Sermon preached by The Rev. Dr. Harold T. Lewis

SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA ON THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY 11 FEBRUARY 2007


"The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse --- who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)


Three days from now, we'll all be celebrating St. Valentine's Day. You might be wondering "Who was he?" A better question is "Who were they?" There were three Roman martyrs named Valentine (or Valentinus) whose feast day was February 14th. But beware! You can no longer ask St. Valentine to intercede for you before the throne of heavenly grace, or erect a church in his honor, because the Roman Catholic Church, in her consummate wisdom, removed him (or them) from the liturgical calendar in 1969. (I think this is when St. Christopher was also relegated to the hagiographic dustbin.) So what do these third century guys who were thrown to the lions have to do with romance, falling in love, hearts and flowers, and Cupid's arrows? The answer is absolutely nothing! That tradition is due to the totally coincidental belief on the part of the English and, of course, the French, in the Middle Ages, that halfway through the second month of the year, birds began to pair off. Chaucer wrote: For this was sent on Seynt Valentine's day Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

So for fifteen hundred years or so we have been sending tokens of our affection, many of them heart-shaped, to our lovers and sweethearts and even spouses on this day, much to the delight of florists, chocolatiers, and the purveyors of greeting cards. I learned on the USAir website that if I send Claudette flowers by FTD, (instead of picking them up at Whole Foods) I can earn 20 frequent flyer miles for every dollar I spend --- and at the price of long-stemmed roses, that should get me a free round trip to Paris!

As we concentrate on affairs of the heart this week, I choose as my text a verse from Jeremiah that in all likelihood will never find its way onto a Hallmark card: "The heart is devious above all else. It is perverse -- who can understand it?" Jeremiah is telling us something that we already know --- that putting our whole trust in another person can be risky, because ultimately human beings are fickle. The human race can produce a St. Francis or a Hitler, a Mother Theresa or an Idi Amin. The human psyche cannot easily be understood or explained. Don't we cease to be amazed when the neighbors of people who commit atrocious acts always tell the news reporters that their now incarcerated or institutionalized friend was a perfect gentleman, always so mild-mannered and friendly? And are we not sometimes amazed at the perversity of our own hearts ----- when we allow those hearts to rule our heads, when being in love causes us to throw caution to the wind?

The prophet is telling us even more: that we cannot expect another person to supply for us a full quotient of happiness. Oh, it's perfectly all right to say that our significant other makes us happy, but in a healthy relationship that is possible because there is some mutuality involved. Psychiatrists' couches are full of people who wonder why they are not happy even after meeting and marrying Mr. Right or Ms. Right. The wise therapist will ask the patient to describe what he or she brought to the relationship other than a desire to be made happy.

And it doesn't have to be another person that we expect to be the source of our happiness. How many people do you know who equate the attainment of happiness with one of the following (or a variation thereof) --- making partner, getting a promotion, making a million dollars, having a more prestigious address? And, if we take it a bit further, how many people do you know who get there, only to report that there is no "there" there? How many people confess that happiness is elusive even after the attainment of the very things they believed would ensure unmitigated contentment? I think Jesus addresses this phenomenon long before there was such a thing as the corporate rat race: "What doth it profit a man," he asks, "to gain the whole world and lose his very soul?" [Lk. 9:25].

Now since this sermon seems to be probing the question of the pursuit of happiness, let's see what our Lord has to say in today's Gospel. Oh my goodness, it's the Beatitudes! They might as well be called the Platitudes. They are probably the most often quoted and most frequently ignored vignettes of advice in all of Scripture. The Beatitudes --- and the Greek word translated "blessed" is makarios, which means "happy" --- in Luke's Gospel are made up of four blessings and four curses. The blessings are poverty, hunger, chronic weeping and abject ridicule. The four curses are having money, having a full stomach, having a good time, and enjoying an enviable reputation. What is wrong with this picture? No wonder the Beatitudes are so unpopular ---- it sounds like Jesus has it inside out. Does he?

Let's review the bidding. First of all, Jesus isn't saying poverty is wonderful. The people who came to listen to him were the dregs of society ---- the least, the lost, and the last. By calling them "blessed," Jesus is saying that they are the special object of God's love and compassion. There is admittedly a spiritual strength that sometimes manifests itself in the lives of those who have little of this world's goods, but Jesus isn't making an argument that such an existence is preferable. If anything, Scripture is quite clear about the fact that the poor are poor because of injustices heaped upon them by the rich, and that it is the responsibility of the "haves" to minister to the "have-nots."

What is more, Jesus is not suggesting that there is anything inherently evil about abundance, prosperity and wealth. Indeed, if anything, the Hebrew Scriptures hold these things up as signs of God's favor. The issue is how we use these gifts ---- that determines whether they be blessing or curse. Money is not, as is often mistakenly alleged, the root of all evil. Pittsburgh has certainly proved that. Our history is one of having been blessed by people who made great fortunes, to be sure, but who then channeled much of their wealth back into the community that allowed them to prosper. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil, and which can turn it from blessing to curse. Our Annual Stewardship Appeal is effectively over, and we have received pledges amounting to approximately 90% of our goal of one million dollars, a goal easily within the reach of this congregation. While there are many people who have given proportionately and even sacrificially, there are those who have given little or nothing, not because they are unable to do so, but because they are unwilling to do so. They love their money too much to part with it, and/or hold other things to be more important.

The love of money manifests itself in other ways. Have you ever run into people who say they don't come to church because Sunday is the only day they have to rest? Such people believe that putting in long hours and amassing fortunes will give them life, and, to add insult to injury, they shut themselves off from God, the source of life, on the Lord's day. They really think that a few extra hours in bed will restore their souls. Oh, Jeremiah, you really summed it up: The human heart is perverse, who can understand it, indeed? I think what Jesus is trying to tell us is that when we make wealth, fulfilled appetites, or basking in the limelight the source of life, our reason for being, we have our priorities all wrong, and in the process, says Jeremiah, we are cursed because we have trusted in man and made flesh our strength. Our heart departs from the Lord, and we become like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but instead shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness.

Sometime during the next few weeks, I will make my way to my doctor's office for my annual physical. During that examination the doctor will take out his stethoscope to see --- actually hear --- how my heart is doing. If previous examinations are any indication, the doctor will tell me that my heart is doing just fine, but that I could help it along by losing a few pounds, which would mean the heart would not have to work quite as hard. On Valentine's Day, we will concentrate on our romantic heart, and a week later, when Lent begins, we will focus on our spiritual heart. All of our hearts could benefit from a check-up. If it is true that we can help our physical heart along through exercise and diet, and our romantic heart by sensing when best we might be just a little compulsive, and conversely, when to put on the brakes, it is no less true that our spiritual heart could benefit from applying some constraints to it, or better yet, allowing God to do so. The heart may be perverse, but it is not uncontrollable, and we must at times take the Lord at his word, and allow him "to test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings." In other words, God ---- not Mr. Right or Ms. Right, or this job or that house, is the source of all happiness.

It is God alone who, as the Prophet Ezekiel says, is able to take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. It is God alone, who can say, as Jeremiah later tells us, "I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people" (31:31-33). To trust a heart that is being renewed and recreated by the Spirit of God is, with all due respect to the Gospel according to Hallmark, wiser than trusting a heart governed by whims or hormones.

Let us pray:

Give me a clean heart, so I may serve Thee Lord, fix my heart so that I may be used by thee. For I'm not worthy of all thy blessings, Give me a clean heart, and I'll follow thee. [Lift Every Voice & Sing, II, 124]