The human heart: blessings and woes

A sermon preached on 13th February 2022, 3rd before Lent; Jeremiah 17:5-10, 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 and Luke 6:17-26

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, Good Housekeeping published 72 supposedly “swoon-worthy love quotes”; “the perfect message for your Valentine”. Inspiration is taken from Barak Obama and Leo Tolstoy, Maya Angelou and Jane Austen, from Shakespeare, Madonna, the Song of Songs, and Mother Theresa.

Who knows if the compiler of these “swoon-worthy” quotes, printed against red-bubble-hearts, would have given thought to the religious hinterland to some of those lines. 

But we know, love can bring blessing and woe: yes, love is full of hope and bravery; tenderness and consolation; but, its risky and a life-long labour; there are too many broken hearts in the world, as Jason Donovan sang in 1980-something.

No complier of valentine’s day quotes would turn to Jeremiah, though perhaps his words about the human heart are recognisable too.

First, who can even begin to understand the human heart?

Second, we know the ways our hearts can turn away from loving - loving God, self and neighbour.

Finally, we trust that hearts can be turned outwards in love - that God will search us out, know us and see the fruit of all our doings.

When Jesus came to stand with the crowd on the ‘level place’, he opens up our hearts by speaking a litany of blessings and woes: they’re not words of advice per se; they’re not offering judgement even; but they do weigh our hearts by exploring the truth of how life works. 

Jesus Mafa Project

It’s easy to slip into guilt or romanticism about these words; but I wonder if we can step into this radical topsy-turvy kingdom today.  Unlike Matthew, Luke doesn’t soften these sayings by saying hunger for righteousness, rather than hunger;  or poor in spirit, rather than poor.  

He’s amplifying where God’s heart is in places of need  or sorrow, and saying something about the transience of our wealth and privilege. He reminds us that our common human dignity reaches across comfort and discomfort; it doesn’t sanitise hunger and poverty, for moments before this passage Jesus is revealing the abundance of God’s care in healing and compassion.

As we hear them sayings of blessing and woe, as we learn them, say them or enact them, we might have our hearts searched, turned or changed too.

The American monk, Brendan Freeman, says this: “[The Beatitudes] draw our hearts out of themselves into a new way of understanding our lives…they are deliberately incomplete.  They await the inclusion of our lives.  Each person fills in the blank spaces with the details of his or her own life situation.”

Blessings and woes are part of the fabric of human life: it is where we all live - in our homes, work places, schools and communities.  The line between empty and full, tears and laughter is a thin one; we cross it because of one crisis or one act of kindness. 

As Jack Monroe has highlighted in her work on food poverty: we all notice the increase in the cost of living but it effects those on low incomes most. When we invest in early interventions and support for children and families, they are more likely flourish at school and attain their potential.

Blessings and woes are woven into the life of the church. We are all members of Christ’s body - when one mourns, our hearts ache; when on is rejoicing we share in the overflow of their gladness. 

When one member is wounded, we bleed too. As Lord Boateng reminded the Church of England’s General Synod that racial justice is all about Jesus. He said ‘love is not as soft as sentiment but as strong as strategy, we will wash your feet but sometimes we will hold your feet to the fire’.

If blessing and woe can happen to us all - and if we, as a Body, are hurt by the wounds of another member - perhaps Jesus’ words are not heard as condemnation but as invitation: an invitation to open our hearts in love. 

Our calling is perhaps to acknowledge the tensions and to listen carefully to the other; to let go of our own self-sufficiency, and receive the gift of another. As the writer and preacher Barbara Brown Taylor puts it: ‘Much of the power of the Beatitudes depends on where you are sitting when you hear them.  They sound different from on top than they do underneath.’

Beatitudes: S. Garrard

At different points in life, we might hear the challenge; at other points here the hope. The words are the same; they sound different.

Hearing these familiar words in The Message translation highlights that:

You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all.

God’s kingdom is there for the finding.

You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry.

Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal.

You’re blessed when the tears flow freely.

Joy comes with the morning.

But it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made.

What you have is all you’ll ever get.

And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself.

Your self will not satisfy you for long.

And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games.

There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it.

Is it comfortable to hear the woes, not at all: it reminds us that all that we have is temporary, fragile. Is it easy to hear the blessings, not always: yet they reminds us of the hope of consolation and the possibility of change.  

Are the beatitudes comfortable, no: but the do help us understand the human heart. Is this teaching costly, yes it is: but it is a way of turning our hearts to wards God, ourselves and our neighbour in love. Is there a risk of domesticating these words - always: and yet, as we take them to heart, God is with us searching us out and seeing the first fruits of all our doings.

Cutting across the woes and blessings is a word about the treatment of God’s prophets. Blessed when challenging those in power; in trouble when they flattered them. Blessed when speaking uncomfortable truths; in trouble when courting popular opinion. 

Jesus walked that way himself: it cost him his life and breath and yet, death was not the final word. As Paul reminds us, our hope is in our risen Lord. He is the first fruit of God’s kingdom breaking in - in our blessings and woes, in comfort and in grief. 

May we walk this way in love: our hearts open.

In the words of John O’Donohue:

May we live this day

Compassionate of heart,

Clear in word,

Gracious in awareness,

Courageous in thought,

Generous in love.

© Julie Gittoes 2022

Hope is everything

 Epiphany 3: Nehemiah 8, 1 Corinthians 12 and Luke 4

In many ways After Life, the Netflix series scripted and staring Ricky Gervais, is not for the fainthearted: it explores the nature of love, grief, depression, addiction, friendship and community; it goes to places which are bleak and raw; the humour is by turns dark, blue and even tender. 

Threaded through it all, is the message that we’re here for others, not just ourselves.  

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Gervais is an atheist.  Tony, the character he plays, shares that world view. He makes statements about what he knows rationally, as fact. At the same time, he recognises the things we cannot account for; the emotions, loves and connections that lie beyond what we can prove or explain. 

In the world of After Life, faith and belief aren’t ridiculed but hover at the margins. Love and goodness aren’t abstract. They’re things located within our capability to make someone else’s life a bit easier. Acts of kindness, offering help, listening and giving others a chance to contribute.

Perhaps the core conviction of the series is that hope is everything. Tony hopes that he’ll get his life back on track as he lives through the chaos and darkness of grief. That he’ll be able to laugh and find happiness again. 

In fact, most of the ‘action’ takes place when people sit together; when they pay attention to another’s story: on a bench, in a care home, at an office desk, in a cafe, on a sofa - his or someone else’s.

As we sit here, together, on chairs or pews, we too are invited to pay attention. To attend to God’s story - a story that holds us from first to final breath, with all the loves and griefs in between. To we hear two stories of worship - worship in the context of political and social challenges - and a letter on the cusp of perhaps one of the most famous hymns to love. 

First: at a gathering in a public square, the book of the law of Moses is fetched.

The people are told that this day is holy.

Even as they face the challenge of rebuilding their lives after exile, the people are told that they will find strength and joy beyond the pain of grief.

Second: in a synagogue, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah is unrolled.

Familiar words are heard: that is the year of the Lord’s favour.

Even as they live under the an occupying power, they are told that these words aren’t consigned to a familiar memory or a distant dream. The are fulfilled. Now. Today.

Today, as we gather and God’s word is shared: dare we believe that this day is holy?

Within our congregations and wider community, there will be feelings of loss and dislocation and anxiety as we rebuild routines, businesses and relationships.

Like the people listening to Ezra read, we are invited to persist in our ‘rebuilding’ and to dare to hope as we grieve. Like them, we are to embrace the time that we have left to us here on earth to encourage hospitality - to share the resources we have with those who have nothing. The life we have is to be holy - precious, marked by kindness and loving kindness. 

As words of promise are reaffirmed, dare we expect this to be a year of blessing?

Within our congregations and wider community, there will be feelings of uncertainty and fear about the future: about the costs of living, youth violence and mental health.

And perhaps, like the people listening to Jesus read, the words of Scripture are comforting; but when we’ve heard them hundreds of times do they lose their power? 

What Jesus does is not only read them, but embody them; he makes them his own and breathes new life, possibility and hope into them.  Now. Even in this year. God will work through the time we have - even if we don’t have all the answers - so that even this year might be one of hope.

Like those who have heard words and unfolded texts before us, we are invited to be attentive. 

We are be attentive to the present moment - to recognise that it is precious, sacred, even holy. 

As we pay attention to the words we listen to each other as a community of God’s beloved: many, yet one; diverse, each member indispensable. 

Wherever we sit - on pews or bar stools, at desks or on park benches, on sofas in cafes, staff rooms, care homes or living rooms - we are to pay attention to each other’s story through the lens of God’s story. A story that offers us the good news of a new beginning, a love that has the last word, a freedom that dares to see a hope-filled future amidst the rebuilding and the struggles. 

To embrace the holiness and potential of today is to lean into God’s love with our sorrows and our longing. 

To embrace the year of the Lord’s favour is to trust that God’s love embraces all of our human experience in the joys and feasting and the anger and doubt. 

We don’t say yes and amen to this love on our own. We do so together. 

We are not here just for ourselves. In Christ we are made one  - each of us has a place and a purpose; each one of us is needed. 

However complicated our circumstances - however much we fear change or worry that we don’t have the resources or the answers - we are to say yes to the one who helps us sit together. 

Paul’s words again are so familiar, perhaps today we can let them sink in: if one of us suffers, we suffer together; if one of us is honoured and shown kindness, we all rejoice. We are to exchange dissension for care for each other. 

This is the stuff that sets us free. 

Paul speaks about the diversity of gifts - of teachers and leaders, those who bring healing and those who carry the prophetic call to justice and mercy. We can add our own - what each of you do, and are and hope for. Yet above all that we are to strive for a greater gift - the gift of love about which Paul writes in the next chapter. 

For now, dare we be here for others  not ourselves? Can we be present, now, to each other and our community? With our brothers and sisters in other Christian traditions and alongside others of faith and goodwill, can let’s listen; let’s notice God light and love breaking and inviting us to rebuild.Together, let’s find ways of making life a little bit easier - for our hope is everything. 

May the Spirit anoint us with loving kindness, with fierce determination, with the gifts we don’t know we need, with the ability to be present when we feel helpless, with the patience to listen and with the generosity to bring a shred of joy where there is none.

Today is holy. Today hope and love is, can be, will be fulfilled.

© Julie Gittoes 2022