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| The Lord Looks on the Heart 1st Samuel 16:1-13 March 2, 2008
What does it mean to look at the heart? What does it mean to see as God sees, not as people see? It means that we should not look at outward appearances. We should not judge people for what they may have accomplished, but for the nature of his or her heart, his or her inner most thoughts and behavior that may be hidden from public view. I have a fascination with obituaries. Maybe it’s because I turned 70 one year ago today. At my age obituaries carry a level of interest that probably don’t strike younger people and did not fascinate me at an earlier age. I read the obituaries in the New York Times and the Washington Post every day. For the most part, they follow a formula. First it gives the date of death, the cause of death, and the age at death. Then it covers the person’s professional accomplishments and closes by naming the family members. There may or may not be an anecdote or two about the person, but for the most part they follow the formula and presumably provide a basis for measuring what kind of person he or she was and where they should stand in the Book of Life. But do they? Hardly. They provide the kind of information that Samuel was using in trying to anticipate who God would choose to be Saul’s successor as king. They do not generally provide the kind of knowledge that enables the reader to view the heart or inner most being of the person. Duncan often talks about the complicated relationship that he had with his father. I too had a complicated relationship with my father, but probably not in the same way or to the same degree that Duncan did. My father was a professor and agricultural scientist. When he died the local newspaper in Ithaca had an admiring obituary that described his scientific discoveries and accomplishments. Our family was proud of all he had accomplished. But a few years ago and many years after my father died, Lois and I were visiting Ithaca and she asked to pay a visit to his laboratory. So we went to visit and asked the receptionist whether we could have a look and we explained the Lois had never been there before and did not know my father. The receptionist took the occasion to say that she had never known my father either but all her colleagues continue to talk about him. And what they say about him is not to reflect on his scientific accomplishments but how he was friendly with everyone and how he treated the field hands with the same respect and honor and good humor that he treated his peers and superiors. Lois was impressed and more notably, so was I. These colleagues of my father looked at his heart in judging him and he grew in stature for me to hear their assessment. The question arises, do we know who we are? Do we know the state of our own hearts? A friend mine was traveling several months back and had to make a connection at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. His onward connection was canceled due to bad weather and this created considerable chaos at O’Hare. There was a line of about 20 people waiting to get rerouted. One man at the back of the line grew upset and cut in front of those at the front of the line and said that he needed to be helped first. The agent was very patient and respectful but said that since he was at the end of the line she would have to take care of the others first. He grew very agitated and exasperated and said, “Do you know who I am?” trying to assert his importance. The agent casually turned to the public address system and said, “I need some help at Gate 21. There is a man here who does not know who he is!” Do we know who we are and the state of our hearts? You may have read reviews as I did a few months ago about a new book about Mother Teresa entitled Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta. I was fascinated by the reviews so I bought and read the book. It is a compilation of Mother Teresa’s letters. They are full of agony and anguish, not at the difficulty of her work, but by how alienated she feels from God. They reveal decades of spiritual depression, loneliness and doubt. In the 1950s she wrote: “Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The child of your love – and now become as the most hated one – the one You have thrown me away as unwanted – unloved. I call, I cling, I want – and there is no One to answer – no One on Whom I can cling – no, No One. Alone…I am told God loves me – and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.” How raw. How anguished. The obituaries of Mother Teresa certainly did not reveal this side of her spirit and soul. The obituaries were glowing tributes to her many acts of selfless love and all she accomplished through her missions of charity. One could come to the superficial conclusion that this books reveals Teresa as a phony who hardly believed in God. But for me it reveals a depth of interiority and spiritual consciousness that make her many accomplishments even more remarkable. This book gives us a glimpse of what God saw of the anguish and courage that Teresa confronted every day, and God saw what was in her heart and helped her to struggle on. When we look at others and when we look at ourselves can we find the lost pearl, or do we just judge by superficial appearances, the kind of appearances that get captured in obituaries? About 25 years ago when Christ Congregational Church in Silver Spring bought a retreat house in Yellow Springs West Virginia, the house came with what looked like a non-descript painting on the wall. The first group from the church who used the retreat house considered just discarding the painting, but then on second thought they decided to leave it on the wall. Several years later, an inspired church member took the painting to an art dealer and discovered it was painted by the highly accomplished painter Virgil Williams. Recently when the retreat house needed repairs the church decided to sell the painting to help cover the cost of repairing the house. It was sold at auction a couple of months ago for $90,000. A neglected and almost unrecognized gem. How many unrecognized gems might we unknowingly encounter every day? We are looking for public accomplishments, but what we should be trying to discover are not outward appearances but the state of the heart, just as God was doing in judging Jesse’s sons. Obituaries usually miss spiritual virtues and only emphasize outward appearances. But obituaries also usually miss the dark side also. We are all familiar with public figures who will be eulogized in their obituaries, and yet untold are stories from their dark sides. I can think of one notable public figure who at one time was a strong candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize, and yet if one had been aware of the state of his heart, they would have realized the damaging spiritual failures and flaws. God knew but most of the public was unaware. In our pastoral concerns several Sundays we made mention of Rev. John Mack, recently retired as minister along with his wife Barbara of First Congregational Church in downtown DC. John died a few weeks ago and there was a very nice and laudatory obituary in the Washington Post. The obituary described the feeding program for the homeless that John initiated at First Church, the leadership role he played in helping to revitalize downtown DC, his commitment to diversity of all kinds, etc. And yet, what I will most cherish about John is the way that he died. He chose how and when he would die and he died with dignity and courage and fearlessly. About two weeks before he died, he wrote this e-mail to close friends: “From family and community networks you have heard about my six week captivity in hospitals and ICU’s in Nepal and India. Last Saturday I was Fed Ex’d back to Washington. After a week at George Washington University Medical Center, I finally made it all the way home. In addition to the care of family and friends, I am now in hospice care. My bed is centrally located in our living room, a setting conducive to good conversation. We all come into the world in basically the same way, but the ways of leaving are innumerable. The fortunate get to have some influence over their dying. I am one of the fortunate. I look forward to having you join me in the conversation.” And he surrounded himself with friends and family having meaningful conversations about life and death and God. And then when he felt his life forces slipping away, he just said goodbye to his family and removed his oxygen mask and faded into eternity. I learned a lot about dying from John, but that did not make it into his obituary. When we get caught up in the rat race of Washington life trying to enhance our reputations and leave our mark through positive public appearances and accomplishments, let us remember the story of Samuel, Jesse, and David. And remember as the story of 1 Samuel says that “the Lord sees not as people see; people look on the outward appearances, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Amen.
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Is Still Speaking www.stillspeaking.com |
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