* * * PURITY OF HEART

Transcription

1 Fourth Lenten Session on The Beatitudes PRAYER Great and Mighty God, we are gathered again this day, as bands of disciples have gathered for generations coming out of a myriad of dwellings, coming away from numerous tasks, to which we must return each of us aware of different dimensions of life, different challenges, different pains and joys. We come to share the experience of our common faith. We come to worship You. We come with the understanding that each one here is a bearer of Your redeeming Love. We come to remember, to be renewed, to receive again the grace of Your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. If we could find better words to speak our gratitude, we would use them now. If we knew ways to better show our love for You, we would do them now. You who are beyond our comprehending, yet nearer than our own thoughts come teach us again to receive the joy and wonder of Your Presence. Make us content to know Your Peace and to share Your Love. And whenever there is opportunity, grant us the wisdom and the ways to act out of our devotion. Through Jesus Christ, we pray it and pledge it. Amen. * * * Blessed are the pure in heart, Matthew 5:1-16 for they shall see God. PURITY OF HEART We have stressed the necessity of taking the first step first. The first beatitude the humility stance, the acceptance of our absolute need for God is not only a life-changing blessing in its own right, but it is prerequisite to all the other beatitudes. The rest of them cannot work right do not end up in blessing without the first one already in place. This is important for all of us to keep remembering, but if you are coming into our Lenten theme in the middle, I beg you to at least refer to the first sermon in the series, Poor In Spirit. Our English word blessed (or blessing ) is a powerful term. If you say of someone, That person has been a real blessing in my life, that is a strong statement. Nevertheless, I think the word blessed (makarios) BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 1 OF 9

2 does not carry for us the emotional power intended here. It became popular in the 1960s and 70s to translate blessed into happy. We ran around saying, Happy are the peacemakers. Happy are the meek. Kind of like trying to drive a B-17 with the propeller from a beanie cap. The opposite of blessed is not unhappy, though it does move in that direction. The opposite of blessed is cursed : blighted, out of the plan, out of the Kingdom. Makarios is the distinctive, you-can t-get-itanywhere-else JOY of participation in God s Kingdom being in it, being part of it. Makarios was often contrasted with a false, temporary, worldly happiness. God effects a reversal of our values. The Beatitudes are far beyond the shallow, temporal rewards of this world. By the way, lots of propaganda notwithstanding, the realm of this world and the realm of the Spirit do not necessarily fight each other. They often coexist amicably, at least at times. Just because you have good health or a responsible job or considerable financial resources does not automatically mean that you do not love and serve God. But the Beatitudes are beyond the temporal world and its values. The world cannot give them to you. And if God gives them to you, the world cannot take them away. It is one of the saddest and greatest moments of all time: our discovery that the crucifixion did not mean that Jesus was no longer the Son of God. Spiritual principles are dangerous if they are not dedicated and devoted to God. Nowhere is that more true and clear than with the sixth beatitude. Intensity, focus, and single-minded purpose are at the root of the greatest evil, as well as at the root of the greatest good. The SS troops of the Third Reich had a great deal in common with the Jesuits in their heyday; the devotion and discipline were very similar. The difference was in whom and what they served. So as we talk about the second greatest of the Beatitudes, let us be particularly mindful of how very dependent it is upon the first, and how dangerous it is without the first. We want to be love-based rather than fear-based, but I do think we should be very fearful of the abuse or misuse of our gifts, and we should teach our children to be too. This is not a common awareness in our society. But it is one of the curses one of the greatest misfortunes when we misuse, abuse, or fail to use the gifts that God gives us. I am not talking about doing anything perfectly. But it is possible to grow up in our culture and get clear through school, and even church, and never be clearly told that one of the greatest misfortunes in life is BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 2 OF 9

3 to use your gifts and abilities for your own purposes for your own ends. I did it myself, It s my reward, I am successful are relatively common and socially acceptable attitudes. But it is not possible to be the Children of Light the Children of God with such attitudes. Do you remember the saying, Whoever created your intelligence, you didn t? Well, whoever created any of our other skills, gifts, or abilities, we didn t. We can train, develop, fine tune, and devote our gifts, but none of them were our idea to start with. So if we are going to talk about purity of heart the very thing that will bring our gifts to their apex let us be very clear, lest our gifts become the source of our deepest sorrow and greatest sin. Our gifts were given to us that we may serve God and God s Kingdom. If we do not dedicate and devote them to this end, we are in the enemy camp. God does not appreciate it when we use the gifts he gave us to hurt people, to weaken or oppose his authority, or to do damage to the Kingdom. Sometimes this awareness makes us want to sit it out, to make sure we do no harm. But neither does God appreciate it when we let the gifts lie fallow and go unused. Jesus parable of the talents is a devastating indictment of trying to play it safe. So we are caught. We have to acknowledge, train, develop, dedicate, and use our abilities for God, in some way, or we live blighted, empty, complaint-filled lives. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The imagery is pretty clear, unless we want to be obtuse and sometimes, sadly, I do. I got away with it with some of my teachers in school, and it s hard not to try to pull it off with God. Technically, we could argue that the heart is not the center or core of our inner being, that it is not the seat of our motives or emotions. But it has long been used to symbolize these very things. Occasionally I discover after a sermon that I am still speaking to a few literalists some fundamentalist and some scientific. Anyway, worshipping the Lord your God with all of your heart means more than saying thank you for the blood-pumping muscle that keeps you alive. Not that it is wrong to be thankful for that as well. May both layers of the meaning of the heart be strong within you. Purity was another one of those special concepts in ancient times. Purity was power. Unmixed with other things, something pure could express the full essence of a thing. Purity was wisdom. Untroubled by doubts, mixed motives, or conflicting ideas, it could see clearly, and sometimes far into the future. It was no longer double-minded. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 3 OF 9

4 Gold was the first metal that humans learned to make pure. We could smelt it melt it and keep scraping away all the impurities until we had pure gold. You can still feel that phrase crackle inside a little, even if you don t remember why. It is pure gold. Why would you want your king to wear a crown of gold? It had nothing to do with wealth or greed. That came later, and is picayune in comparison. You wanted your king to wear a crown of gold so that the properties of purity would transfer from the crown to his head so that he would have wisdom and power, and so that he would see clearly, make just judgments, and be strong that the kingdom and its people might prosper. Purity was the key. Without purity, what chance could there be? Most of the kings of the earth, despite their crowns, were not pure. We have the devastation to prove it. Why is a wedding ring the symbol and seal of wedding vows made of gold? Figure it out. Some people have not figured it out yet. They think there is something wrong with marriage, when in fact, unknowingly, they have not yet given it a chance. Purity of heart is to will one thing. Søren Kierkegaard gave this title to one of his books. Purity of heart is to will one thing. Jesus said to Martha: Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; only one thing is necessary. (Luke 10:41) Blessed are the pure in heart: blessed are you when the will within you the core and center of your feelings, motives, desires, and purposes has been smelted: melted and processed until all the impurities, all the extraneous stuff, all the secondary goals and desires, good or bad, have been scraped away. When the heart is pure, its only desire is to love and serve God. Its only purpose is to love and serve God. Integration. All the inner warfare is resolved. All parts of the whole are working toward the same end. Then, of course, the pure in heart see more clearly how to love others, and how to engage in many things in this world without the heart wavering from its true purpose. And God backs and supports the gifts with power. From the outside, we watch in amazement and think we are seeing miracles. Mother Teresa was so human we thought she was inhuman. Paul was so focused we could barely believe it. Jeremiah seemed like the purist gold in the Old Testament, but maybe it was because he was handed such a harsh assignment. And Jesus? Was Jesus pure in heart? Whenever I start to realize the magnitude of it begin to grasp it I am so overwhelmed, so overcome, that I cannot contain the gratitude, the admiration, the wonder. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 4 OF 9

5 Before we leave this brief introduction to the sixth beatitude and you go to your own Lenten contemplation for the rest of the week, I want to remind you of what an important place this imagery had in Jesus teachings. The Beatitudes bring it to its apex, but Jesus often reminded us of the importance of the heart, and how it controls everything for good or for evil. He was constantly telling us: You cannot fix it from the outside in. It must be fixed from the inside out. That is why Christianity puts such emphasis on conversion, on being born anew, on being saved, on trusting the Savior. The heart must be changed or none of the rest can follow. Our world is always focused on changing the outside. Naturally. What else would you expect from the world? Christianity is a profound and uncompromising alternative to that approach. First the heart, then the deed. If we go to the deed first, Satan will always twist it to a different purpose. Just a few quotations for those who think I might be exaggerating: For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man... (Matthew 15:19-20) For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man. (Mark 7:21-23) You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. (Matthew 12:34-35) For this people s heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn for me to heal them. (Matthew 13:15) The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45) Why will the pure in heart see God? Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened unto you. (Matthew 7:7) But aside from that and aside from the next realm there is something small yet very meaningful to me. Years ago I had a friend named Lorraine Washburn. Her husband was one of my dearest friends, and I only knew Lorraine because I loved Channing. But one day when I was waiting for Channing to finish up with a patient so we could go play, Lorraine and I got to talking about painting. Now, art is one of BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 5 OF 9

6 the things that got left out of my gene pool. My theory is: If you don t have a camera, you should at least paint it as close to a photograph as possible. Even if you do have a camera, you would be better off reading a book. But Lorraine and I started talking about painting. For a few minutes, we got nowhere. Then she just stopped, and started describing to me what she was seeing outside the window. I thought it was just their backyard, but for a little while Lorraine let me see that backyard through her eyes. It had color and shadow and light and shape and patterns I had never seen or noticed in all my life. Lorraine had devoted years of love and energy to a gift God had given her, and so every day she saw a whole world that I looked at but did not see. The promise of seeing God is a future promise. But it is also true that the pure in heart wake up every morning to a world full of God a world that bears the marks and traces of God s presence everywhere. Does that make it worth going through the smelting? We shall see. * * * So now, appropriate or inappropriate, I want to switch to a little message I tried to give to some children when we were studying this same beatitude. It is called: THE TWO-HEADED MONSTER I do wish that I had the ability to make a television story for you. If I did, today I would tell you the story of a two-headed monster. The monster is big and very fascinating. But is he ugly and scary, or is he beautiful and friendly? The most important thing about this monster is that he has two heads. One head is very mean and cruel. The other head is very friendly and just as merry and full of fun as you could ever want. And the problem is, whenever you go to see this monster or whenever he comes looking for you it is impossible to tell which head will be in charge and running things at the time. You see, one head sort of slumps down out of sight and lets the other head be in command. And of course, the rest of the monster acts in tune with whichever head is awake and in command. So if the friendly head is awake, the monster dances and plays, and you have a wonderful time being with him. But if the ugly head is awake, then the whole monster is fierce and dangerous, and you are lucky to get away alive. Even if you do, you usually have several cuts and bruises to show for it. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 6 OF 9

7 Now, you might think it would be easy to tell which head is awake, so you could know whether to run away or to go play and have fun. But sometimes, when the monster comes toward you, you cannot tell which head is in command until you get up pretty close. What s far worse, the heads can change just like that [snap fingers]. It s not always bad when they change, either. Like, sometimes when you are running away from the ugly monster and he is just about to catch you and hurt you bang, the heads will change and suddenly the monster is a wonderful friend by your side. Or sometimes, when the monster is all friendly and a bully comes up to taunt and hurt you, the monster changes to the ugly side and chases the bully away. Very confusing. Aren t you glad this is only an imaginary television story? But I am not quite through. You see, none of us are two-headed monsters. Isn t that lucky? But you know what? Sometimes we are double-minded. That means the two heads are both on the inside. Sometimes we feel friendly and sometimes we feel nasty. Only, our heads don t change to give anybody warning. And our friends can be like that too. One minute they say nice things to us and we think they like us. And maybe a few minutes later, for no reason we can understand, they say something really mean to us. And we go away feeling hurt and bruised. Has that ever happened to you? Do you think you have ever done that to anybody else? I will tell you something else: Sometimes my two heads, the ones on the inside, are both awake at the same time, and even they cannot figure out which one is in charge. Do you know what I mean? Have you ever wanted to be good and bad at the very same time? I remember once, for instance, when I was really grateful for and really angry at my sister at the very same time. Actually, it happened a lot more than once, but this time I remember: She had cleaned up the corral, the goat yards, the barn, the chicken yard, the rabbit hutches. She had done a super job. My father and mother were congratulating her and telling her what a good job she had done. You see, it was my job, and she had done it as a favor to me. Since she did it for me, it meant I could go play because my chores were done for that day. My sister had done a wonderful thing. But you know what? She got a lot more praise from Mom and Dad than I ever got. Since it was my job, I naturally never got any thanks for it. I mean, after a while, you don t thank your mother for fixing your breakfast, because it s what she always does her job right? BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 7 OF 9

8 Anyway, my sister got a lot of praise and attention from Mom and Dad for doing all that work which was not her work. But the real problem was, she had done it in about two and a half hours. It usually took me nearly five hours. And she had done a better job than I usually did. So I was double-minded. Both heads were wide awake at the same time. One of them loved and appreciated my sister. The other one wanted to do something really mean to her because she had made me look really bad in front of my parents. How could I ever complain again about how hard I had to work and how it took all Saturday morning to take care of all the chores? My sister had proved that she could do it in half the time! Well, thankfully, none of you have two heads. But I am sorry to report that all of us are double-minded at times we think two ways at the same time. Sometimes it comes on us suddenly, and we are in trouble before we realize it. Sometimes we can tell ahead of time that certain situations will make us double-minded. So what do you do if you don t want to be a two-headed monster all of your life? It is a very big secret that Jesus taught us. We have to learn to take both heads both minds into the presence of God. And the quicker the better. There, in the quiet in the peace of God s wisdom and caring God helps the two minds come back together. And we find out that there was a lot more good in the ugly head than we realized, and a lot more harm in the friendly head than we realized. But together, when they both love God, they think higher and better than ever. When the two minds come together, some people call it single-minded. Makes sense. But strangely enough, most people call it purity of heart. Anyway, whenever we start feeling irritable, out of sorts, or confused and we realize we are thinking two ways at the same time about some things or some people, it is a sign! A sign that we need to be spending more time in prayer time in God s presence letting God integrate us, bring us back into peace, put our two heads back together so both can love and serve him. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 8 OF 9

9 QUESTIONS FOR BEATITUDE GROUPS WEEK FOUR 1.) Can you tell any stories of times when being double-minded made your own life difficult? 2.) Can you remember an experience when it seemed like you had only one motive? (When I stop to think about it, I almost always have more than one motive.) 3.) Not counting Jesus, who in the Bible seems to you to illustrate purity of heart? And please tell why this person seems pure in heart to you. (Not trying to limit this to one person. By the way, I think Samson is one of the best illustrations.) 4.) When you feel scattered, or disintegrated (not integrated), what things have you learned help to get you back in focus? BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2014 All rights reserved. PAGE 9 OF 9