Getting to the Heart of Things February 16th, 2020 Scripture: Matthew 5:21-37 When I sat down to write my sermon on Friday morning, the irony of the timing of this week’s gospel reading occurred to me. It was Valentine’s Day and I was about to write a sermon on Jesus’ teaching on what is in the heart. This teaching concerns romantic relationships gone wrong. It concerns a topic that flies in the face of our idealized romanticism of Valentine’s Day. It is adultery. It is as well that we remember the context of this teaching and look back on the last few weeks’ readings. Each one came from consecutive passages of Matthew’s gospel, as Jesus begins his famous Sermon on the Mount. They concern the way that the community will look, when Jesus’ followers live as though the Kingdom of Heaven is already here. And they hinge on Jesus’ pronouncement that he has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. In light of our Hebrew Bible reading for today we can understand that it was important for Jesus to be clear about this. It was important that the people knew he did not intend to abolish the law. The Jewish people who listened to his teachings had been steeped in the tradition of the God’s covenant of presence and protection. The law was the gift of that covenant. The law was to be loved and obeyed, so that the people of Israel would live long, happy and whole lives in the land God had given. Years later, after the law is given and yet broken many times, the prophet Jeremiah tells the people that God says God will “put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Problems arise, though, when the law becomes a set of rigid rules. You know the expression “rules were made to be broken.” When rules are rigid, we look for loopholes, exceptions and workarounds. Jesus’ teaching today brings us back to a place where the law is not a set of rules. He reminds his hearers that obeying the law is really matter of the heart. It is a sign of their covenantal relationship with God. It is the foundation of their community. The section of the teaching we read today concerns adultery. Jesus names a subject that is deeply uncomfortable for us. It is something that is usually not named. It’s most often held in secret or shame because it concerns the desires of our hearts, including the darkest corners. Jesus reminds his followers that in ancient times, they had heard it said, “You shall not commit adultery.” Then Jesus says “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” He speaks about what is going on beneath the surface. He speaks to all of us about our covetousness of others for our own gratification. And in this example it is not a pretty picture. Jesus is not speaking of the attraction we feel, passing a beautiful person in the street. He is speaking of “looking with lust.” That is, leering. He is speaking of humiliating stares, childish snickers and catcalls. He is speaking of something every woman has experienced. He’s speaking of locker room banter. He’s speaking of pseudo massage parlors in strip malls. He is talking about objectification, looking on another person, another beloved child of God as an object for gratification. Objectification has repercussions. Sex trafficking, slavery and other abuses are a result of seeing people as objects. The rule, “you can look but you can’t touch” encourages objectification all the more. Jesus warns against leering, because it is adultery of the heart. It hurts partner of the one who is looking elsewhere. It hurts the individual who is being leered at. And it does spiritual harm to the one who is doing the leering. When leering becomes the norm of behavior, most often for boys and men, it hurts the community. It means there are places where vulnerable women cannot go without feeling uncomfortable. Boys are not born this way, but they are harmed when they are led to believe that this is the right way to be a man. In our culture, messaging comes through the media: advertising, music, movies and the internet. It comes from the people we admire, in sports and culture. Our young people are particular susceptible to messaging that objectifies particular bodies. Our environment that objectifies women and girls, also objectifies men and boys. A “real man” is understood to be a different kind of object: one without feelings or sensitivities. The expression “man up” means to disregard feelings, to act tough. In some circles, boys use homophobic slurs about other boys who seem “less than” real men. They insult men by calling them the names of female body parts. They are made ashamed of their own feelings and so they stop talking about them. Boys train themselves not to cry, because that would be a shameful thing for them to do. Women also participate in objectification when they indulge in slut shaming. They objectify other women as temptresses. They criticize the clothes they wear, the way they act and the places they go. They talk about both public figures and women they know in terms of how fat or thin they are. They observe that one should go on a diet, and that another diets too much. It is criticism they would never direct toward men. Researcher and author, Peggy Orenstein, has written books both about “Girls and Sex “and “Boys and Sex.” In a recent interview she said: “When I was doing the girl book, the kind of core issue with girls was that they were being cut off from their bodies and not understanding their bodies' response and their needs and their limits and their desires. With boys, it felt like they were being cut off from their hearts." [1] This makes me wonder about Jesus’ solution to the sin of adultery in the heart. He uses the hyperbole – extreme exaggeration – to propose what must be done. If your right hand is leading you to sin tear it out, if your right hand is causing you to sin, cut it off. This makes no sense taken literally, because of course it is not our eye or our hand that cause us to sin. It is what is going on inside our hearts that counts. Orenstein’s conclusion that girls are being cut off from their bodies and boys are being cut off from their hearts is an interesting counter to Jesus’ teaching. Or at least, to what we often assume Jesus is saying. As Orenstein says, the culture of objectification is cutting boys off from their hearts. Perhaps that is the way it works for all of us. Jesus does not really mean for us, or anyone else, to tear out our eyes or cut off our hands. And I am convinced he means for us not to cut off, but to reconnect with our hearts. This may mean doing some cutting out of other things. Perhaps you sometimes hang out with groups who subtly practice leering or slut shaming. You know what I mean, the whispered innuendo from a guy friend addressed in the direction of a woman’s behind. Or perhaps it is a remark about another man, who may or may not be gay … muttered to make the both of you feel like real men. Or you are with your group of women friends, out for a drink. Someone feigns shock and outrage at younger woman’s outfit. You join in, because you want to belong to the group. And yet you know you wish you had the confidence and courage to pull off that outfit when you were that age. What would it look like to reconnect with your heart in these situations? Maybe to say, “Hey, I know I’ve gone along with this before, but let’s remember that woman is her own person. She has feelings and probably wouldn’t appreciate backhanded remarks about her behind, any more than I would.” Or, perhaps to own up that, “Yes, I think she looks great! I would have worn that outfit when I was fifteen too. I’m so glad when I see a girl who dresses to please herself instead of her inner critic.” In the end, though, these things are externals. Reconnecting with our hearts means reconnecting with the people we love and those who love us. It means reconnecting with God opening our hearts to expose any shame we are feeling. King David of the Hebrew Bible is a larger than life character. When he is found out for his own lust, adultery, rape and murder, he is said to have written psalm 51. The psalm cries out to God saying, “create in me a clean heart, Oh God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” This story from antiquity is true for us today. The work of loving as God loves begins with reconnecting with our hearts. And this is work we can only do with God’s help. In recent years, I have been working on reconnecting with my heart. It is slow progress. I’m reluctant to do it, because it opens me to feelings that are hard. There is a lot of regret in there, for missed opportunities. There’s regret for the times when I could have said “I love you” and did not. For times when I could have spoken up against a culture of objectification and did not. For times when I did not articulate my feelings and struggles, and so my loved ones felt shut out and confused. Our Bible teaching for today has reminded me that this process is a vital part of my faith journey. Reconnecting with our hearts means reconnecting with those we love, and who love us. It means reconnecting with our community, and with the church, our community of faith. And it means reconnecting with God. May we live, not by the rules, looking for loopholes and workarounds. Instead may we live into our covenant of love, taught to us by Jesus. May we have the courage to do the long slow work of reconnecting with our hearts, and so we will finally be reconnected with God. To help us in that process, here is a meditation from Steve Garnaas Holmes: Valentine My Dearest, every bit of beauty you see today Is my gift to you. You are the joy in my heart, my delight and my hope. I can't take my eyes off you. I desire your beauty, yet I gladly share you with the world. No matter where you are I hold you close. I will never abandon you, never test or trick you, never compromise my love for you. No evil you could do can dim my love for you. I am the joy that sees you into being, that hears you into who you are. My heart beats in you. I love you, and I am grateful for you. Please be mine. Love, God [2] May all God’s people say Amen. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/07/794182826/boys-sex-reveals-that-young-men-feel-cut-off-from-their-hearts [2] https://www.unfoldinglight.net/reflections/l3lld2w45r6ryx69zhn8pyrap6bh6e
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