Between the Head and the Heart

Here it is, hot out of the pulpit, my first sermon as an intern at Trinity in Bradenton, Florida. The Gospel text is Matthew 15:10-28.

Sometimes the best way I can find to describe how we walk through this world is a struggle between the head and the heart. At a young age we learn all the rules of how to treat others with kindness and play fair, we learn to try and balance what we learn with our heads with how we feel in our hearts. As we grow up and mature, we see how those rules get stretched and sometimes broken and we get confused as to what to do. The line between the head and the heart, between the rules and compassion gets blurred, and we get worn out by the struggle, slowly giving in to the tired phrase, “that’s just the way things are.”

During my time in Chicago, one of the greatest struggles between my head and my heart came when I hit the streets of the neighborhood and encountered folks begging for change, or perhaps a bite to eat. We were told as students to never give a dime to anyone in the neighborhood, with one of the professors remarking that “some of them have been working here longer than I have.” Now I know that some folks are just out there taking advantage of other’s generosity, but I cannot help but cringe inside every time I deny someone just a small piece of the abundance I have been given. Most of the time I bid them a good day and move on, my head usually wins out over my heart.

It is at the crossroads of this struggle between the head and the heart where we find Jesus today. He is in the market place, gathering a crowd and putting on his teacher’s hat. He is on the heels of a heated exchange with the religious leaders, the Pharisees who deal mostly with matters of the head. They are in charge of keeping the Torah, the books of law handed from Moses, meant to guide the community’s life together. Today’s topic of discussion; what exactly makes one unclean.

The Torah dictates that it is stuff from the outside world, in this instance unclean hands, that make one unclean. You see, the Pharisees have been quick to point out that the disciples of Jesus did not wash their hands before dinner, thus breaking the rules and therefore making themselves unclean. They are now officially cut off from the faith community until they repent and are made clean once more.

Jesus is growing weary of these religious leaders and their finger pointing and nitpicking. He is growing tired of them putting their traditions above the will of God, using rules of the head instead of compassion from the heart. He is quick to counter, declaring that it is not what goes into the body that makes one unclean, but rather what comes out of a person’s heart that makes them unclean.

His words hit the very crux of the argument, it’s not about what goes into the body, it’s not about the rules of the head that make things clean or unclean. It’s about what comes out of the mouth, the very things that proceed from the heart, that make one clean or unclean. Jesus is shifting our perception, trying to reorient how we walk through this world. He is putting an emphasis on how we live and what proceeds from our hearts, rather than on meticulously following all the rules.

The Pharisees and other religious leaders don’t seem to understand. They take offense to Jesus’ words. Jesus is shaking the status quo, ruffling the feathers of law and tradition. For generations the complex religious system of the Pharisees has been the gold standard of who is clean and who is unclean, who is in and who is out, who belongs and who is disqualified. They are simply following the tradition of the Torah, following it to the letter, but they fail to see what’s at the very heart of all the rules they try so desperately to keep. The missed the class on how the Torah was meant to give life. They remain stuck in their heads, sticking to their strict interpretations of scripture and continue to write people off as unclean, instead of reaching out with their hearts to give people life.

It’s a vicious cycle we see every day. Far too often we see people cut off by the very rules that are supposed to make us a loving community. We assign labels and categories that divide and destroy, we make up regulations to keep the people we want in and the people we don’t want out. We use our heads to walk through this world and label everyone and everything as in or out, good or bad, right or wrong.

When we use our heads more than our hearts, we shut the doors on our neighbors and cut them off from a life giving community. When we use our heads more than our hearts, we shut ourselves off from each other and slowly lose touch with what makes us a community of faith. When we use our heads more than our hearts, we miss opportunities to be the living Christ to those who we encounter and the cycle of brokenness continues and the kingdom of heaven remains absent from our lives.

But Jesus reminds us that our God is a God of the heart, and it is out of the heart of God that we were created and called good. Even the Torah came from the heart of God, out of God’s desire that we love and serve one another, a desire that we be a life giving community, faithful to one who gives us life.

When Jesus encounters the Canaanite woman it appears that his head is going to win out over his heart. He understands his ministry to be the lost sheep of the house of Israel, a ministry to the Jews, to those who are clean. But the woman is a Canaanite, non-Jewish, ritually unclean, outside of the community. His initial response is true to his tradition, she cannot be helped by Jewish standards. His response seems cold, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” The story seems to be over, the head wins out over the heart. But that’s not the way our God works.

The woman is not wavered by Jesus’ initial coldness, the world has been a cruel place, but she is not about to give up. Her response is bold and clever, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” She knows even better than the religious leaders, what lies at the heart of God: Compassion and a life-giving love. Her response strikes a chord in Jesus, perhaps he smiles and chuckles to himself before he declares her faith great and her daughters healed. Jesus responds with his heart and the label of unclean is stripped away. Jesus sees her for what she truly is, a child of God. Someone who was called good by the creator, someone who deserves to be loved.

When we return to our hearts, we are reminded that at the heart of our God lies compassion and a love so deep that it passes all our understanding. At the heart of our God lies ordinary water changed into a life giving promise of love and acceptance. At the heart of our God lies wheat and grapes changed into a life sustaining meal of forgiveness and nourishment. At the heart of our God lies an empty tomb and resurrected Christ who speaks words of new life and love for all humanity.

Friends, this day and always, our calling as a church, our calling as a people of faith, is to live by our hearts. We are called to be love to one another and to those who have never known love. We are called to recognize the created good in all peoples and serve one another as Jesus Christ served us. We are called to be the hands and feet of the one who came to remind us how to open our hearts and give life to the world around us.

When we go from this place, nourished by the bread and wine that come from the heart of God, let us take up our calling, and serve. Serve our neighbors and all whom we encounter as we serve ourselves. Invite them into to our community of faith. Teach them the Gospel by the actions of our lives. Become the living Christ by walking through this world with the love in our hearts, rather than the rules in our heads.