The Heart of the Matter, or, the Matter of the Heart

The following is the sermon from July 31, 2011:

One of my favorite children’s stories that I didn’t really understand until I was in college is Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The entire book is enigmatic, and one of the more enigmatic sections of the book is also one of the shortest: Alice’s encounter with the Cheshire Cat. This is how it goes: 

`Cheshire Puss,... would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' 

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 

`I don't much care where--' said Alice. 

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. 

`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation. 

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

So where are you going? If we have no idea how to answer this, then it doesn’t matter where you go, what path to take, nor does it matter the place at where you arrive. You’re sure to arrive some place at some time. But the Way of Jesus is a path with direction. It is a direction driven and guided by the heart. It is truly a path with heart.  But to be on this path means to know what is in our hearts. What is directing our lives? Where are we going? Where are we now.

Martin Buber tells the following story in his book, The Way of Man, which illumuninates the questions we must ask of our hearts in order to discern our way in life:

Rabbi Shneur Zalman, the rav [Rabbi] of Northern White Russia (died 1813), was put in jail in Petersburg, because the mitnagdim [adversaries of Hasidim] had denounced his principles and his way of living to the government. He was awaiting trial when the chief of the gendarmes entered his cell. The majestic and quiet face of the rav, who was so deep in meditation that he did not at first notice his visitor, suggested to the chief, a thoughtful person, what manner of man he had before him. He began to converse with his prisoner and brought up a number of questions which had occurred to him in reading the Scriptures. Finally he asked: "How are we to understand that God, the all-knowing, said to Adam: ‘Where art thou?’""Do you believe," answered the rav, "that the Scriptures are eternal and that every era, every generation and every man is included in them?"I believe this," said the other."Well then," said the zaddik, "in every era, God calls to every man: Where are you in your world? So many years and days of those allotted to you have passed, and how far have you gotten in your world?’ God says something like this: ‘You have lived forty-six years. How far along are you?’"When the chief of the gendarmes heard his age mentioned, he pulled himself together, laid his hand on the rav’s shoulder, and cried: "Bravo!" But his heart trembled. (Martin Buber, The Way of Man, pp. 9-10. Also found online at http://www.uwec.edu/beachea/buber.html)

The rabbi’s answer means, in effect: "You yourself are Adam, you are the man whom God asks: ‘Where art thou?’" In fact, however, it illuminates both the situation of the Biblical Adam and that of every person in every time and in every place. When God asks: "Where art thou?" God does not expect to learn something God does not know; what God wants is to produce an effect in a person which can only be produced by just such a question, provided that it actually reaches a person’s heart. (Buber, p. 11.)

In the Biblical story in Genesis, Adam and Eve hide themselves to avoid rendering accounts, to escape responsibility for the choices they have made. And are they any different from each one of us? If we read the Bible and think it is just a bunch of stories about people that lived a long time ago, we miss the power of the Bible to act in our lives. What the rabbi is saying, in effect, is that we should read the Bible as if we were ourselves the people being addressed in the story. We are Adam. We are Eve. It is to us that the question is addressed: “Where art thou?”

This is a question that can only be answered truthfully by examining the heart. But that requires an examination of that to which we have given our hearts and what we are allowing to run our lives, and we don’t like that. We are indeed like Adam and Eve, hiding away from God.

I quoted last week from the early Christian desert Father, Abba Poeman. At one point, a young spiritual seeker comes to him to inquire of the venerable Christian sage as to what he should devote his life: “To what shall I give my heart?” 

Abba Poeman looks straight at him and answers “Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.”

In Hebrew, the word translated “heart” is lebab. There is an old rabbinical tradition that begins with a student’s question: “Why is it that the beyt (the “b” sound) doubled in lebab?” The rabbi responds, “To remind us that in every human heart good and evil dwell side by side. It is our choice which shall be manifested in the world.”

An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, "Let me tell you a story.

I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.

But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times." He continued, "It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.

But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger,for his anger will change nothing.

Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit."

The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?"

The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, "The one I feed."

The way of the heart is all about which wolf we feed within.  Two sides to the heart, two wolves dwelling within. Which shall we feed? The choice we make will make all the difference in the world.

(Image sources: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice23a.gif;   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Schneur_Zalman_of_Liadi.jpg/220px-Schneur_Zalman_of_Liadi.jpg;    http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/candi/Garden%20of%20Eden.JPG;   http://www.mesacc.edu/~tomshoemaker/spring11/hbr102/construct/const-lebab.gif;   http://c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000R7ncKT1bUcg/t/200/I0000R7ncKT1bUcg.jpg     http://www.feedthegoodwolf.com/images/snarlingWolf2.jpg;    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_k4xVVTvo-lY/RX2ODzpCB3I/AAAAAAAAACE/7E7f21QLFak/s200/Untitled-XX.jpg;