Tending the Heart: Origins of a Theme

After a hiatus of almost 2 months, I am returning to my weekly blogspot. During the time I have been away from blogging, I have had to deal with the crash of my hard drive and the loss of all the data on it. In addition, I have been at Annual Conference, had all three daughters visiting, and have been gone to camp. But all of this is settling down and I return to some serious contemplation of the Way of Jesus for ordinary humans.

I use that phrase "ordinary humans" deliberately. Jesus did not walk among spiritual superhumans. He walked among very down-to-earth persons - people who sweated and grunted for a living, who had eyes and ears and hearts that needed opening, who had been pierced and hurt by life and love, who were cut-up, cast-out and tossed aside.  He walked among people who spoke crudely, moved roughly, and thought coarsely. He talked with fishermen, fishwives, prostitutes and their customers, soldiers, rulers, lepers, persons with diseases and disfigurements, tax collectors, political revolutionaries, Pharisees, Sadducees, men, women and children of all stripes. To anyone who would give him a hearing he offered hope and a way to live according to the deepest desires and paths of the heart.  

The next few weeks I will be preaching on this path of the heart. The sermon series is entitled "Tending the Heart." The title came to me while I was on spiritual retreat this spring at Lake Junaluska in The Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. I met twice with a spiritual director while I was there. We met in a room of the Atkins House, which houses the Intentional Growth Center. The house was undergoing renovation, so the sounds of construction were all around me. While meditating upon Psalm 26 , I was struck by one verse that reads:  

"O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides."

As I contemplated the dwelling place of God of which the Psalmist speaks, I began to think about how this house in which I was temporarily staying was designed to be a place of hospitality, a place for people to receive spiritual refreshment. I thought about how such hospitality in any home is often reflected and centered upon the kitchen and dining room. I thought of how the kitchen and dining rooms are really the heart of the home, a place where bodies are fed with good food, minds are fed with good conversation, and hearts are fed with loving fellowship. Then I thought of my own home and recalled how it was becoming a place that I sailed though between work and evening meetings. Dishes were piled in the sink and washed when needed. The counters needed cleaning. Was this a place prepared and ready to extend hospitality? 


I immediately perceived that the most important hospitality I can extend is within my heart and soul - and that is to God. Of course, God's dwelling place is not a temple or a church or building of any kind. It is the human heart. "How cluttered is my heart?" I pondered. "What is in need of cleaning, and what needs to be tossed away? What gets in the way of offering hospitality to God, and by extension, to all whom I encounter?"

The sermon series theme, “Tending the Heart,” was conceived during this time of contemplation and spiritual direction. For me, it served as a call to return to the heart of things, the heart of my personal call by God, the heart of the church’s mission and purpose in the world, and the heart of what it means to follow Jesus.

The sermons, therefore, for the next several weeks will be as follows:
July 24 “Where Is Your Heart?”
July 31 “The Heart of the Matter, or, The Matter of the Heart”
August 7 “The Wounded Heart”
August 14 “The Ways of the Heart”
August 21 “Tending the Heart of the Church”
August 28 “Tending the Heart of the World”

See you in church!
Craig

(Image sources: http://www.free-stories.net/images/thewidowofnain.jpg;   http://www.lakejunaluska.com/;  http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_257/1207838901USV479.jpg;  http://img.themebin.com/heart_hand_love_hd.jpg)