Weekly Sermon

"Hardening of the Heart" : April 6, 2003

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Jeremiah 31:31-34

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I 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. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Prayer: Keith Green Lord God, My eyes are dry, my prayers are cold. My heart is hard, my faith is old. And I know how I ought to be. Alive to you, and dead to me. What can be done with a hard heart like mine? Soften it up with oil and wine. The oil is your Spirit of love. Then wash me anew, in the wine of your blood. Amen. Jeremiah was a prophet for forty years. It was a hard forty years. He was a prophet during some of the most turbulent times of Israel's history. God assigned to Jeremiah the task of explaining to the Israel's that they had been and continued to be unfaithful. However in Chapters 30 and 31 there is a respite from the gloomy prophecies of judgment. This material is called the "Book of Consolation." It is a "sudden and beautiful gush of healing words and promises that floods out on the souls of a parched and beaten people. "To appreciate the longings, the spiritual hopes and dreams, that met these words you need only scratch the surface of the historical situation that composed Jeremiah's world. Early in the prophet's life, Assyria and Egypt had begun stumbling from exhaustion in the race for dominance in the Middle Eastern provinces, just as a new runner entered the competition - Babylon…Finally, in 587 Judah was invaded, Jerusalem seized and sacked, and the holy Temple of the Lord was burned to the ground. "Biblical scholar William Holladay suggests that Jeremiah's hopeful message of rebirth and deliverance was written exactly for that most depressing season…What God now proposes is a radical step; nothing short of a new kind of human being will be created out of this new covenant. Whereas the old covenant was delivered on the heels of political salvation (bringing the Hebrews out of bondage from Egypt), the new covenant will be established on the promise of personal salvation (a God-centered heart)." ["Commentary of Jeremiah 31:31-34," Homiletics, March 17, 1991] Jeremiah's times were troubled. Our times are troubled. We are at war, and there are casualties. The world order is changing. And there is uncertainty at home. The market has been erratic for a number of years now. There seems to be little we can count on. Last week, I came to the service for the Spanish House of Worship. They were kind enough to translate Reverend Barrios' sermon. It was excellent. The title was "Fear Factor." His point was that because of 9/11, we are aware that all the things we treasure can be lost in seconds. We don't feel safe. Fear is a big factor in our everyday lives. Where is courage to be found? Reverend Barrios' answer is in the Bible. It is my answer, too. We must remember that our identity and security is not found in the world, but in God. Still, I'm not sure we have really believe that. We hold off. It's a question of faith. Jeremiah lived in fearful times. That is a fact. We live in fearful times. That is a fact. There is a difference between fact and faith. It is a fact that you are sitting here in the sanctuary. It is also a fact that I am standing here speaking. But it is faith that makes me believe that you might be listening to what I have to say. When I was an associate pastor at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, Dr. Arthur Caliandro told me a profound truth about preaching. He said, "You may be able to change people's minds with facts and figures, but they won't change their lives until you reach their hearts." The Lord has always known that. And so, God told Jeremiah that his new commandments would not be written on stone tablets, but upon our hearts. Jesus came to open our hearts by giving us the new commandment to love one another. In these troubling, difficult times it is easy to suffer from hardening of the heart, to become despairing, callus, and cynical. That is what happens when we close our hearts. In hardening of the heart, we close ourselves to hope, love, and faith. This happens at exactly the time when we need to be opening ourselves to share the miracles of faith. No matter how bad it gets, we need to remain open to hope. In his book Miracle on Boswell Road, John Eades tells the story of Tim Myers who "was a kindhearted young man who grew up with a giving attitude. He shared his toys with his playmates, and if he had candy, he was quick to offer that, also. He didn't have a selfish bone in his body. After he graduated from high school, he got a manual labor job to help pay his way through college. If Tim had any money left over after his college expenses, he would give the extra to his Mama, who had raised him since his father had died in Vietnam. Tim was forever helping people with their college assignments and became a brilliant student who offered to share his knowledge with anyone seeking it. He was a rare individual for sure, and his future was full of bright promises of bigger and better things to come. Then came that Thursday morning when Tim Myers lost touch with reality as he suffered a mental breakdown that nobody could have foreseen coming. "His mother took him to the emergency room…The doctor's face was solemn as he told Mrs. Myers that her son had suffered a psychotic break from reality, possibly schizophrenia, and would have to go to the state mental institution for further treatment… "Tim Myer's mind was broken, and horrible visions came there to viciously haunt him. He saw frightening things that were not there and heard accusing voices that no one else could hear. These hallucinations caused fear to pulse through his body…Major tranquilizers fought to slow down his movements and his mind. Days passed, but Tim didn't seem to remember what they were or where he was… "Weeks turned into months, and there was minimal improvement in his behavior as time passed…Spring came…Summer came…Fall came… "Mrs. Myers had never been much of a churchgoer, and even if she had, she couldn't risk leaving Tim alone at home by himself. Out of desperation one day, she looked up the number of a local church and dialed the pastor's office. To her surprise, the minister answered the telephone. Before long she was telling him all about her son and his problem. The minister asked her if it would be acceptable to place her and her son on a prayer list so that his church could pray for her son. Reluctantly, she told him that she had tried praying but with no results so far. The minister said it couldn't hurt anything to try, and she agreed and said she would be most appreciative, then, if he would place her son on that list. "Shortly after this, Tim became sicker than ever and Mrs. Myers was afraid she would have to take him back to the state hospital. On top of this, Tim came down with a bout of the flu. Fearing pneumonia, she took him to the family doctor, who immediately placed him in the hospital for x-rays and treatment. "As sometimes happens, the radiology department was busy. By mistake Tim, who was to receive lung x-rays, instead received an MRI on his head and brain. The head studies were intended for a Tom Meyer. The mistake was caught and the correct x-rays were taken, but an alert radiologist decided to view Tim's MRI results as a teaching tool for a doctor serving his radiology residency at the hospital. It was then that the brain tumor was discovered. "Several days later, a neurosurgeon removed the plum-sized tumor from the troubled brain of Tim Myers and the biopsy indicated it was not malignant. Mrs. Myers was glad that Tim had been on that prayer list… "Mrs. Myers left the hospital that night with the doctor's explanation that evidently it was the tumor that had caused Tim to become so mentally disturbed. The doctor went on to say it was an administrative accident that had allowed them to discover the tumor in the first place. Mrs. Myers nodded her head in agreement with the doctor, but in her heart she knew that what had occurred was by no means an accident." [John Eades, Miracle on Boswell Road: True Stories of Unexpected Acts of Love, (Uhrichsville, Ohio: 2000), 149-155] Never give up hope. When we close ourselves away from hope, our hearts start to harden. Hope isn't the only thing we can close ourselves away from. We can close our hearts to love, and that is a great loss. Love has infinite power. Have I told you that Lindsey Emma is home? She is and she weighs over seven pounds. Remember she was born weighing less than a pound? Research shows that premature babies grow twice as fast if they are touched. I remember baptizing tiny Lindsey Emma. They heated the water so that it would be exactly her temperature. We all had to get scrubbed before we could enter the room where the babies were. The amazing thing was to watch the staff with those babies in incubators. I know they had medical duties, but the thing they were constantly doing was touching those babies. Touch is the way babies know they are loved. In their book, Understanding Difficult Scriptures, the Linns tell a wonderful parable. "A man who was entirely careless of spiritual things died and went to Hell. And he was much missed on earth by his old friends. His business manager went down to the gates of Hell to see if there were any chance of bringing him back. But, though he pleaded for the gates to be opened, the iron bars never yielded. His cricket captain went also and besought Satan to let him out just for the remainder of the season. But there was no response. His minister went also and argued, saying, 'He was not altogether bad. Let him have another chance. Let him out just this once.' Many other friends of his went also and pleaded with Satan saying, 'Let him out. Let him out. Let him out.' But when his mother came, she spoke no word of his release. Quietly, and with a strange catch in her voice, she said to Satan, 'Let me in.' And immediately the great doors swung open upon their hinges. For love goes down through the gates of Hell and there redeems the damned." [Matthew, Sheila Fabricant and Dennis Linn, Understanding Difficult Scriptures in a Healing Way, (New York: Paulist Press, 2000), 19] When we deny the power of hope and love, our hearts become hardened. And, finally, when we close ourselves off from faith, our heart is frozen. Faith is a tricky thing to describe. Sometimes it seems easier to have faith in things other than God. We place our faith in the economy. We place our faith in the President. We place our faith in the young people who are fighting for us. Those are all good places to put your faith, but they are not the best place. Our faith belongs to God. I read a story about a man who took his first plane ride, reluctantly. He didn't want to go at all, but was finally persuaded to try it. Fearful, he got in the plane. The pilot took off, circled the field and returned safely. Someone asked the uneasy rider, "Well, now that wasn't so bad, was it? How did you like it?" The man replied, "I'll tell you thus much. I never did put my full weight down in that thing!" Faith means putting our full weight down on God. Faith is not just believing that God exists. It is actually anchoring ourselves to God. In these troubling times, to keep our hearts pumping, we need hope, love, and faith. The lovely thing is that Jesus walks with us. The Reverend Mary Birgelaitis tells the story of a three-year-old and a five-year-old who were playing on the floor while the adults finished their dinner. Lisa, the five-year-old, opened her new toy nurse's kit and finally convinced her brother to be her patient. She took the little stethoscope from the bag and placed it on her brother's chest. Listening intently - as good nurses to - she suddenly announced, "I hear somebody walking around in there." The adults smiled knowingly, but little Ryan, the three-year-old, matter-of-factly answered, "Why, that must be Jesus." So it is. Amen.