Feb. 9 & 10, 2008 "A Heart for People: Heart Sick

Most of you are one sermon behind. On Wednesday, I began a sermon series titled “A Heart for People.” Since Ash Wednesday services are more popular in liturgical churches, we didn’t run out of bulletins. I’ll admit I talked about you. I talked about your heart. My mother would be appalled that I talked behind your back. The Health and Human Services officials in charge of HIPAA laws would be upset, particularly about your heart. Before you take offense, I didn’t name names. I could have called it “our hearts” instead of “your heart” but I didn’t because your heart is personal.

I don’t want you to be lost. Let me quickly review what I said about your heart. Specifically, I said you don’t really understand your heart the way the Bible describe it. Let me explain.

When we talk about faith, we make it a matter of the head instead of the heart. This isn’t biblical. When the Bible talks about faith, it believes it resides in your heart. Your heart isn’t the organ that beats 60 plus times a minute, even though there are few biblical instances of this physical type of heart. It isn’t where you have feelings. Hebrew scripture talks about feelings coming from the “gut” similar to the way we say, “a gut reaction.” This week for Valentine’s Day, if we used the Bible locus for emotions, we’d pass out pictures of guts instead of hearts. I don’t think it would be a very popular holiday.

When the Bible uses the word “heart”, it is a metaphor for a deepest level of our being, the level below our conscious thinking, or feeling or acting. The “heart” is our core being, our center and it is so important that the word “heart” appears well over a thousand times in the Bible. [1] One of those verses is our theme for the next six weeks. Read it with me. “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).

Jesus is quoting and expanding something called the Shema. Jewish men are required to repeat it twice a day to imprint it on their heart because the Bible speaks of the heart as the place where we make contact with God. When it comes to the Bible, the heart is your spiritual center, the very core of who you are. This is why the first sermon was titled “Your Heart.” It’s personal, it’s about who you are. Who are you? At the very center of your being, in your heart, who are you? Can you answer that question? I hope by the time we reach Easter, we all have a better handle on that question. A start might be to get a CD of the Ash Wednesday sermon or read it online. Another starting place is to recognize that you are Heart Sick.

A grammarian in our church noted that we misspelled “Heart Sick”. We’ve separated the word into two words, heart and sick. When we say someone is heartsick, it is one word. Being heartsick is being despondent about failure or loss, almost without hope. We’ve all been heartsick at one time or another over the circumstances of our life. You may in fact, be that type of “heartsick” today, the one word “heartsick” that feels sorrow and despair. If you are, I hope something said today lifts your spirits and I hope you know, we care about you and want to find a way to minister to you. I pray that God comforts you.

All of us are, at one level or another, the two word kind of “Heart Sick.” Our heart, our spiritual core being, isn’t whole. It’s conflicted and torn by temptations. We have divided loyalties, a divided heart. We are heart sick.

Jesus understands this. We have a Savior who has been tempted in every way that we are tempted. He understands our struggles. He has compassion when we fail, when we are heart sick. He understands because he has faced what we face.

Matthew tells us that immediately after Jesus was baptized, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1). The desert is a wonderful metaphor for the place of temptation. We all face temptation, every day. It is all around us, constantly pulling at our heart. But the place where the heart is really tested, where your core values are tempted is when you are alone, when you think no one can see you. Jesus is in the desert. He’s alone. It is between him and the Tempter.

The story presents itself exactly as temptation shows up in our lives. Jesus is tempted when he is weak, after he had “… fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished” (Matthew 4: 2). Jesus was vulnerable. This is the fact of life. Temptation doesn’t hit you where you're strong; it hits you where you're weak. If your business is thriving but your marriage is on the rocks, guess where the tempter will attack. If you have a strong family life, but you're going through some struggles at work, guess where you will be tempted. When you are weak, where you are vulnerable, that’s where you’ll see temptation.

Jesus is weak and vulnerable, having fasted for forty days. The devil presents threes temptations, carefully presented to attack where he believed Jesus might have vulnerability.

Two: Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down....” (Matthew 4:5-6a)

Three: Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4: 8-9)

Again, we are tempted in places where we are weak, where we are vulnerable. Jesus is hungry but the Tempter is offering more than food to break a 40 day fast. He’s tempting Jesus with the very powers that he could use to become the Messiah, that people anticipated. When the Messiah arrived, he would:

One: Provide bread. Famine and economic hardship were an ever-present reality under Roman rule. The Messiah would provide economic prosperity, they would quickly follow him.

Two: Throw him down from the top of the pinnacle. How fast do you think Jesus would be recognized doing this? If he would act out some public, undeniable miracle in the temple area, throw himself down from the top of the temple, the high priest would proclaim him the true Messiah

Three: Kingdoms. It’s what everyone believes the Messiah would do. He’d seize political power, drive out the Romans, and reestablish some form of the kingdom of David.

All three temptations were expectations held in first century Palestine about what would happen when the Messiah would come. This makes even more sense when you know that many translations believe the devil didn’t say, “if”, he said “since”. Since you are the Son of God” (Matthew 4:3) feed your people; claim your identity; establish your kingdom. Instant good; instant Messiah. [2]

Why didn’t Jesus accept these offers? Because it wasn’t what He came for, it wasn’t what was in His core being, it wasn’t what was on His heart. What was on His heart? Jesus had a heart for all people. This was His spiritual center. He didn’t come to provide economic relief or food. He didn’t come for His own recognition. He didn’t even come to overthrow governments or usher in His kingdom. He came for people. He came for you and me. He had a heart for people and when we take Him in our hearts, we’ll have the same heart. We’ll have a heart for people.

Let’s talk about our temptations. I’m not going to talk about the little temptations, to eat dessert or to stay up to late or to tell a white lie about why you are late to the office. Let’s get at the really big ones. I’ll go first.

I am tempted to define myself by what I have, not who I am. I like having a nice car, a nice home, a beautiful wife, and great kids. I like it when I add something to my collection of things or when one in our family does something I’m proud of. But I’m tempted to feel badly about myself when someone has something that I think I should have. I am tempted to define myself by what I have, not who I am. How about you?

I am tempted to think more highly of myself than I should. I’m tempted to look past my sins and shortcomings and see clearly the sins of others. I’m tempted to see others people’s problems and fail to recognize my own. I’m tempted to see myself in a magic looking glass while putting others under a microscope. I am tempted to think more highly of myself than I should. How about you?

I’m tempted to by the desire to be in control, to be the one who is always in charge. I know it is easier to control people than to love them so, I like being the leader and have trouble being a follower. I like to have my way and I can get irritated when someone else gets their way. How about you?

All of these temptations, when given into, make me heart sick. If as a follower of Jesus, I’m to have a heart like His - when I am tempted to have, to be and to control - it often comes at the expense of others. I’m more important than them. When I constantly have to have stuff to clarify my identity, I’m a poor steward and fail to distribute equitably the resources of the world to others. When I fail to be fully self-aware and think poorly of others, I’m not compassionate and loving to my neighbor. When I am on an ego trip, throwing my power around, wanting to control others, I do not love my neighbor as myself and when I do not love my neighbor as myself, I cannot love God as I should. Sometimes I resist these temptations, others times I don’t. When I don’t, I’m heart sick. How about you?

I know about you. You are tempted to define yourself by your stuff, tempted to see other’s shortcomings before your own, and you want to have your way. This is who we are. These are the big temptations in life which, when we give into them, make us heart sick. So what do you do with a sick heart? You name it and claim it; you see the temptations for what they are. This is what Jesus does. He understands that as good as the temptations appear, in the end, He wouldn’t express his love for all people. It violates His core being, His spiritual center, His heart.

Here’s the truth about big temptations. It is sometimes very hard to discern whether it is something good or bad. This is why we stumble. We have a divided heart, mixed loyalties because we are tempted to want our needs to come first before we have a heart for others. We are tempted to take care of me and mine before we even consider neighbor. When we act this way, we don’t love neighbor as ourselves and we don’t love God the way we should, because loving God and loving neighbor are connected.

Jesus understands this because He understands you. You have a Savior who has been tempted in every way that you are tempted. He understands your struggles. He has compassion when you fail, when you are heart sick. He understands because He faced what you face.

You can see why it is personal, why this entire series is about your heart, not our hearts. It is about asking the question, “At the very center of my being in my heart, who am I? Do I love God and love neighbor, do I have a heart for people? If we are honest we are all a little heart sick. But we don’t need to be heartsick. We don’t despair. We have hope because Jesus had such a heart for us that He gave His heart for you. It’s news which can heal a sick heart.

[1]The Heart of Christianity, Marcus J. Borg, page 30-31.

[2]The temptation of Jesus by Kenneth E. Bailey, 01/16/2008, Presbyterian Outlook, http://www.pres-outlook.org/tabid/2095/Article/6714/Default.aspx