t get caught in the onslaught of our broken hearts?
    • Instead, we might do well on these days to just be and expose our hearts of Jesus Christ
      • In Confession
      • In Pardon
      • In Baptism
      • In Song
      • In Prayer
      • At the table
    • What is it like for us to just be - to open, to believe that Jesus will enter our hearts?  
    • How does it change our lives at the beginning of the day to simply pray “change my heart, God?
    • Ignatius of Loyola and the examen
      • Ask God for Light
      • Give Thanks
      • Review the Day
      • Face shortcomings
      • Look towards the day to come.
      • Let’s expose our hearts.