Heart Knowledge
Mark 1: 29-39
February 6, 1994
It is simply amazing how knowledgeable we have become about our hearts. We constantly read articles on avoiding stress. We’ve become experts on cholesterol and fat counts. We’ve learned to measure our heartbeats after aerobic exercising, and many people take an aspirin every day (just in case). At an early age, we’ve learned how to measure it, monitor it, and be aware of how everything from smoking to over-indulgence can affect it. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say we have become a nation of heart watchers.
Yet with all our knowledge of the physical, we are strangely ignorant of the heart as a spiritual organ. The heart, which lies beyond our physiological understanding, is the very center of our faith. It is a place of conflict, a place of love, a place where we find God – but it’s rarely mentioned and we seem unmindful of its importance in the development of faith.
Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Nun, wrote: “Once upon a time, the elder said to the business person (sitting in the pew), ‘As a fish perishes on dry land, so you perish when you get entangled in the world. The fish must return to the water, and you must return to the spirit.’ The business person was aghast. ‘Are you saying I must give up my business and go into a monastery?’ ‘Definitely not,’ the elder said. I am telling you to hold onto your business and go into your heart.'”
This morning I invite you not to follow my words in your head, but instead let’s try something radical. Let us together move into our hearts – move in order that we might find God and be made whole.
Last Sunday, I met with a group of parents to discuss the confirmation of their youngsters. The subject of the curriculum came up. The question was: ‘What do you have to know to become confirmed?” I confess that I was a big disappointment to the parents. The so-called expert on the Christian Religion didn’t have a clue. How do you tell a group of parents who are a part of our educational system that measures and tests and has all sorts of technology, how do you tell them about heart knowledge? More to the point, how do you teach a bunch of adolescents to go into their hearts and find God? The best I could do was vaguely suggest that each youngster needed a mentor – someone willing to expose his or her heart – someone who would be a guide for the journey into the heart. Who would these mentors be? I had no idea – maybe someone will come forward today?
Martin Buber, the great Jewish theologian, once told a very powerful story pointing to the fact that the things of God are learned through the heart and not the head. The story is about how a young Jewish boy who, as he approaches the time of his Bar Mitzvah, refuses to learn his Torah (parts of the Bible). The boy simply balks and is unwilling to do the required learning. (You parents, I’m sure, are familiar with that kind of scene.) The boy’s mother and father were distraught. What to do? The Bar Mitzvah, which has similarities to our confirmation, was coming up in a few months. Finally, someone suggested taking the child to the wise Rabbi, Eisik of Cracow.
So they left their town and went to Cracow and explained their predicament to Eisik. The Rabbi listened and then asked them to leave, but to let the boy remain. When they left, the Rabbi stretched out on his couch and asked the boy to come beside him and put his ear upon his chest and listen to his heart. The Rabbi said no more. After a while, he told the child he could go. The parents took the child back home. And the Rabbi never saw the boy again.
Years later, when the young boy had grown to manhood and himself had become a wise and respected Rabbi, he would often be heard to say that he learned his Torah from the Rabbi Eisik of Cracow.
Ultimately, that’s how we learn our religion, become converted, and the kingdom – through our hearts and not our heads. When our hearts are broken and we find them mended – when our hearts are asleep and we find them wakened – or, as St. Augustine so aptly said it: “Thou hast made us for thyself and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” That’s the secret of true religion and the beginning of wisdom about the Christian Faith.
Our Gospel this morning is a story about healing and casting out demons. Many have speculated over what is a demon, and I would like to add my guess. A demon is anything that blocks or hardens our hearts – any obstacle that keeps us from finding our heart’s rest in God.
I’d like to mention three of our contemporary demons. The first is over-intellectualism. Someone has told us that we can think our way into a relationship with God. It’s as if our computer-like brains can handle all the mystery of our faith. Not so. When people approach me about their intellectual problem with Christianity, I tell them: ‘No arguments will suffice. Keep the mystery and go into your heart and not your head.” I’m afraid they often go away disappointed.
The second demon is cynicism. We don’t trust ourselves to go from our head to our heart. Someone once said the longest journey in the world is the one that leads from the head to the heart – and I believe it. Heartwork leaves us vulnerable, exposes our weaknesses, makes us aware of our restlessness, tends to be more emotional than intellectual, and therefore, it’s easier to be cynical than to start the journey into your heart. Religion is all right as long as it stays in its place. If we go into heartwork, we might lose control of our tight little world.
The third demon is skepticism. We’ve heard it all before. The skeptic in us walls us from any participation in heartwork, for it tells us: “This can’t be so. Reality is what we can see, taste, measure, and hold in the palm of our hands. Anything else is an illusion – the stuff of dreams – the fantasies of adolescence – the snake oil of the preachers.” These are the demons, I believe, which Jesus would heal today. These are the demons that wither our hearts and cut off the circulation of grace – the way hardening of the arteries cuts off the blood supply to our physical
hearts.
Well, preachers, you may be asking in your minds – ‘What’s the answer to how do we exorcise the demons?’ And I would admit I have no prescription, no answer, no set of easy teachings. All I can do is invite you to participate in the journey from the head to the heart, and in the journey, you will meet Jesus, who heals the demon.
There’s a Hebrew term I recently discovered. It’s ‘Kevanah,” and it means the inner participation of the heart. It’s a heart-to-heart prayer – heart-to-heart conversation with God – heart-to-heart meeting.
This is where we might begin when we feel restless and hear a whisper of yearning and are aware of the hunger of the heart. Listen. . . listen to Kevanah. Go into your hearts this morning and find God.
AMEN.