Conditions of the Heart
6 EPIPHANY, YR. A ’23
Deut. 30:15-20
Pam 119:1-8
1 Cor. 3:1-9
Matt. 5:21-37
February 12, 2023
The Rev. Joanie Brawley
In the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, the #4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, causing the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power generation. It initially released several times more radioactive material than what was released at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Radiation at such levels not only causes immediate death and long-term cancers, but it can actually alter DNA; it can damage and warp the created design of individual cells, transforming the normal, healthy and productive systems of the body into diseased and disfiguring illness and death. The Soviet government tried to mitigate the damage done in the meltdown, but they - the whole world - knew that nothing could be done; there is no undoing that level of radiation damage! Ultimately, the only thing even the brightest scientists came up with was to put a fence around the irradiated area in what became known euphemistically as the “exclusion zone.” Even now - 37 years later - Chernobyl is encircled by an eerie ghost-state which will remain barren of life for the unknown foreseeable future. The horrific effects of the meltdown of reactor #4, once started, could not be stopped, or corrected, or restored; the Soviets’ only choice was to cordon it off behind a 1,600 square mile physical barrier - encircling the site, creating an uninhabitable dead zone.
Even having taken the dramatic step of isolating Chernobyl from the surrounding apparently healthy environment, it soon became clear that one of the most worrisome forms of fallout released into the atmosphere as a result of the disaster was strontium-90, a deadly radioactive isotope which the melt-down had set free … to float out in whatever direction, for however long until it finally fell wherever it might. Stontium-90’s particular danger (aside from the corruption of living DNA common to any radiation poisoning) is that, chemically, strontium-90 is very similar to calcium, so similar that - like a radioactive Trojan horse - strontium-90 molecules can actually infiltrate and replace calcium in certain foods - essentially “deceiving” the food’s internal composition - and once eaten, will concentrate in the consumer’s bones and blood, progressively weakening, and finally killing its host.
So, why, does the destruction of Chernobyl come to my mind today - especially on a day when MaryBeth and Patrick Corwith have chosen to have little Emily Beatrice (“Busy”) baptized? At such a joyful blessed moment, do these challenging lessons fit with the joys of a child’s baptism? More than we might think initially…
It’s not often that all of a Sunday’s readings interact so fully as today’s lessons do. In each text, direct and strikingly similar - really serious - spiritual and behavioral choices are placed before us:
- Life and prosperity, vs. death and adversity: This from Moses, after leading two generations of wilderness wanderers, here giving his final address to the new generation of Israelites about to cross the Jordan into the promised land. Life and prosperity or death and adversity. You get to choose!
- Then …People of the flesh vs. people of the Spirit: Paul’s cautionary comparison between those “spiritual infants,” able only to digest Christian pablum … vs. the spiritually developed, who are nourished with the solid “soul food” reserved for spiritual “adults”… those who (for example) have outgrown the base human inclinations toward jealousy and quarreling. Choose: spiritual infancy or spiritual maturity.
- And most awkward of all, this from Christ Himself: “You have heard it said (in the law, that is) … but I say…” in which He contrasts the specific directives of God’s Law, with the broader spiritual intent of God’s Law. Jesus challenges human understanding of the Law (not the Law itself) and calls His followers to elevate (to perfect!) their behavioral responses to such disquieting issues as … anger, adultery, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and (most broadly unsettling) His divine call to LOVE our enemies! Jesus speaks of fulfilling the intent of the Law …going beyond strict legalism … to the intended Love-based heart of the Law. It doesn’t take long for us (even now) to realize that choosing, in our own power - through gritted teeth - to obey God’s Law simply exposes our human inability - our failure - (on our own) to honor and submit to the ego-limiting obedience, love and charity which are the very underpinnings - the loving intensions - of God’s Law.
Clearly, we are presented with some pretty challenging passages today, covering nearly 1,500 years of the Biblical story. Each lesson addresses some aspect - some choice - we must make concerning our spiritual relationship to a holy, Almighty God, especially as that relationship plays out in our behavioral responses in the relationships around us. Each reading addresses decisions made within - and determined by - the condition of the human heart. The stark, cumulative effect of all these passages is to know that we all have failed, at some point, and in some ways, to choose the serenely joyful Life of self-offering Love God had designed for us. More often than any of us would like to admit, we of clay feet do not choose submission to God over desires of the Self, gentleness over willfulness, Trust over autonomy, Love over selfishness, Spirit over flesh, maturity over pablum… Life over death. Today’s lessons - all of them - ask us to examine the condition of our damaged hearts … and likely end up with some form of Jesus’ prayer from the cross: “Lord, Help me! For I know not what I do!”
In our own time, matters of the heart are generally limited to issues involving our emotions or feelings… ideas or thoughts which will fluctuate… they are transitory… and when we use this contemporary definition of the “heart,” especially as our decision-maker, we’re likely to run into confusion (at best) or real trouble (at worst.) Our modern concept of the heart describes a fleshy sentimentality which can deceive us and needs to be governed and filtered as we mature.
In Biblical times, the heart was understood quite differently; the human heart was the center of one’s wisdom, the place of ripened reasoning and spiritual maturity; it was the seat of one’s moral fortitude and behavioral courage; one’s will, one’s conscience. The heart was the repository of one’s Character… the essential strength and stance - the internal compass - of one’s Soul.
When we’re asked to examine that kind of Heart, we step into deep spiritual waters - no matter which of the readings we attend to. For each of these passages place us at our own ongoing moments of (sometimes daily) choice. Each one reminds us of the universal spiritual crossroads - the moment-to-moment turning-point choices - we are called to make as Christians. Every day, we get to choose … to live by the desires of the flesh, or the promises of the Spirit. One path leads to God and the Lived Love He offers… the other doesn’t.
But, are we really, so often and so starkly, required to make such serious decisions? It’s exhausting! Wouldn’t it be easier if choosing spiritual life over death was sort of one and done? I choose Life, now it’s cast in stone and all will be well, and easy, and simple as that! After all, that’s what God had planned for creation … a state of unfaltering Love, and goodness and holiness - living with God, in a paradise of grace and beauty and divine intimate union!
So, why would we choose anything other than the healthy, loving and holy choices made so obvious in these passages? Why do we repeatedly have to struggle with the testing, even tragic choices mentioned in today’s lessons? Why do we not choose what is beneficial and life-giving - what is simply logical? Instead, we find ourselves perpetually wrestling with encumbering, testing challenges to our souls. Why not, of course, just choose Eden?
So, here is where Chernobyl comes in…
The tragedy of Chernobyl serves as a fair example (in the physical world) of what occurred spiritually when Adam and Eve chose to disobey - to rebel - against God… on page 3 of the Bible! Chernobyl’s DNA-altering radioactivity did to the body, what the Fall did to our Souls. Adam and Eve’s choice altered our spiritual DNA, introducing into our souls, a spiritual strontium-90, which our first relatives could never have imagined. Their cataclysmic first-rebellion introduced a Spirit of rebellion into the spiritual DNA of every human since. Our spiritual hearts were irradiated - damaged and deceived - at that moment, and there is nothing we can do to repair ourselves.
So, what are we to do in this irradiated reality which perpetually pushes back and tests our Hearts … our capacity for Holy, self-offering Love? How do we escape this spiritual broken-record? How can we undo the damage that was done … to ourselves and to all creation? As Jesus tells His disciples later in the book of Matthew “for man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matt.19:26)
Which brings us to the very, very Good News we are reminded of today - most especially as we celebrate Emily Beatrice’s baptism. For today, MaryBeth and Patrick Corwith make their choice to place little “Busy” into Christ’s hands - forever! They have chosen to place their beloved child into the only possible provider of what our damaged hearts so desperately need, and could never provide for ourselves. Through the waters of baptism “we (all) are reborn by the Holy Spirit” and united to Christ through His purifying (DNA restoring) death and resurrection. With the Lord’s baptismal anointing oil “we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
How amazing! How merciful! How hopeful! What we could never do for ourselves, through faith, we believe God Himself has done for us … starting with the eternal Gift we receive through Baptism. We are forever, miraculously united with Christ! Our hearts can be repaired! And now, we get to choose - every day - to draw closer to or further from His Love and Provision.
In baptism we make a freewill choice (for ourselves or for our children) to allow Christ to enter - and heal - our poisoned hearts and to take charge of every aspect of our being. Baptism is (among many other amazing things) our decision to choose Love; Love given and received singularly by God to every baptized Souls. What we do with that imparted Love - through the daily choices we make over a lifetime - is up to us. With baptism, we choose - we act - in trust that, even when we do fail to choose spirit over flesh, obedience over self … even then …whenever we repent of our failures - our sins - Christ will forgive us, bind us up, and continue to be our advocate and guide in our radioactive, contaminated world.
And something else happens as we intentionally choose Christ, day by day, choice by choice. We find that, as we exercise the muscle of our Faith, we become stronger, we develop clearer eyes to see and ears to hear His guiding strength in navigating our earthly sojourn through a deadly stontium-90-poisoned world. We become more loving and accepting of each other’s flaws; we become more discerning and wise … we find Peace … and (most wonderful of all) we become useful to God and an encourager to other sojourners. By choosing to unite ourselves with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit in baptism…we take that first step to set Christ Jesus free to surround us - go before us - sometimes carry us - through a damaged and grieving world … to our eternal peace, health and provision … ultimately to His eternal Glory.
So, dear ones, be of good cheer. As we choose Christ - day by day, choice by choice -our spiritual muscles - the bones of our faith - become stronger, our damaged hearts begin to heal, and our Souls are set free to be re-united - joyfully - with our Holy, Forgiving, ever-present Lord! We become not only more equipped to “go out and do the work He has given us to do .. to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of Heart, through Christ our Lord,” but we are set free, step by step, day by day, from the self-created “exclusion zone” the Fall caused … into the brilliant, peace-giving, joyful resurrected Life only Jesus can offer.
Thanks be to God! Amen