Heart

The scriptures referred to are Deuteronomy 30:15-20 and Matthew 5:21-37.

After dodgeball, the worst part of gym class was when we lined up to be chosen for any two opposing teams. The process really let you know how the others in your class regarded you. Because it wasn't only the most athletic kids who were chosen first. Popular kids, regardless of their physical prowess, were also chosen in the first few rounds. Not only the uncoordinated but the unpopular kids found themselves in that uncomfortable situation where neither of the last 2 picks appealed to the team captains. The blow to one's self-esteem was felt by both the second to last kid picked and the kid who was left and ended up on the other team by default. Nobody actually wanted them. The only reason either was chosen was because everyone had to be on one side or the other.

In the hilarious comedy Little Miss Sunshine when a little girl is unexpectedly named winner of the local kiddie pageant, her loving but dysfunctional family try to get her to the state finals. Every member of the family has their own problems and when the girl's older brother suffers a blow to his plans for a career, he has a meltdown. His uncle tries to comfort him. As they talk, the brother realizes that a lot of things in life are like beauty contests, people being chosen over others for superficial and arbitrary reasons. He decides he will figure out how to achieve his goal another way.

And there is science behind that. Children, simply shown pictures of people and asked which ones they thought were good or smart or kind, chose those with the best looking faces as having the best personal qualities. Psychologists have done experiments in which 2 people with the exact same resume apply for the same job. The only difference is that one applicant is played by a very handsome or beautiful model and the other by a person of normal appearance. Guess who gets the job? The good-looking person. They also have done experiments where a forlorn woman is on the side of the road next to a car with its hood up. Again drivers, all male, pull over instantly to help the supermodel in distress. The normal-looking woman has a much longer wait.

We see this when people who are good-looking or popular seem to rise higher in an organization or a field than their job skills objectively merit. And ever notice how good-looking most popular singers are? You can't tell me that vocal talent always goes along with symmetrical features, high cheekbones and a slim build. And if it weren't for the fact that the British film and television industry often chooses talent over looks we'd be under the impression that only extraordinarily good-looking people can do great acting.

Unfortunately this conditions us to think that God works along the same lines. He just arbitrarily likes some people more than others and showers them with looks, popularity or wealth. Even the disciples thought that way. When Jesus says that a camel could squeeze through the eye of a sewing needle easier than a rich man could get into God's kingdom, their reaction is, “Then who can be saved?” If those blessed with wealth can't make it, how can those of us who are just scraping by possibly do so? Jesus replies, “This is impossible for mere humans, but for God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:23-26) In other words, don't let external things fool you. None of us are good enough to earn salvation; it is God's grace that makes our salvation possible.

This applies to looks as well as wealth. When Samuel is told to anoint one of Jesse's son to be the next king of Israel, the prophet is naturally looking for someone who stands out. “When they arrived, Samuel noticed Eliab and said to himself, 'Surely, here before the Lord stands his chosen king.' But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Don't be impressed by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. God does not view things as men do. People look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'” (1 Samuel 16:6-7) Now it turns out that David, like his brother, is also good-looking. The difference is that God was looking for someone who was after his own heart, someone who would do what God commanded. (1 Samuel 13:14)

An open and willing heart is essential. In Jesus' parable of the sower and the soils, 3 kinds of people do not react well when they hear the gospel. Jesus says, “But as for the seed that landed on good soil, these are the ones who, after hearing the word, cling to it with an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with steadfast endurance.” (Luke 8:15) The seed or gospel is the same in each case; the difference is in whether people hold onto it and let it grow in their hearts and bear fruit in their lives.

In biblical times, people thought of the heart not merely as the center of our emotions but also as the source of our thoughts. Thus Jesus says that what we eat doesn't make a person unclean. “For it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and then goes into the sewer....What comes out of a person defiles him. For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” (Mark 7:20-22) If the heart is where such things come from, the heart is what needs to be be cleansed.

That's what Jesus is getting at in today's gospel. He not only doesn't want us to murder other people, but he wants us to realize it starts long before that, in the heart and mind. It starts with being angry with someone. Jesus says that makes you liable to judgment. Because while it is natural to get angry from time to time, it's what you do with that anger that counts. Anger often motivates people to strike out and harm someone else. But anger at injustice can motivate people to fix the situation that is unjust or that allows injustice to flourish.

I'm sure that Rosa Parks was a bit angry when, after a hard day of work, the bus driver wanted her and other black passengers to not only give up their seats in the designated “colored” section of the bus but to vacate an entire row so white passengers would not even not have to sit next to a black person. She didn't fight or punch or kick. She just sat, breaking the law and letting herself be arrested. That kicked off the Montgomery bus boycott which lasted more than a year. Parks' case led to the Supreme Court decision that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

On the other hand, we hear on the news daily of anger gone wrong and people being murdered, often over the most trivial things. A man is so upset over being served cold eggs that he kills his wife, his stepdaughter and 3 other people. A Florida man (of course!) kills his roommate over who should replace the toilet paper roll in the bathroom. A woman kills her friends because they unfriended her on Facebook. One man was murdered by his family because he wanted to watch a football game and they wanted to watch a religious program. Wouldn't it be ironic if the text for the TV evangelist's sermon was today's gospel.

These are all real news stories. They did not all take place in America but it is disturbing that the homicide rate in the US is 7 ½ times higher than all the other high-income countries combined. 67 Americans are murdered each day, more than 24,000 a year. That's roughly the population of Key West, minus 2000 lucky survivors. Hurricanes are not that deadly. In fact in 2021, 770 people died due to natural disasters in the US, less than a third of the number murdered by other humans.

The reason given for the Genesis flood is that “the earth was filled with violence.” (Genesis 6:11) After the flood, God reboots the earth and makes a covenant with Noah and his descendants. He wants humans to stop all the bloodshed because “in God's image God has made humankind.” (Genesis 9:6) You would think that seeing in your fellow human an image of God would be enough to stop you from harming him. But we are told that, before the flood, God knew that the reason for the violence was “Every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6:5)

Jesus says the same source is responsible for adultery. It begins in the heart. Even in our passage from Deuteronomy, the problems start “if your heart turns away...” Humanity has a heart problem.

A lot of educated people want to say the real problem is the lack of education. If people were better educated, they wouldn't do bad things. Now it is true that the Bible values education. But God knows that mere knowledge is not enough; what's more important is gaining wisdom. Besides, ignorance—not knowing better—is easily fixed. We all start out ignorant as children. As we grow we learn. But folly, or stupidity as we would call it today, is not the same as ignorance. We see highly educated people do stupid things all the time.

In the second World War, the British were parachuting radio operators into Nazi-occupied countries to help with the resistance and radio back information the British military could use. They were also taught various techniques to let the intelligence people in England know if they were acting under duress. One Dutch operative was captured by the Nazis and forced to send false information back to England. The operator did all of the things he was taught while sending his coded messages to signal to the British that he was compromised. But they didn't notice the safety measures they themselves had put in place. Finally he encoded the letters CAU at the beginning of his transmission and GHT at the end to let them know he was caught. Nobody picked up on that. So they thought it was safe to keep parachuting other operatives into the Netherlands, where they were caught by the Nazis, interrogated and killed.

Stupidity is bad. The last thing Jesus mentions in that list of evil things that come from the heart is folly. The opposite is wisdom. Wisdom, as opposed to knowledge, is not so much about how things are composed or how they work as it is about why things are the way they are, especially when it comes to humans, and how we should therefore act.

But knowing how we should act and actually doing so are two different things. As we pointed out last week there are several examples of preachers and theologians steeped in the Bible's wisdom who do what they shouldn't because they choose to pursue money or sex or popularity. And of course there are people who say they are Bible-believing Christians who ignore what scripture says about, say, our God-given duties to the poor, the sick, the disabled, refugees and immigrants. As Stephen Colbert put it, “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to.” We know what's right. Our problem is not so much a head problem as a heart problem.

The second to last thing Jesus mentions in that list of evil things that come from the heart is arrogance. Arrogance is thinking that you are never wrong, that you know better than anyone else, even God, and that you are self-sufficient and don't need anyone's help. But if that's how you feel, you will never change your mind or heart. And the Greek word for repentance literally means a change of mind. If we are to obey God, we need to admit that we are often wrong and be willing to change. Psalm 51, which is attributed to David, says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Don't throw me away from your presence. Don't take your Holy Spirit away from me.” (Psalm 51:10-11)

I once got in trouble for sending a nursing home patient to the hospital when I found him lying in a bed filled with blood. I didn't check his chart and see that he had a written “end of life” declaration that said he didn't want measures taken to save his life. I didn't have his legal consent to get him life-saving treatment. So he was sent back to us to die. You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. Neither can God. He will not force himself upon anyone. We must humble ourselves and ask him to change us.

Psalm 51 goes on to say, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) Oddly enough, sometimes we have to break to be fixed. My dad once fell and broke his leg when closing up the restaurant and bar where he worked. He was the last person there and so he lay on the floor till morning when the janitorial crew came in and found him. Over those long hours of the night the broken parts of his leg had already started to fuse in position. So the doctors had to rebreak his leg for it to set properly. Painful? Yes. Necessary? Yes. He was in a hip cast for months but after that he was able to walk again.

The word heart appears 830 times in the Bible. The book in which it appears the most is the Psalms at 119 times. The book with the next highest number of appearances is Jeremiah at 52. He writes, “The heart is above all deceitful and is desperately sick; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the mind and test the heart, to give to every person according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10, my translation)

The way to change people's actions is to change their minds and the way to change their minds is to change their hearts. That's why God probes our minds and hearts. Because he is looking for a heart that is willing to let God in and willing to let him change us, even if that means breaking habits that have become part of us. Painful? Yes. Necessary? Yes.

In Psalm 51, David says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit.” (Psalm 51:12) It was exhilarating for me to walk again after my accident, as I'm sure it was for my father. Change is painful but change for the better is ultimately rewarding.

And it is a joyful thing to know that God does not save us based on superficial things like beauty or popularity or wealth or power or the amount of knowledge one has accumulated. He saves us because he loves us. The question is are we willing to love him back?