Deuteronomy 30.1-10
1 Peter 3.8-18
About 3 weeks ago members of the Anglican Consultative Council met in Belfast. The Council is made-up of lay people, clergy and bishops from Anglican churches around the world. As part of their gathering, they spent a day on a pilgrimage through the city known as both Derry and Londonderry, which had experienced very bitter sectarian conflict during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The theme of the meeting was reconciliation, and the pilgrimage walk took them over the Peace Bridge. Opened in 2011, this bridge links the largely nationalist side of the city with the largely loyalist side, and is recognised as a powerful symbol of reconciliation. During this visit the delegates met a man called Richard Moore who in 1972, at the age of 10, had been shot and blinded by a rubber bullet fired by a British soldier. His own journey of forgiveness has led him to seek out and meet with the soldier responsible, with whom he continues to be in touch. He told these pilgrims, “I believe if you really want reconciliation, it has to begin with yourself. Forget everyone else. Begin in your own heart… if you can't reconcile your own heart, you can't reach out to others.”
We have heard two readings which invite us to reflect on the state of our hearts and on what it means to live as people of God. Hearts are everywhere. They can be found on greetings cards, on mugs, on clothing, they might be used as emojis in text messages. A heart signifies love, or perhaps fondness, or maybe something a bit cute and fluffy, or at very least something that is a bit warm and fuzzy at the edges. From this perspective, we could be forgiven for thinking that when Peter writes urging his hearers to have a tender heart, he wants people simply to be nice to each other. No; what he wants is far more than that. The Greek word he uses here, which is translated “tender hearted” is eusplanchnoi. It is related to the noun splanchna and the verb splanchnidzomai. These words are used to refer to entrails or guts. They are to do with the very seat of life; with great depth of emotion. The word splanchnidzomai is used to describe Jesus’ response when he meets the man with the withered hand, where the watching Pharisees are more concerned about whether or not Jesus will break the sabbath law than about the man’s need for healing. English doesn’t have a simple equivalent word. Jesus is said to be moved with anger or moved with pity – but nothing in English quite conveys the gut-wrenching compassion that drives him to heal in the face of such stubbornness.
In Peter’s letter, it is clear that cultivating a tender heart is something that happens in a context where the heart might take a bit of a battering. He is probably writing from Rome, and although the situation for Christians was not yet as bad as it became under the emperor Nero, the fact that Christians refused to offer sacrifices to Roman gods and, in particular, refused to acknowledge the divinity of the emperor, meant that they faced social ostracism. Peter mentions evils and abuse, people being maligned, intimidated and fearful. He urges them in the face of this to become people whose conduct is blameless, people who can speak of the hope that is in them; people with a clear conscience: people of integrity.
Fear, intimidation, social dis-ease – first century Rome, or 20th century Northern Ireland? Or perhaps Judea in the 8th century BC? Over 2500 years ago, the writer of the book of Deuteronomy was reflecting on the words of Moses to the people whom God had led from slavery in Egypt and provided for in the wilderness of Sinai. They too were struggling with what it meant to live as children of God in a situation marked by conflict and competing ideas about who was in control where, and whose God was really in charge. These were a people shaped by the commandments given to Moses on Sinai, and for whom male circumcision was a mark of their identity. Yet Moses says that this is not enough, that God calls them to something more. In chapter 30 verse 6 we read:
“Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.”
What does it mean to circumcise the heart?
This is not something that we can do to ourselves; it is something that God does to us, and it is something that we need to allow God to do in order that we might live. This verse makes it clear that allowing God to circumcise our hearts is what enables us to love – to love God, yes, but it is in loving God that we have a far greater capacity to love those around us. For Moses, the image of circumcision gave a way of speaking about the need to let our hearts be vulnerable to God’s Spirit at work within us. For Peter, it is a different image, but also one which spoke of the presence of God amongst the people. This is the image of the temple. In verse 14 of chapter 3 he writes:
“Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.”
The temple was a sanctified place, a holy place set aside for the worship of God; a place that was the best it could be for God’s presence dwell. Our reading began with the word ‘Finally’, which makes me want to go back and see what he has already said. Peter has reminded his hearers of what God has done for them. In chapter 1 verse 3 he writes:
“Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”
He has spoken in chapter 2 of how they should respond to this gift:
“Rid yourselves therefore of all malice, and or guile, insincerity, envy and all slander... Come to him a living stone… and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Peter urges us to make our hearts like temples: places that are kept holy, where worship is offered, places where Christ might be found. The temple Peter had in mind in this image, was of course a public space. The work that Christ does in our hearts is not merely about us. Being tender-hearted, sanctifying in our hearts Christ as Lord, means having hearts through which that gut-wrenching compassion of Jesus can flow out and touch the lives of others.
That, I believe, is what we see in people like Richard Moore. “Begin in your own heart… if you can't reconcile your own heart, you can't reach out to others.”
I wonder what sanctifying Christ in your heart means to you. Most of us will not have to contend with being shot at and blinded, but there may well be experiences of fear, abuse, and intimidation which have led us to erect fences in our hearts to try and keep ourselves safe. What might we need to attend to in our own hearts, in order to allow the Spirit of God space for that ongoing work of sanctification, of making our hearts temples where the presence of Christ is able to dwell, and from where his reconciling love can flow?
Let us take a moment of silence to offer our hearts to God.
A prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas:
Most loving God, grant me a steadfast heart
which no unworthy desire may drag downwards;
an unconquered heart which no hardship may wear out;
an upright heart which no worthless purpose may ensnare.
Impart to me also, O God,
The understanding to know you,
The diligence to seek you,
A way of life to please you,
And a faithfulness that may embrace you,
Through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen