Do not let
your hearts be troubled. This is not an easy saying. My heart has been very
troubled lately, some of it personal, some of it because of the Justice work
I’ve been called to. Work I was called to with the same conviction that Paul
was called to Macedonia. Justice work alone, however, will at best give peace
the way the world does, and often it gives no peace at all. For our hearts to
not be troubled, we need the peace that Christ gives, and that peace comes from
loving Him as He has loved us.
The Holy
Spirit sent to us in Christ’s name, we are told, will teach us, and instruct us
in this love. This love will result in Christ and the Father dwelling within us
– making a home within us.
There’s a
lot about home in our readings today. Lydia, whose heart was opened by God,
offers her home to Paul, fulfilling his vision. This reminds me of the old
cliché, home is where the heart is. Like many if not all clichés, it doesn’t
mean the same thing to everyone.
Many people don’t have a home. In some cases
this is literal. Notice that we don’t say houseless people, we say homeless
people. In some cases, people have places to live, but that place only crushes
their heart.
One of my
favorite songs by Richard and Linda Thompson, who had recently converted to
Sufism, speaks to this. From the refrain: “The world's no place when you're on
your own. A heart needs a home.”
And so we
come to one of those mystical feedback loops. For our hearts to not be troubled
we need to make a home for out heart in Christ, who will make our heart his
home in return.
I don’t
think this can be done without deep prayer and meditation; the kind of deep
prayer and meditation that makes us fertile ground for the Holy Spirit’s
teachings. And sometimes these teachings come in the form of revelation.
Revelations from God didn’t cease when the last book of the Bible was written.
No doubt
you’ve heard that the Bible is difficult to fully understand without some
knowledge of the historical/cultural context in which it was written. How much
more so is it difficult to understand a vision given to a particular person in
a particular place in that far away time and place and way of being?
I can tell
you that the imagery of my visions was no entirely familiar to me; it was none
the less particular to me. Visions are difficult enough to grasp even if you’re
the person who had them.
And so in
turning to Revelations, can only tell you what the imagery here sparks within
my own self, fully admitting there’s no way to tell what it might have meant to
John.
What stand
out to me from our Revelations passage today is that there will be no Temple in
the New Jerusalem, because the Temple is God. God will dwell in the New
Jerusalem. And as Christ in our Gospel tells us God will dwell in us, it
reminds me that our body is a temple.
And our
bodies become temples in particular during the Eucharist. By literally
consuming Christ’s body and blood in a reenactment of Christ’s sacrifice. And
though Jesus told us we are not made clean or unclean by what we eat, but
rather by what is in our hearts, I believe he meant we are not made clean or
unclean by what we take into our mouths from the world. What we take into our
mouths at the Eucharist is him.
One of my
favorite prayers is the prayer of humble access. In the 1979 Book of Common
Prayer, the following phrase was removed: “that our sinful bodies may be made
clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood” I miss
that line. And while I understand the objection to the notion that our bodies
are sinful in and of themselves, that’s not how I interpret this line. Sin is a
failure to love. And the total lack of love and compassion in the air these
days is toxic, it poisons our bodies and they need to be cleansed by Christ’s
love. We can’t get the love we need from this world, we can only get it from
God. We need to love Christ and open ourselves to the transformation His love
brings.
I also
encourage you to go into it without a preconception of what that transformation
will be. Paul went to Macedonia looking for a man and he found a woman. In
Justice work, many have found that in perusing the Justice they feel most
strongly in their hearts about, they find the work they need to do addresses
and underlying cause or unexpected issue they feel they can address. But
whether keeping Christ’s words looks like Justice work to you, or the teaching
of the Spirit bring you to some other calling, acting out of the love of Christ
is something this world will resist, that is certain.
God opened
Lydia’s heart. I think sometimes when our hearts are troubled; we think that
it’s all on us to open our hearts back up. I know many people who think they
somehow have to have their spiritual sh*t together in order to even approach
God. But that’s impossible since we can’t get it together without God. I encourage you to not simply go through
another Eucharist tonight, but to approach it with your heart, in whatever
state your heart is in. Troubled or not, Christ is where your heart will find its
home.
- First reading
- Acts 16:9-15
- Second reading
- Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
- Gospel
- John 14:23-29
