Advent 3C; Phil. 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18; St. Paul’s, Smithfield, NC; 12/16/2018;

Jim Melnyk: “Go Into Your Heart”

A holy one said to a merchant, “As the 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 spiritual.”  The merchant was aghast. “Are you saying that I must give up my business and go into a monastery?”  And the holy one said, “Oh, no, no, never.  I am saying, hold on to your business but go into your heart (40 Stories to Stir the Soul, Sister Joan Chittister, Bentvision Press p. 40).

Joan Chittister, the author of that brief tale, writes, “It is not so much what we do, but the spirit with which we do it that counts…. We are only given one life.  The spirit we bring to it, the heart we put into it, is the measure of its value…” (ibid)  “Hold on to your business, but go into your heart!” 

The story told by Chittister strikes a chord in my soul like a peal of Christmas bells, and it seems to me this is part of what Advent is all about. “Hold on to your business, but go into your heart.”   The story resonates with me because I sense an apparent incongruity between the tradition of the Third Sunday of Advent, known by many in the Church as “Gaudete Sunday” (gaudete being the Latin word for “rejoice”), and the harsh words of the Baptizer calling those gathered around him a “brood of vipers.”  We light a pink candle on the wreath for this Third Sunday in Advent and then listen to the fiery Baptizer’s ire.  We light a pink candle today, thinking about the hope of rejoicing and then we think of the harshness of a world that at times seems on the verge of madness.  We listen to the Baptist’s cry – and if we think hard enough about the world around us – the strident constancy of the twenty-four hour news cycle – the Baptist’s cry begins to makes sense to us.

John has been around the block a few times by now – he seems to be familiar with the ways of the world.  And he seems to be saying to anyone who will listen to him, “We are only given one life.  The spirit we bring to it, the heart we put into it, is the measure of its value.”  “Go into your heart,” he seems to be saying. “You are living your lives on the exterior!  You struggle to know the wonder and joy of our Creator God because you forget to go into your heart!”

Once John catches the attention of those gathered around him – “You brood of vipers!” – once John catches their attention he can back off a bit, and offer his listeners a pathway that will help them with the challenge of centering themselves in their hearts – and thereby finding the possibility of centering themselves in the heart of God.  Share with those in need.  Do not steal from one another.  Do not harm your neighbor.  There is just too much brokenness in the world – don’t go adding to it.  But we know they will – add to the brokenness – just as we often do ourselves.

Look for the coming of the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire, the Baptist cries out.  The fact that John calls his audience a brood of vipers and that they – that we – need to seek forgiveness in our lives isn’t the good news.  The promise of God coming among them – the promise of God coming among us – to break the yoke of oppression, to open our hearts to new life – to welcome the lost and the troubled as much as the comfortable and strong – well, that promise is good news for everyone who is willing to go into their hearts. 

The hard part of it all comes when we realize it’s not about changing how we do things in the world – it’s about a change of heart – it’s about a transformation of the whole self – so that as we go about the business of our day-to-day lives, we go about our business as people invested in the inbreaking of God’s kingdom – the inbreaking of God’s reign in the world around us.  For it is with the fullness of our hearts that we meet the Incarnate Lord.  It is within the fullness of our transformed hearts that we recognize God is with us always – even in the scary, senseless, horrors of life. We recognize God when we see someone offering a caring embrace, gently cleansing and wrapping a wound, or weeping with those whose very hearts are breaking.

In some ways it has to be difficult matching our lives up with the first century audience of wild man John at the Jordan.  But then I look in my closet and see how many coats I have, and I hear John’s words gnawing at the back of my brain.  I look at the amount of food we waste in this country, and John slips through the centuries, checks out my fridge and says to me, “Really, Jim?  Really?”

So, we may not know any tax collectors who put their fingers on the scales to pull in a little extra cash on the side, or soldiers who extort money or who enact violence on the weak, but we could probably come up with our own twenty-first century lists of ways we act as obstacles to the inbreaking of God’s reign – ways that could use a little transformation – and God knows we seem to have a litany of  tragedies of the week that cry out for a transformation of people’s hearts and minds – and transformations at a more systemic level in our society.

We call this Sunday “Gaudete Sunday” not because we are a brood of vipers in need of a snake charmer – though perhaps at times we can be that way – really, we can, you know!  We call this Sunday “Gaudete Sunday” because we have a Savior who has taught us how to go into our hearts, and because when we are successful at doing just that – successful at going into our hearts – we find that we can embrace the words of St. Paul who writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”  It is when we finally go into our hearts that we can sing, “Rejoice, rejoice, Emanuel shall come to thee….”

The story is told of a rabbi who “once said to his teacher: ‘Show me one general way to the service of God.’  The teacher replied: ‘It is impossible to tell anyone what way they should take. For one way to serve God is through the teachings, another through prayer, another through fasting, and still another through eating.  Everyone should carefully observe what way their heart draws them to, and then choose this way with all their strength’” (Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, Book One, p. 313).

I suspect that in the end the thing that allows us to find the center of our hearts – the thing that allows us to rejoice in the promise of God – comes about when we pay attention to what our hearts are trying to tell us.  And as St. Augustine reminds us, our hearts are truly restless until they find their place in the heart of God.  In turn, our hearts remind us of the promise that God is constantly seeking the opportunity to rejoice over us and with us.  It is, one might say, within God’s DNA to seek us out, to call us into relationship, to mend the brokenness in our lives, and to rejoice with us in the promise of new life.

I may never know for sure on this side of eternity why God calls us into being.  I might never understand on this side of eternity why God loves us with such a deep love, or why God longs for us to rejoice with all our hearts.  But I trust that it is so – it’s as if the knowledge of that hope, that longing in God, is a part of my DNA – a part of our DNA – even when we lose sight of that good news. 

Advent reminds us that God has created us in love and for love, and our hearts will always be restless when we find ourselves centered in our business or social standing rather than in our hearts.  For it’s when we live our lives centered in our hearts that the hope and promise of Advent truly makes sense.  It’s when we live our lives centered in our hearts that we can offer the ages-old prayer of the faithful: “Come, Lord Jesus, Come!  Amen.”