Readings: 1 John 3:1-7, Acts 3:1-19; Luke 24: 36b-48
Last Sunday I spoke about the resurrection as the Christian way of describing a life-time journey – as a way of writing our life-story around a central commitment to being transformed. As we continue our journey through the liturgical season of Easter, I invite you to consider again today how your life story is being written around this process of “dying to an old way of being and living into a new way of being”.
This morning’s resurrection story from the early church tells of a man paralyzed from birth being brought to the Temple – placed in the very vulnerable position of needing to beg for his survival; and, out of that place of risk and emptiness, receiving healing. We, who are paralyzed in so many ways in our lives, can hear in this resurrection story that healing is available to us all within the boundless Love of Holy Mystery … if we would but open our hearts to the potential, which embraces us.
How open is your heart to this transforming Love in which we dwell?
The word ‘heart’ occurs more than a thousand times in the Bible[1]. Most often, it is used, not to describe the pumping muscle at the centre of our living, but as “a comprehensive metaphor for the self.” This heart metaphor invites us into an exploration of how we see and think; how we comprehend and feel; how we respond and act. At the depths of our being, our hearts (or some might say our ‘souls’, our ‘minds’ our ‘spirits’) shape who we truly are.
Marcus Borg reminds us that the “Bible has many pairs of metaphors for the human condition and our need… portray[ing] our predicament and the solution. In bondage, we need liberation. [When] in exile and estranged, we need to return and reconnect. Blind, we need to have our sight restored. In the dark, we need enlightenment. Sick and wounded, we need healing. Hungry and thirsty, we need food and drink. Sinful and unclean we need forgiveness and cleansing. Dead and entombed, we need to be raised into life. …the heart, the self at its deepest level, can be turned toward God or away from God, open to God or closed to God.”[2] A closed heart prevents us from seeing clearly, it lacks gratitude and is insensitive to wonder and awe; a closed heart lacks compassion and is unaware of injustice; a closed heart forgets the Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being. “it is as if the self is enclosed in a dome, a transparent shell: the world is ‘out there’ and I am ‘in here’. Like an invisible shield, the dome is a boundary separating the self from the world. It can become hard and rigid [like a tomb]. It closes us off from the world, and we live centered in ourselves. … Not all hearts are equally hard. In severe form, hard hearts are associated with violence, brutality, arrogant and a rapacious world-devouring greed… The mild form of /violence is judgmentalism, of brutality, insensitivity, of arrogance, self-centeredness; of rapacious greed, ordinary self-interest.” I certainly recognise myself here – do you?
Borg reflects on how this opening and closing of the heart happens “on a daily basis. I am aware that some days my heart is more open than other days. Even in the course of a single day, there are moments when my heart is more open or more closed. Sometimes it is closed because of tiredness, worry, or busyness. I know that my heart is closed whenever I feel grumpy or self-preoccupied, when the world looks ordinary, or when the critical voice is strong in my head, whether directed at myself or others. When I stand in a supermarket checkout line and all the people I see look kind of ugly, I know my heart is closed.” [3] For some of us, the pain we carry is so great; we cannot imagine how our hearts could ever be opened. We are paralyzed; we live within our tomb-like shells. The Christian story tells us, we do not have to remain in that deathly place – that our tombs can be broken open –that transformative healing is not just an idea, but a reality. And, most of the time, like the first disciples, we are skeptical. How is it possible for our hearts to be hatched open? We doubt whether we can ever move from tomb to delight. And yet, at the heart of the gospel we are told our very selves can be opened to the sacred, the wonder, the wholeness for which we yearn.
The hatching open of our hearts is a comprehensive image for the ongoing process of living the Christian life. …
I’ve spoken before of the ‘thin places’ metaphor. It’s a wonderful image to describe those places where hearts experience the hatching of new life. I have always found the Isle of Iona to be one of those places; I’ve also found this beautiful building another; music, too, has always been a powerful thin-place experience for me. These thin places are where we find it easier to recognise Godness shining – those places, people, experiences where Holy Mystery, in which we are always living, becomes startlingly clear. Within those thin places, the Spirit of God hatches opens hearts, revealing resurrection moments and transforming our life stories.
John Shea tells of a thin place experience:
“The man crept into the back of the church. Early Sunday Mass, 8.00am., last row, aisle seat. Barely in, quickly out if need be.
It was his habit since the divorce. He was afraid not to go to Mass – and he was afraid to go to Mass. So he snuck in and out. It was not that he was well known in this parish. When people looked at him, they would not be thinking, “Poor Bill, what a messy divorce!” But he was thinking it. It was how he saw himself. In his head he was guilty, a major failure at matrimony – and at a young age! It was hard to handle. No matter how much they talked about forgiveness, there was very little room for matrimonial failure in the Catholic Church. The last row, aisle seat was a perfect place. It was where he belonged.
An old priest was saying Mass.
As usual, Bill did not go to communion.
After communion a woman soloist sang a haunting rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Every ‘wretch that was saved’ was moved.
Except one. Suddenly the old priest was on his feet and walking toward the congregation.
‘I hate that song. I am not a wretch. You are not a wretch. The Gospel is right. You are a [beloved] child of God. Perhaps momentarily paralyzed, but called to rise.’
Then the old priest began moving down the center aisle. ‘This is my recessional song,’ he shouted.
He began to point to people in pew after pew. “You are a [beloved] child of God. You are a [beloved] child of God. And you.”
“Oh no!” thought Bill, as the priest approached with his jabbing finger. “Oh no!”
“And you are a [beloved] child of God” said the old priest in a voice that was now quiet, not from exhaustion, but from the intuition the truth he was saying had nothing to do with loudness.
Last man, last row, aisle seat: “You are a [beloved] child of God.”
Bill tried, but he could not stop the tears. After a while he even stopped trying. Everyone walked by him. Finally, he stood up, walked out, and went back home.” [4]
Friends, like the old priest, that which we call God entices us into wholeness, through love. We discover that truth in the thin places of our lives. Most of us have been taught the way of moralism, which claims God will love us if and when we change – and, let me assure you, that is a path doomed to failure[5]. We are never going to be good enough – pure enough – holy enough – loving enough. Thank goodness the resurrection stories tell it differently:
The stories of Easter remind us of how we lock ourselves in our tombs of pain and self-blame, closing our hearts, not knowing how to shift the stone that blocks us from all we yearn for. Sometimes we remember to slowly loosen our fearful grip, knowing that when we let go, we fall – not into the abyss – but into the free, no-strings-attached- gift of God’s great love, generosity and mercy.
Other times the transformation comes as sudden as an unexpected earthquake. An unlikely Christ comes out of nowhere and blasts open our hearts, offering words of freedom and healing. “An old priest finds us hiding with our pain, our guilt, our lack of love and breaks through our self-hatred. Our hearts are hatched open. We are ‘unparalyzed’ and on our feet, striding out of the place we crept into, knowing that forgiveness, love and walking the resurrection life are the same thing.[6]
Christ is risen….
[1] Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity 2003, p.149.
[2] Borg, 2003, p.151.
[3] Borg, 2003, p.153-154.
[4] John Shea, Eating with the Bridegroom: The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers, 2005: 67-68.
[5] Richard Rohr, adapted from Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate ... Seeing God in All Things Center for Action and Contemplation cac@cacradicalgrace.ccsend.com, Wednesday, 18 April 2012
[6] Shea, 2005, p.68.
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