The first funeral in which I participated was that of a college classmate and friend. If I am honest, prior to his death I thought he wasn’t much more than an acquaintance. I discovered from his family, when they asked me to participate, that he considered me his friend. This surprised me. We had a class or two together and we worshiped together at University Christian Church. This was the extent of our relationship because Kent was a little eccentric. He didn’t easily fit in. He didn’t dress like the rest of us. We didn’t see Kent at the football games or at campus parties. He related more easily one on one than in groups. His one great passion was collecting books and his claim to fame was being the first recipient of a campus award from the library for his book collection.

Less than a year after receiving that award, Kent was riding his bicycle across campus. Without warning, he and the bike fell over and once on the ground, he never moved again. Those who came to his aid discovered that he was already gone. He died instantly of an enlarged heart.

Medically, an enlarged heart is known as a hypertrophic heart. An enlarged heart is a sign that the heart is overworked. It can be the result of disease or related to physical exertion. It can also be a genetic disorder which was the cause of Kent’s enlarged heart. Physically, you don’t want an enlarged heart because it can cause you to die. Spiritually, you don’t want to die without one.

This is the fourth week of focusing on our spiritual hearts. Almost every reference in the Bible refers to the heart as a spiritual core, the center of our life and being which goes beyond our conscious acting or thinking or feeling. We want our spiritual heart to expand and Jesus actually tells us how he hopes our hearts will expand. It’s our theme verse and as we have done the past three weeks, I want us to recite it. If you don’t know it by heart, it is at the top of your bulletin.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)  This raises the question of the sermon series. To put it into the context of today’s theme: How large is your spiritual heart? Do you have a heart for God and a heart for people?

Last weekend, we studied the story of Nicodemus, a wealthy Jewish leader who discovered he needed a change of heart. Literally, he needed his heart to be born again. The story of Nicodemus is where you find the description of God’s heart for us. It is another one of those verses that many of you know by heart. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Jesus immediately begins to demonstrate God’s heart by leaving Judea and heading back to Galilee. John begins this journey saying, “But he had to go through Samaria” (John 4:4)  That little verse has nothing to do with geography and everything to do with God’s heart for us.

You don’t have to go through Samaria to get to Galilee. Jews didn’t go through Samaria to get to Galilee even though it was the quicker and shorter route. They went out of their way to avoid traveling to Samaria, traveling to the east then the north and finally crossing over the river Jordan back to the west once past Samaria. It would be like traveling from here to downtown Noblesville. The direct route is through Fishers. But you can avoid Fishers by going through Castleton and then heading north through Carmel, bypassing Fishers. It wouldn’t make any sense. But avoiding Samaria made sense to the first century Jews because Samaritans and Jews hated each other.

Samaritans were Jews who split away from Israel after Solomon’s reign, forming their own nation and understanding of scripture. They built their own Temple and when invaded in 722 BC, they began to intermarry. This caused them to be despised by pure-blood Jews.  Because of the animosity, Jews avoided travel in Samaria. When John says Jesus had to go through Samaria, he means that Jesus is acting out John 3:16.  God sent Jesus into the world that all might be saved. Going through Samaria, he is demonstrating God’s heart for all people.

He also demonstrates his heart for people by talking to the woman at the well. Again, our modern perspective causes us to miss this.  Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “Give me a drink” and she replies, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4: 9b) It is more than the shock of a Jew talking to a Samaritan. It is the shock of a Jewish man talking to a woman of Samaria.  Most devout Jewish men and certainly rabbis would not have carried on a conversation with a woman. The Talmud taught “A man shall not talk with a woman in the street, not even with his own wife, and especially not with another woman, on account of what men may say.”[1]  You can see why she is shocked. Later when the disciples return, they too are shocked. “They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman.” (John 4:27b) Jesus is modeling his heart for people. He came that all might be saved.

“‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’” (John 4: 9b, 10).  The woman is confused. Jesus shouldn’t have been talking to her and now he is talking about something other than water for her physical thirst. Jesus looks within her and names her confusion. She has been married five times in a culture where women cannot be divorced. This meant that either five husbands had died or five men had married her and then abandoned her in divorce. Either way, can you imagine the brokenness that comes in a life like that, the loneliness, the emptiness that this woman had? Her problem is grief over a life that has more questions than answers; a life lived harder than most. She is thirsty for answers; she has a hungry heart.  

In this way, this Samaritan woman at the well represents you and me. She has a hungry heart. Bruce Springsteen is right. Everyone’s got a hungry heart. Spiritual hunger is the deep yearning to center yourself on the ultimate truth, to understand what life is about and what gives it meaning. Every life, your life, my life, the Samaritan woman at the well’s life, is centered on something, something that we value or believe or hold true which we think will help us survive in an uncertain world. Another way of putting it is every human being worships at some altar which we think will help us. It might be the altar of God or it may be at the altar of fame, wealth, power, pleasure or a hundred altars which we believe have the power to answer our ultimate questions. But there is only one thing that will enlarge your spiritual heart—God.

Jesus sees this in the Samaritan women. He sees that she is hungry for answers, thirsty for meaning. She tried to feed her hunger and quench her thirst with relationships with men. They failed her. He offers himself as an alternative, living water. “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty…’” (John 4: 14b-15b)

I believe that she gave her heart to Jesus right there. She drank deeply of his living water because for the first time in her life, she discovered that she really mattered. Jesus talked to her, he affirmed her and he offered her a way to center her life and enlarge her heart. Who wouldn’t want this?  She drinks of his living water and it transforms her so much so that suddenly, she has a heart not just for God but for others. She races back to village and says “There is a man out there at the well that listened to my every word. I think he’s the Messiah.” And here is the proof of the miracle at the well. They listened to her. They listened to this five time loser. They saw something within her was different. They saw some evidence that she had a change of heart. Because of her witness, many in that village believed. They centered their hearts on Christ.

This is where it gets personal. I’m wondering if you are getting to the well and drinking enough and if you are, I’m wondering how you are sharing this with others. This story is our story. It is what God has in mind for us. God so had a heart for us that God sent Jesus. When we give our heart to Him, His living waters will enlarge our hearts, expand our spiritual centers and the end result is, we’ll just have to share with others. We’ll have a heart for God and a heart for people.

Think of it this way. When God formed you, when you were created, you were given this special God-shaped heart. It longs to grow. It’s like one of those small, tiny sponges that the kids will get as a novelty gift. They are tiny, shapeless pills but when they are dropped into water, they grow into animals. Your heart is like this. When you ache, when you long for meaning, when you hunger for truth about the world around you, your heart is thirsty. But this thirst will only be quenched by living waters.  Nothing else will make the ache go away. Nothing else will enlarge your heart.  But just like one of those sponges that the children play with, a drop or two isn’t enough to reveal the shape. Your heart desires what Jesus offers, “…a spring of water gushes up to eternal life” (John 4:14b) Do you know you need this?

You’ll know that you need this infusion of God into your heart when you struggle for peace and find only emptiness. You’ll know when you try and try again to rid yourself of some destructive behavior or addiction and you can’t get free of it. You’ll know when you are bowed down with grief or stress with nowhere to turn. And you’ll know you need this if you have been to the well, if the wellspring of Christ has quenched your thirst. Saint Augustine was right when he said, “The only thing that will really complete the heart is God.”

So quit trying to fill your heart by yourself. Get to the well. Let Jesus into your heart; let Him give you living waters.  Then you’ll be ready for my questions. Hear them again.

How large is your spiritual heart? Do you have a heart for God and a heart for people?  Your answer is reflective of how deeply you drink and how eager you are to tell others about it. You can’t share what you don’t have. But once you DO have it, you MUST share it.

My friend Kent died from an enlarged heart. Today, it is my prayer that you die with an enlarged heart.