A Reflection for III Easter All Saints’ Church, Southern
Shores, NC April 30, 2017 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Did Not Our Hearts Burn Within Us
From the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the
people were “Cut to the heart.” From the reading from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus
calls the two unnamed disciples “Slow of heart,” and they later reflected that
“Were not our hearts burning within us?”
The tradition is that Luke, the attributed author of
Luke and Acts, was a physician, but the conditions described in the heart don’t
disturb him because he didn’t take the Bible literally, didn’t diagnose major
treatment if the heart is cut or slow or burning. The ancients looked at the
heart as both a physical and psychic entity. Only once in the Bible does it
name the heart as a physical organ. All
the rest of the time it suggests that it is the center of being, identity,
will, and connection with the spiritual realms of God or evil.
For example, in the Eucharistic service, the old opening
going back to at least the 3rd Century is “Dominus vobiscum” –
literally first-person plural “God is with us” - an announcement of the
presence of the peace of God, and that is acknowledged by the people, “Et cum
spiritu tuo” - returning that peace. This greeting is followed by “Sursum
corda” which meant “Raise the hearts”, or as we translate it “Lift up your
hearts!” The instruction could mean that, since the Holy Presence is here, we
need to stand up in honor so that our body is raised up, lifting up the
physical heart. But in the psychic sense, it means that, because God is here,
let us bring our very being, our will, our soul, our heart, our openness to
spiritually connect with God.
Pascal said: “The Heart has it reasons that the mind
will never know” by which he meant that we can never fully understand the world,
ourselves, or our God just with our mind alone. Oh, but to turn one’s heart
over to God is a frightful thing. The Book of Hebrews warns us: “It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” In our cowardice, we
want to hold on to that little me, the ego, that we have carved out for public
presentation, and let that take the place of our commitment. The danger is that
since we are so used to dealing and staying on the surface with the public persona
and the ego, the undiscovered country of our heart is unknown territory. God is
so gentle that God keeps knocking on the door, instead of battering the door
down.
John Donne in his Holy Sonnets: 14 is so aware of how reluctant he is to fully turn over
his heart to God that he begs God to force the issue:
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
But God does not ravish hearts. Look at the way the Risen
Christ deals with the two unnamed disciples who had deserted him. They are
running away from their guilt and from the possibility of hope. We fear that we
might be hurt again and we make the vow that this hurt will not happen to us again. The Emmaus Road
experience is a metaphor of what happens in all of our lives as we try to
distance ourselves from our pain.
Teddy Roosevelt at age 25 lost his beloved first wife Alice,
age 22, from undiagnosed kidney failure disguised by her pregnancy. He wrote of
her: “Fair, pure, and joyous as a
maiden; loving, tender, and happy. As a young wife; when she had just become a
mother, when her life seemed to be just begun, and when the years seemed so
bright before her—then, by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her. And
when my heart's dearest died, the light went from my life forever.”
In his pain, he
went out to the wild plains of the Dakota Territory to deal with his depression
where he rode as a cowboy saying, “Black Care rarely sits behind a rider whose
pace is fast enough.” The problem is that our paces are never fast enough, for
God is always with us on whatever escape we hope to make from our broken
hearts.
On the Road to
Emmaus, the Risen Christ walks with them as a seeming stranger and slows them
down by listening to them. Healing of a broken heart begins when we allow
ourselves to slow down. The Risen Lord truly listens, unlike many of our own
conversations where we only pause in order to come up with a response to gain
mastery. How often are we around people who truly listen, putting aside their own
agenda to fully hear you? Sometimes we get annoyed with God because God seems
to not chime in with God’s own opinion as is the norm with most of our
conversations.
Finally after
they have stopped talking and are ready to hear, then and only then, the Risen
Lord brings soothing words of comfort, for indeed he is the “Balm of Gilead
that heals the sin sick soul.” There is no agenda of putting a Band-Aid over
the hurt, but only the walking gently with them on the long journey through a
wilderness. When they calm down long enough to stop their rushing retreat from
pain and from the possibility of new hope, he waits for them to invite him.
When the time is
fully come, the Risen Lord takes the Bread, blesses it and breaks it and gives
it to those who have need of care just like Jesus did at the last supper before
his own death. He shows us that a broken heart is not the end but a gateway to
a deeper level of life.
Every day is a
Road to Emmaus journey as we try to escape the pain we feel or cause, and the Risen
Lord is walking on the road with us, quietly listening until we are aware that
our hearts have been burning..
Did
not our hearts burn within us?
Walking to an Emmaus,
heart heavy with grief,
For I let down my vows as
my heart wavered
Not supporting whom
God’s heart favored.
Slinking out of town, heart
shaking like a leaf.
Then hearing heartened
story beggaring belief
Of women’s hearts being
lifted, visions seeing
Many overflowing hearts
of heavenly beings,
Rumors of body stolen
by dark hearted thief,
Holds that heartfelt
hope in dynamic tension.
Met one of whose hearty
company I yearned
Have a heart to heart
over my views concerned
Heart breaking
confusion without condescension.
Looking into my broken
heart his eyes discerning
Only then was I ever
aware of my heart burning..
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