Here’s My Heart
Luke 12:32-40
The Presbyterian Youth Triennium at Purdue University in
July took as its theme, “Here’s My Heart.”
About 20 students and five adult sponsors attended from John Calvin
Presbytery, traveling on a charter bus from Springfield, MO to West Lafayette,
IN. There we joined with youth from all
over the world – from the US to Puerto Rico, from Canada to Hungary. Through games, music, singing, meals, and
small groups – it was a week that invited us to say to God, “Here’s my
heart.” And today, we bring that
invitation from Purdue to this place, so that we too can join in that offering,
saying, “Here’s my heart.”
Later this morning we’ll sing, “Come, Thou Fount of every
blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace . . . . Let thy goodness, like a
fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee . . .”.
And then in the final line, “Here’s my heart, O take and seal it.” Here’s my heart, Lord.” In our gospel reading for today, Jesus
teaches us to give our hearts to what matters most. “Where your treasure is, there your heart
will be also.”
Jesus repeatedly teaches his followers to tend to their
hearts, to keep their hearts free from fear.
In Luke 12 alone, he tells his followers not to fear those who threaten
them with harm. He tells them not to
fear losing their lives, since God knows the number of hairs on their head
(which, in the case of some of you, isn’t all that difficult!). He tells them not to worry when they’re
hauled before the authorities and put on trial.
The Holy Spirit will give them what needs to be said. Jesus’ followers aren’t to worry about the
daily needs of life – what they’ll eat or what they’ll wear. God will make sure they have clothes and
food, just like God takes care of the birds of the field and the flowers of the
field.
So that solves it for us, right? Have all of your worries now disappeared? Is my heart always pointing me to abundant
life? Well, maybe not.
This teaching about keeping your heart free of fear and
directing your heart to what will bring you deep joy continues in our reading
today. “Do not be afraid, little flock,
for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” It may come as a surprise that you have
already been given God’s kingdom. Not
only have we already received it, but God takes delight in lavishing this gift
upon us. We all know that our lives are
full of struggle and pain, that the world can be a cruel and violent
place. So what does Jesus mean when he
teaches us that God’s kingdom is already here as a gift?
For Jesus, receiving the kingdom means living in the new
light of God’s gracious rule. And that
rule is already on the scene. We are
already living in it, even though it is not yet here in its fullness. It’s a little like smelling and tasting a meal
that is still on the stove, even if it’s not yet fully cooked and the dinner
table is not yet set.
The Father delights in flinging this newness into our
midst. It comes as a gift that washes
over you and pulls you into its reality.
You don’t have to work for it.
You don’t have to achieve it, manufacture it, make it happen, or produce
it from scratch. It has already been
given to you. Just open your heart and
receive it.
But we cannot receive the gift if we’re asleep or in the
posture of passivity. This gift calls us
to action. It comes to us and inspires
us to make changes, to shift gears, to realign our priorities. Jesus announces to us that the Father has
given us a gift and then immediately calls us to the work of enacting that gift
in a particular way. Did you notice the
verbs . . . sell, give, and make?
Sell. Sell your possessions. Have a garage sale or take your belongings to
a consignment shop. Get on Facebook, or
Ebay, or Etsy or whatever. List what you
have. Put it up for sale. Get rid of it. Lighten what you have to carry. Clean out all the closets, cabinets,
basements, and storage bins you’ve got filled with stuff. You can’t be nimble and flexible enough to
welcome God’s newness if your life is weighed down by cares and concerns about
things you own.
Give. Give to the poor. Share some of what you have with those who
don’t have much. Make life a little
easier for those who have it harder than you do. Spread the wealth, whether that’s money,
time, talent, expertise, or attention.
Let the goodness that has flowed into your life flow through you to
bless those who need it.
And then make. Make purses that don’t wear out. Decide what’s most valuable and then go get
it. Run your calculations. Put pen to paper. Figure out what you want more than anything
else. And then figure out how to protect
and conserve it. Be done with storing up
the kinds of things that can fade, wear out, run down, or be lost or
stolen.
For nearly twenty years, I had a leather wallet that I
loved. This soft leather and its
hand-stitching had so delicately shaped itself to my rear end that it had
become part of my anatomy. I was in Florence,
Italy in 1999. We stumbled across the
shop of an artisan leather worker. The
smell of that shop was so wonderful, the leather was so soft, the designs were
so beautiful that I knew I had buy something.
Unfortunately, I bought a leather jacket that I have never worn. I can’t think of a single situation in life
where I would look good in this jacket.
But that’s all water under the bridge, because I also bought
an elegantly simple leather wallet. This
wallet carried my cash and cards for nearly twenty years. Eventually, the wallet’s stitching began to
wear out. John Renard stitched it back
together twice. When I took it back to
him a third time, he said, like a surgeon with bad news, “Jared, there’s
nothing I can do.” Just last year, after
twenty years, my wallet closed for the final time. I am embarrassed to admit that I now carry a faux
leather wallet I bought for $9.99. It
won’t be long before I’m carrying my valuables around in a Ziploc bag.
Whether we carry our money in wallets or purses, money-clips
or fanny packs, Jesus warns us not to get too attached to what we prize or
treasure. Your valuables can be stolen
by someone with sticky fingers. But even
if no one steals your treasures, they’ll still wear out eventually.
We bought a Honda Accord last year. It was used, but it was the newest car we’ve
ever had. After hitting a deer and
totaling our minivan, we declared that we were done with minivans. We wanted something more youthful and
energetic. As we drove the sleek,
low-mileage sedan off the car lot, we promised ourselves that we would wash it
more often. We would vacuum it out more frequently. We would not allow papers and receipts and
wrappers to accumulate on these new floorboards. The kids were NOT going to eat fast food in
this car like they did in the minivan.
There would be no French fries down in the crevasses; no chocolate
milkshakes left to sour in this new car.
But when my wife backed into a parked car and cracked the
rear bumper, it was all over. Now I will
admit that a few weeks later I accidentally backed my car into it and left a
mark on the driver side door. There’s
plenty of blame to go around, most of it to her, but let’s not dwell on
that. My point is that once the bumper
on your new car is busted; once there’s an indentation on the driver side door
– it looses some of its shine. Have you
had that experience with your car? Or
with a new pair of shoes? Or with a
washing machine? Or a new phone? Or a house?
One of my favorite authors, Alain de Botton, has a book
called The Architecture of
Happiness. In that book he explores
the ways beautiful walkways and objects and buildings can enhance our lives,
providing us a home that balances us and calls us to live our best lives. But even so, he writes, “our buildings have a
grievous tendency to fall apart again with precipitate speed. It can be hard to walk into a freshly decorated
house without feeling pre-emptively sad at the decay impatiently waiting to
begin: how soon the walls will crack, the white cupboards will yellow and the
carpets stain” (p. 15).
When you have money and things, the problem isn’t so much in
the having of them; the problem is that in having them they bend our lives out
of shape. They call for our first and
best attention. They become objects of
concern and worry and fret. Even the
best things money can buy will break, fade, depreciate, or get stolen.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also. This principle can apply to our
lives in a great variety of ways. If
your treasure is money, your heart will be set on money. But your treasure might not be money and the
things money can buy – like nice houses and cars and clothes and
vacations. Your treasure might be
comfort, safety, familiarity, conflict-avoidance, revenge, a house, the perfect
family, a reputation, status or power.
Do not miss how radical and fresh and strange this teaching
is. Jesus teaches us that the real
question is not whether we’re
religious people. We might like that
question. It can at least be
answered. If we’re religious or a frequent
and involved church-member, we can pat ourselves on the back for those accomplishments. But Jesus’ question for religious people is
sharper, and penetrates more deeply into the center of who we are. Not: are you a religious person? But instead: what do you treasure and
value? To what have you given your
heart? It turns out that sometimes,
people like us go to church to distract ourselves from the painful truth that
we have given our hearts to something small and selfish.
The question hits just as deeply for those who pretend that
they aren’t religious. Nonreligious people
have convinced themselves that they’ve seen through religion. They’ve outsmarted it and don’t need it. But Jesus teaches that this is a silly
approach to life. Everyone worships
something. We worship whatever we
value. We worship and treasure whatever
gets our time, energy, attention, and effort. Your religion might be your alma mater (I have
a friend who will be buried in a casket with his university logo!); it might be
your retirement account; your children – their performance in school, in sports,
their popularity or their career or even their staying nearby; your religion
might be your career; or your family; or your alleged independence from others. So the question comes just as forcefully to
those who see themselves as free from church or institutional religion: to what
have you given your heart?
The problem with treasuring what can’t last is that our best
attention will be diverted into something not all that important. And in that situation we will leave ourselves
completely unprepared for the arrival of God’s fresh grace and power in our
lives. That’s why Jesus tells the
parable of about those unprepared for a home invasion. Jesus warns us against getting so deeply and
intensely devoted to what we treasure that we’re left unprepared to move in new
directions when the opportunity arises.
So let me ask you: What’s
currently getting your best attention? What
do you daydream about? What is it you’re
working to accomplish right now? Is it a
healthy pursuit, leaving room for other projects and other people? If this project or passion of yours failed or
disappeared, could you still live with joy?
Do your current plans leave room for you to be generous and to share –
in both a planned and a spontaneous way?
Do your plans leave room – in terms of money, energy, time, and
relationships – for new things to happen?
Don’t be afraid, little flock. When Jesus identifies us as his little flock,
he reminds us who we are. We are the
sheep of God’s pasture. We are the
beloved children in a new family with the protection of a parent’s love. We are the objects of God’s creative delight
and deep joy. We are awash in abundant
gifts. And we are learning to say,
“Here’s my heart, Lord. Here’s my
heart.”
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