Heart Conditions: Loving Deeply from the Heart

Acts 2:36-47, Luke 24:13-35, 1 Peter 1:17-23

You probably don’t notice it so much down here, but up in Owen Sound where I live the number of Newcomers or refugees who have come to the area is quite noticeable.  I am an immigrant to Canada myself but coming here from the States isn’t all that much of an adjustment.  These Newcomers are refugees from some pretty bad situations.  They don’t speak English.  Our houses are different.  Our bathrooms and kitchens are different.  We don’t haggle over prices in the market place.  All the basic needs and routines for daily life are different.  We, a little arrogantly, think we’re giving these Newcomers a world of opportunity here but we fail to realize how traumatic simply coming here is for them. 

Then there are the unspoken prejudices they face.  Yes, there are a handful of really nice people who are helpful to them.  But, most people are noticeably trying politely not to stare and think it’s all a novelty.  But then, there’s those who indignantly think our tax dollars should be spent on Canadians first and those who think these Newcomers are terrorists here covertly to destabilize our way of life.  Ignorance is not bliss, my friends.  It can hurt others.

Most of the Newcomers have a different faith system than we do; not that religion means anything for most Canadians anymore.  The most noticable thing about these Newcomers and probably what most Canadians get prejudiced about is that “they treat their women different.”  Like Old Order Mennonites they have very “traditional” faith and cultural values with respect to how women should dress and their role in the family and the wider community.  Not to deny that abuse against women happens in their cultures – as well l as our own – we should be careful not to judge them according to our arrogant assumption that we Westerners have a monopoly on what it is to be “civilized”.   Civilization began in their corner of the world long before there was such a things Western Liberal Democracy.  We must be careful that due to our ignorance of their ways we don’t mistake modesty for repression. 

When we take the time to get to know our Newcomers, we find them to be extremely hospitable, remarkably generous with what little they have, and they have a strong sense of honour.  Their faith plays a key role in their lives, more so than our own.  They are quite willing to discuss their faith.  Yet, they are also quite vulnerable, grieving what they’ve had to leave behind, and have suffered trauma.  They are overwhelmed by our culture and its materialism.  They notice our general lack of faith, lack of devotion.  They especially notice our immodesty.  They notice our worship of money, sex, and power.  We indeed do look and act Pagan.  They can feel persecuted by us simply because they don’t know or understand our ways and because they are just trying to be as good and faithful as they can be according to their ways.  And, they are very good at smiling and going on.  If they look sad…,maybe they are.

The situation of Newcomers coming to Western countries is much like that of the early Christians to whom Peter wrote this letter.  Exiles he calls them.  They were new Christians living in a very pagan world where idolatry abounded.  For many of them, they were driven by persecution from their homelands due to their faith in God through Christ.  In the new lands to which these early Christians fled they still faced persecution because they would not participate in idol worship. 

The early Christians were also very morally upstanding.  Roman culture was full of sex, indulgent feasting, violence, and power abuse.  Christians wanted to live pure and holy lives.

The early Christians were also known for their way of accepting everyone as equals; slaves and masters, men and women, different races and ethnicities.  They looked out after each other’s material needs sharing what they had. They were known for generosity, hospitality, and even touching lepers.  Several Ancient historians remarked on the quality of community and love the early Christians shared.

They thought of themselves as family, the family of God.  They regarded each other as beloved children of God the Father adopted into the family in Christ Jesus and sharing the family bond of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  They were born anew, rebirthed, a new humanity indwelt by God.

Like the Newcomers coming into our culture, these ancient Christians were strickingly different than their surrounding culture and were being persecuted for it either subtly or overtly.  So, Peter writes to encourage them and give them guidance on how to live faithfully as exiles in a pagan land where they were not welcome.  He rather long-windedly with much theological wording and imagery reminds them that the evidence that they are reborn, rebirthed anew as children of God is the distinctive love they have for one another.  The Holy Spirit indwelt them and the proof of this was that they loved one another deeply from the heart.

Two weeks ago we talked about being cut to the heart, meaning the way we feel when we realize we’ve put our own ideas about who God is and what God is up in our lives before who God actually is and is actually doing in our midst.  Last week we talked about hearts burning with fire, the sort thing that comes upon us when Jesus gets a hold of us in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and warms our hearts.  He causes us to be impassioned with respect to him and Christian fellowship.  Burning hearts are most effectively felt in small group fellowships based in Bible study, sharing our burdens, and praying with one another.  We also become impassioned for being in mission, reaching out, being Good (with a capitol G) neighbours.  Finally, a deeply loving heart is the meringue on the pie.  Christian fellowship distinguished by unconditional, non-judgemental, and sacrificial love is what Christian faith matures into.

This forces us to think of church in a completely different way.  Our primary focus as a body of believers in Christ must be the quality of relationships that we have in our fellowship.  How are we at loving one another?

This is where I pat you folks on the back.  Small churches in general are and this small church in particular is living proof that Jesus lives and he has poured his Spirit into our hearts.  You genuinely love one another and do your best to share that love with anyone who walks through the door.  Moreover, this past year you gave I think it was about $16,000 to flood relief in Williamsford.  You could have kept that money believing you needed it for your institutional survival, but you didn’t.  You are a light in this world. 

The fowl supper is more than just a fundraiser for this church it is a way for us to feed the community with community.  The Corn Roast is more than just a good time.  When we get together, there is a warm, warm fellowship in our midst.  We are indeed the body of Christ, bread to the world.  Yet, even though I’ve stroked your ego, there is still room to grow even deeper in love and I meant what I said last week about getting together in small groups.  I would encourage that greatly. Amen.

Heart Conditions: Hearts Burning Within

Acts 2:36-47, Luke 24:13-35, 1 Peter 1:17-23

One of the main denominations that joined together to form the United Church of Canada was the Methodist Church, Canada.  As that happened back I 1925 I would suspect that most of us have no idea what a Methodist or Methodism is.  So…

Methodism began back in the 1700’s led by the highly esteemed theologian and churchman John Wesley.  Wesley was an Anglican priest who was very much committed to living a holy life.  So much so that he and his brother, the great hymn writer Charles Wesley, when they were in the university at Oxford founded what was derogatively called the “Holy Club”.  English society in their day was nominally religious.  It was a group of young men who met three hours a day for prayer and studying the Bible.  They fasted twice a week and had communion weekly.  They were very dedicated to their method of fellowship, study, and lifestyle.  It looked much like what our passage from Acts described.  Someone called them “Methodists” and Wesley adopted that term for his renewal ministry that would come a few years down the road.

In 1735, John and Charles were invited by the Governor of the Colony of Georgia to come to Savannah to minister to the colonists and be missionaries to Native Americans.  Wesley hoped to do more of the later but found himself tied down to the institutional church needs of the colonists. 

On the boat over they met some Moravians.  The Moravians were Pietists, which means they placed great emphasis like Wesley on personal devotion.  But unlike Wesley, the Moravians spoke a great deal about personal experience of Christ. Wesley remarked how he greatly admired their deeply personal faith and noted they had an inner strength that he felt he lacked.  While at sea they met a storm and the ship’s mast broke.  The Wesley’s feared for their lives but the Moravians stayed assured they would be okay and prayed and sang a lot.

Wesley was only in Georgia for about two years.  While in Georgia, Wesley met an evangelist named George Whitefield.  Whitefield was known for preaching out in the open something Wesley was a bit indignant towards.  Wesley set up many smalls groups among the colonists that resembled the Holy Club of his university days and church attendance grew because of it.  He also fell in love, but the person of interest married another man.  Predictably, Wesley felt her faith commitment had declined after she married so he barred her from communion.  That proved to be a scandal so he returned to England.

Back in England, Wesley sharply felt the error of his ways and was greatly ashamed and arguably depressed.  He began to worship with a Moravian fellowship.  At one of their meetings on May 24, 1738 in a place on Aldersgate Street, London he had an experience.  Wesley writes:  “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
          Wesley soon returned to the preaching ministry and he began to organize small groups like his “Holy Club” that would meet in homes and wherever else they could. He also began to preach very evangelistically calling for personal conversion. Wesley would preach anywhere he was invited.
          His friend George Whitefield came to London and invited Wesley to preach at one of his outdoor rallies. Wesley was indignant with outdoor preaching. He felt preaching must happen if not in a church sanctuary, then at least indoors. Yet for some reason, he took Whitefield up on his offer and found it had tremendous effect. From there he became an itinerant preacher, traveling around the countryside setting up small groups of ‘Methodists” twelve to a group everywhere he went. Through Wesley our Lord started a great renewal movement in the Church of England that spread all over England and the British colonies. Unfortunately, Methodism was often harassed and taught against by the Church of England.

I find it hard not to think of Wesley when I read of those two disciples who encountered Jesus risen from the dead while on the Road to Emmaus.  They said their hearts were burning within them when Jesus explained the Scriptures to them.  Wesley reflects similarly that he felt his heart strangely warmed when realizing in that Moravian meeting that Jesus was with him and his prior abuse of his office in Georgia was forgiven.

That “burning heart” experience was Wesley’s personal Pentecost.  The day he felt the working of the Holy Spirit.  The day he realized that the Christian faith was more than beliefs one held practicing strict personal devotion under eternal threat.  He realized the Father’s great love for him, personal love for him, expressed in Christ who was with him by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  When he died on March 2, 1791, he died repeating, “The best of all is, God is with us.”

After this burning heart experience, one could say Wesley was on fire.  His heart burned with a new passion, a passion to strive to be pleasing to the God who loved him so much.  He stepped outside the confines of the ways of the Church of England and did things that were very outside the box, things that he himself was not comfortable with at first, like preaching in the open, itinerant preaching, setting up small groups, ordaining leaders when the Anglican bishops wouldn’t. 

Wesley’s preaching was powerful.  He preached personal commitment to Christ, personal transformation in Christ, and accountability in Christian fellowship groups.  He taught committed discipleship to a church and society that was content with just giving God a nod.  The Christian faith is more than just believing the right beliefs and doing good.  It is founded on knowing Christ and his personal concern for us each and results in living a life devoted to becoming more and more like him.

I think what Wesley did in his day is a good model for the renewal that needs to happen in our denomination:  Taking things outside the church walls and establishing small groups. Our goal needs to be not the continuation of the church as we know it, but rather that people come to have a personal faith rooted in Jesus Christ that we find through the Holy Spirit who “strangely warms” our hearts” and maybe, like for Wesley in Georgia, that will have a positive effect on the pews.

Why do I think this?  Well, I’ve had my heart “strangely warmed” too. Many years ago, when I was nineteen and troubled, at the encouragement of a girlfriend I stepped outside the box of my traditional Presbyterian roots and went with her to a Nazarene congregation that met in an elementary school cafeteria.  The Nazarenes are an offshoot of the Methodists.  As soon as I stepped through those cafeteria doors I felt my heart “strangely warmed”.  There was a sweet, sweet Spirit in that place.  I didn’t get struck with an assurance of my own salvation.  That’s not what I needed.  I needed to know God was real and loved me and, people, I can tell you without a doubt God is and God does. 

Knowing that and feeling that didn’t solve all my problems, but it got me going in the right direction.  The direction the Spirit led me in was into the small groups of Christian friends that I had in university where I was surrounded by people who loved and supported me and encouraged me as I prepared for the ministry.  I eventually returned to the Presbyterian way.  Believe it or not Jesus is among us too, but we’re not so methodical about it.

Using myself as an example, if our churches want people 55 and younger to know Christ then trying to find ways to make Sunday morning more appealing than hockey and soccer or a quiet morning won’t work.  People my age and younger just don’t normally do organizations and institutions.  If we’re here, we’re the anomaly with a huge onus of reaching out to folks our age.  People my age and younger aren’t to keen on being called sinners and the messed up state of the world isn’t so much our fault.  What we do need to know is that God is real and that he loves us.  We need genuine friendships and we want to make a difference. 

We need our hearts to burn within us, to be “strangely warmed”.  We need to meet Jesus.  Coming to church on Sunday morning for public worship is important.  But, small prayer groups of fellowship and study like Wesley got going are where I really got to meet Jesus and experience the presence of God and know my prayers were answered and God was looking out for me.  I think that having a few groups like that in each of the churches of our Cooperative meeting at times other than Sunday and places other than here, and groups to which we can invite people not associated with this church just might be a worthy step on the Road to Renewal.  Amen.

Heart Conditions: Cut to the Heart

Acts2:36-41, Luke 24:13-35, 1 Peter 1:17-23

In our readings this morning the heart is mentioned three times.  The Jerusalem crowd on the day of Pentecost seeing and hearing the promised Holy Spirit being poured out upon the disciples of Jesus realized they had missed the mark and they were cut to the heart by it.  Two disciples on Easter morning not knowing they were in the presence of Jesus raised.  Their hearts were burning within them as this Beloved Stranger explained the scriptures to them.  Finally, Peter writing to encourage many churches throughout what is today Turkey who were being persecuted for expressing the genuine mutual love they had in them as result of the Holy Spirit’s work.  He tells them to love deeply from the heart.  The next three weeks we are going to look at each one of these heart conditions.  Today we’ll look a bit at being cut to the heart.

The thing about a heart condition is that too often you don’t know you have it and what symptoms you do have can be easily explained away.  That fluttering and leaping sensation is just a tummy spasm.  The lite-headedness is from sitting too long. I don’t have the energy I used to because I’m getting older.  “Whew.  Let me catch my breath…but I’m just standing here.”

A heart condition can also really affect your drive.  You pushing yourself to get things done. You want to do things, but…maybe tomorrow.  It’s quite like the motivational problems that arise with depression.  Everything requires more effort than it should.

While we’re on the topic of the heart and drive, in the Bible the heart is the chief organ of human life, the centre of vitality.  The Hebrews believed that the blood held the life of a person and the heart pumped that life through the body.  More metaphorically, the heart is the seat of your drive.  You’re passion.

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Lk. 12:34).”  But wait, treasure sounds like pleasure, or that’s the way the heart’s sin-sick buddy the mind makes it sound and, therefore following your heart is not always the best advice to heed.  The heart’s drive for what it treasures can deceive.  The LORD spoke through Jeremiah saying, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it? (Je. 17:9).”

Fortunately, God promises us a new heart.  Through Ezekiel he promised, “I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ez. 36:26).”  Since Pentecost, we have had a taste of that promise fulfilled in us in Christ by the gift of Holy Spirit who works within us changing our hearts and minds to be more like Jesus.

But back to the heart being the seat of our drive, our passion.  As I said following the heart can be misleading because the heart can be wrongly impassioned.  Similarly, the heart can loose its passion.  You hear this with athletes.  They played the game so well for so long.  It was their passion.  Anytime, anywhere, they’d play.  But then, it’s not that something happened.  It’s just their hearts aren’t in it anymore.  They’ll finish the season, but don’t expect them to do more than just show up.  Their hearts are rekindled with passion.

Congregations can get to the point of where their hearts just aren’t in it and will start to show evidence of a heart condition.  We show up, but that’s about it.  Many Psalms encourage us to “serve the Lord with our whole hearts”, but…“Meh.  I think I’ll just sit here. My heart is just not in it.  Another fundraiser.  Another meeting.  Another anniversary.  Meh.”  The passion is just not there anymore.  Church is a duty, an obligation among many,…and wouldn’t we just love a break from it.  But, that’s like quitting on God.

I think the root cause of this congregational heart condition is that passion for the church took the place of passion for the Lord.  You see, rightly impassioned hearts, hearts impassioned for the Lord, will be passionate about knowing him and serving him no matter what form of ministry that takes.  If we lose our passion with respect to the church, it is likely because Jesus is trying to get our hearts to burn with passion, to be impassioned for him.  The end result of hearts turned back to Jesus is usually a new way of being the people of God, a new way of being the church in which our passion is to love God, our neighbours, each other, and ourselves more deeply from the heart; a new way of being the church in this world that will be more in tune with the times.

Back when I was a kid I watched a TV show called The Land of the Lost.  It was about a father, son, and daughter going rafting down this “unexplored river”.  But they get either go over a waterfall or get sucked into a whirlpool and somehow wind up in this absolutely beautiful place with plant species and animals that have been extinct for millions of years.  They think they’ve found Paradise…that is until the T. Rex shows up.

The 80’s and 90’s was the end of the era of when non-churched people got on the raft and came to church because there was a cultural message that impressed upon them that people needed to come to church to find God and “peace”.  They came and often found something really special…the presence of the Lord in the midst of good people who cared about them.  But, these church people were a people lost in time and it didn’t take long for the T. Rex to show.  The vicious carnivore of “the institutional church” embodying our idols of “what churches do” and this is “the way we’ve always done it” hounded them and guilted into doing things they didn’t know how to do and criticized the mistakes.   Instead of hearts burning with passion as they felt Jesus speaking to them through the Scriptures these newcomers found themselves being chased into a cave by a dinosaur that kill and ate their spirits.  These T. Rex churches are still around today and are the ones where you can’t get anybody out for a Bible Study and they are beginning to fight about or just say “meh” to the all the things they have to do to stay afloat…and it is really rare that anybody just shows up.  Sound familiar?

We need to be cut to the heart as our Acts passage says. Cut to the heart…this is what happens when we realize our hearts have been otherwise or wrongly impassioned.  The Jerusalem Jews realized how far off the mark they had been about Jesus and what the LORD God was doing in, through, and as Jesus of Nazareth.  The Lord was doing something new in their midst, but they couldn’t see it due to their wrongly impassioned hearts.  Instead of just saying, “meh…I think I’ll just watch.”  They tried to kill this new thing.  When God came to the people of God with a new revelation of himself, the people of God killed him and persecuted those who followed him.

Yet, because of the work of the Holy Spirit in their midst that day, the people there in Jerusalem realized that Jesus was truly their Lord and Messiah but they had indeed crucified him.  They realized this and they were cut to the heart.  They were remorseful, fearing the punishment they knew they deserved, needing to sit in holy silence before the Lord, felt lost, stung, humbled, indignant with themselves at what they had done.  So they ask the Disciples “Brothers, what can we do?”

Peter answers basically repent and receive the Holy Spirit.   The Greek word for “repent” literally means to change your thinking, to change your mindedness.  We need to commit ourselves fully to discovering and getting onboard with what Jesus is doing in our midst rather than just doing church according to the idols of what we believe churches are supposed to do and doing things the ways we’ve always done them.  We’ve got an awesome opportunity with this Coop.  We really do.  God is doing a new thing here…right here.  But are we passionate about it.  Our hearts need to burn within us and I’ll get to that next week.  But for now, I ask this question to each one of us, “What is the condition of your heart?”  Are you impassioned for the Lord?  Or, are our hearts just not in it?  Are we saying “meh” and in so doing stifling the Spirit’s work in our midst?  Pray about that this week?  Amen.