Becoming The Easter Movement:
“Your Heart Is The Heart Of The Matter”
John 20: 12-22, Psalm 51: 1, 6-12, Jeremiah 31: 31-34
~God, you desire truth in my inward being....teach me your wisdom in my secret heart.
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~Sustain me in a willing spirit.
What is your spirit willing to sustain? What might your spirit be enabled to sustain, if you explored your secret heart....your deepest desires....with God? What might your spirit be enabled to sustain if you let God meet you in your secret heart with truth and wisdom?
Jesus revealed his secret heart to God. He did not hide his trouble from God, but went right to God with it...revealing his secret heart so his spirit would be sustained. And he believed and God spoke to him. ....In your secret heart, what might you hear God say to you....if you reveal the trouble of your soul/heart? It is hardest to hear God...to believe....when our souls are troubled and our lives are in crisis...hard to hear the voice of God even if God is speaking clearly and longs to sustain our spirit giving us a new truth. Often, it's easy to believe when things are going well...much harder when they are not. When things are looming vs. when they’re blooming…..
What is the heart of the matter here? What matters to your heart? Actually, quantum physics and science are leading a discussion that at the center of all matter….is heart….a presence…something not random…
Gives new meaning to when your pastor offers to those who finish their session of reiki/direction…offers the invitation to linger longer, lean into the holy hush and invite each cell in your body to remember the depth of this prayer….cells actually do remember…
Listen to this…what a movement this is:
As reported in Time Magazine’s February 19th issue, “enmeshed in the brain”…that’s a way to describe Dr. Newberg’s assertions about God in his soon to be released book “How God Changes Your Brain”. Having done all types of brain scans and studies, he asserts that when people engage in prayer, that would be reveal their hearts to God and let God in their secret heart…..the conversation/prayer centers in the frontal lobes of the brain which govern focus and concentration. During very deep prayer, the frontal loves power down…as he says….and a particular affect is achieved. Pray and meditate enough and some physical changes in the brain become permanent….the frontal lobes actually become thicker which boosts memory. Faith and health overlap. Cleansing fasts also affect the brain and produce responses.
So, your prayer…what’s in your heart matters….remembering that in ancient
What’s in your….heart?
Today’s psalm is written by King David who lost his head as he lost his heart and so he starts off confessing to God…probably he was really confessing to himself because, at first, his self-talk is really on the verge of a pity party. When things go wrong or we make a mistake in our judgment, don’t we also do a whoa-is-me and make our wrong doing bigger than life…oh…I was born this way…there’s no hope for me! Most the time most of us get stuck right there. It gets us off the hook for having to do something about the life!
But David goes on…he not only confesses to himself but to God. He turns toward God and gets a holy consciousness about his own actions and their consequence. He wants more for his life and is willing to turn his life around…turning toward what matters most….a right spirit and right relationships….God’s new covenant now internal…an inward movement that moves us out into the world differently.
What matters to you? Is there something going on in your life that gives you pause? Do you have regret around which you find yourself doing some self-talk that verges on a “pity party”? Are you stuck in whoa-is-me self-talk…or like David…are you willing to turn toward God and begin again to live?
What really matters to you? Are you in pain because of denying it?
Now…this is the good part…the part that gives me hope. David begins his new life not with some big grand gesture or stroke of insight as to how to right his wrong. He simply says to God, I know you desire truth in my inward being…God you want me to be honest with myself. This is where David begins and this is the only place any of us can ever begin. And it is enough and it brings us forward.
David goes on to ask God to give him wisdom in his secret heart…within, quietly. He starts small and quietly. He asks to be made clean…I would say to be reenergized. This seems a pretty reasonable way to start over…small and wise. …just for himself, not so much for others at first. And to help him remember what matters most to him, he then asks that in the living of his day he may be where he can hear joy and gladness.
Imagine how your mood would change…your energy be renewed…and how you might feel differently about your life if you were living the day within earshot of joy and gladness? Imagine what wisdom you might find in your secret heart if your frame of mind was recognizing gladness and joy around you instead of whoa-is-me?
David asks God stay close in spirit, put a right spirit within him because his is broken. He asks God to help him find a willing spirit.
What are you willing to do differently in order to have your right spirit and find new life?
Aahh…here’s where Jeremiah comes in. You see, initially you just may not be able to even see yourself clearly, let alone want a right spirit, be willing to do anything differently to mend your heart or create a new, clean one!
But the heart of the matter is this….God is able and willing and God does it for you until you are ready to do it for yourself. God has extended to us a new covenant. It is no longer a two way set-up marked by rainbows or stars or generations…written in laws on tablets. God now decrees God is willing to hold up both ends of the agreement until we can hold up our end.
How does God do this? ….by placing within our hearts the wisdom to know and the ability to see clearly and the courage to act…when we are ready. God will hold up God’s end of the bargain forgiving everything and holding our new life for us as we find the courage to turn our lives toward the life God most deeply wants us live…no matter what!
The heart of the matter is this: God loves you. Whatever has happened to you, whatever you have done with your life thus far, God is holding on to a new life for you…your new heart… No deals…everyone gets a new heart! God is out there in the darkness/mystery ahead of us holding out his hand that we might put ours in his and go for the new life we say we long to live….no matter how long it takes us to reach out to God, God is already reaching in to us.
Does it matter enough to you to go for it! To live the new life?
We don’t have to start out with some big grand rearranging of the furniture of our lives in order to begin our new life! You get to start small….quietly.…inwardly changing…until you feel safe enough in this new self…new spirit…to let your light shine on a new life.
It’s easy. It’s hard. It’s safe. It’s scarey. But the heart of the matter is that you matter! You are important to God! And you are not alone! God is with you and if you can’t feel God with you…you can see us with you! We are not alone! This shall be better than a light and safer than a known way!
Lent is drawing to a close.
What have you learned about God this season? What have you learned about yourself?
What really matters to you? This is the heart of the matter: What happens next depends upon…..you.
You are the movement. You are the one you’ve been waiting for…and the only way anything new canhappen in life is if we hope for it, contemplate it…see it, and then be it!
Jesus invites us to go with him toward new life…a life worth living…a life no one can take from you…eternal life starting here and now. It may not be an easy journey. On the way to your new life, it may feel like you are being crucified, but the only way to get a new life is to let the old life you have die away.
Go deep within your soul and there you will see…..the heart of who you are…in God!
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