What Are You Talking About

8/12/2019 What Are You Talking About

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Recovering Our Hearts"what are you talking about?

Dave Bailey

Jesus finished off what was probably his most famous sermon,by saying this, A good man brings good things out of the good

stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of

the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the

heart is full of. (Luke 6:45)

Simon and Garfunkel, in their song Patterns had this take on a

life controlled by the heart (or the deepest part of the human

personality which is sub-conscious and yet controls conscious

thought, perceptions and behavior):The night sets softly

With the hush of falling leaves,

Casting shivering shadows

On the houses through the trees,

And the light from a street lamp

Paints a pattern on my wall,

Like the pieces of a puzzle

Or a child's uneven scrawl.

Up a narrow flight of stairs

In a narrow little room,

As I lie upon my bed

In the early evening gloom.

Impaled on my wall

My eyes can dimly see

The pattern of my life

And the puzzle that is me.

And the pattern still remains

On the wall where darkness fell,

And it's fitting that it should,

For in darkness I must dwell.

Like the color of my skin,


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Or the day that I grow old,

My life is made of patterns

That can scarcely be controlled.

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in hisheart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored

up in his heart

So, with the heart as the context of everything that hes saying,

lets go back and unpack a little of his message that day.

Now, when you read Matthews version of this sermon, you

realize that up to this point hed talked about what really

constitutes a blessed life (what we call The Beatitudes),about being salt and light and the necessity for our

righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees,

about anger, and lust, and divorce, and oaths and retaliation -

none of which we can really understand unless we look at it

from the perspective of the heart

And as he begins to wind up the message he says this (and I

want to go through it with you from the perspective of the

heart, and what would need to be happening in your heart forthis to naturally and effortlessly be how you lived)

27 But to you who are listening I say: Love your

enemies, do good to those who hate you,28bless those

who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If

someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other

also.

If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirtfrom them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if

anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it

back.

31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.


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32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to

you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33And if you

do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that

to you? Even sinners do that.34

And if you lend to thosefrom whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to

you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaidin full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and

lend to them without expecting to get anything back.

Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of

the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful andwicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

37 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do notcondemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and

you will be forgiven. 38Give, and it will be given to you. A

good measure, pressed down, shaken together and

running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the

measure you use, it will be measured to you.

39 He also told them this parable: Can the blind lead the

blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 The student is not

above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained willbe like their teacher.

41 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your

brothers eye and pay no attention to the plank in your

own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, Brother, let

me take the speck out of your eye, when you yourself fail

to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take

the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to

remove the speck from your brothers eye.

43 No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear

good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognized by its own

fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes

from briers. 45A good man brings good things out of the


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good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil

things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth

speaks what the heart is full of.

Then JamesJesus brother takes the idea of the mouth

speaks what the heart is full of to a whole new level! Read it

with me from the perspective of the heart:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers

and sisters,for you know that we who teach will be judged

with greater strictness. 2 For all of us make many mistakes.

Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect,

able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.

3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them

obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships:

though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive

them, yet they are guided by a very small rudderwherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is

a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6And the

tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among ourmembers as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body,

sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by

hell.

Gehenna: A phonetic transcription of an Aramaic word for a

literal valley outside of Jerusalem meaning Valley of Hinnon,

or Valley of the son of Hinnon.

Its was a place that was notorious from the time of King Ahazas the center of the worship of Molochwhere people would

burn their sons and daughters in worship of what the text calls

the detestable god of the Ammonites (1 Kings 11:5). So this

valley was considered a cursed place


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The Jews didnt think of this place in a Dantes Infernokind of

way for them Gehanna became a figurative name for a

place of spiritual purification for the wicked deada

purification that was limited to only 12 months; with every

Sabbath day excluded from punishment.

Some commentators maintain that it was a place where fires

were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and

cadavers thrown into it.

Archeologists have found burial chambers there that date as

far back as the seventh century BCE, and by 70 CE it was a

both burial site and a place where the Roman legions

practiced cremation.

So James, and his audience, would have thought of

superstition, and spiritual infidelity, and garbage, and dead

bodies, and stench, and fire, and filth when they heard the

word Gehenna.

In other words: The tongue is set on fire by the deepest, darkest

places of the heart

For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea

creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the

human species, 8 but no one can tame the tonguea

restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless the Lord

and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in

the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come

blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not

to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same

opening both fresh and brackish water? 12 Can a fig tree,my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs?

No more can salt water yield fresh.

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by

your good life that your works are done with gentleness


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born of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter envy and selfish

ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to

the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from

above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where

there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also bedisorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom

from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to

yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of

partiality or hypocrisy. 18And a harvest of righteousness is

sown in peace for those who make peace.

So, recovering our hearts from wounded, broken places is the

key to making room for the wisdom that is from above so that

naturally and effortlesslyjust like the life that is pushing up outof the earth all around us as Spring approacheswe can have

a harvest of righteousness.

Im not sure I know a better story to illustrate what that means in

practical terms than this one that was shared by one of my

favorite authors, Brennan Manning

He said, Dominique Voillaume has influenced my life as few

people ever have. One New Year's morning in Saint-Remy,France, seven of us in the community of the Little Brothers of

Jesus were seated at a table in an old stone house. We were

living an uncloistered, contemplative life among the poor, with

the days devoted to manual labor and the nights wrapped in

silence and prayer.

The breakfast table talk grew animated when our

discussion turned to our daily employment. The German

brother remarked that our wages were substandard (sixty centsper hour). I commented that our employers never were seen in

the parish church on Sunday morning. The French brother

suggested that this showed hypocrisy. The Spanish brother said

they were rude and greedy. The tone grew more caustic, and

the salvos got heavier. We concluded that our avaricious


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bosses were nasty, self-centered cretins who slept all day

Sunday and never once lifted their minds and hearts in

thanksgiving to God.

Dominique sat at the end of the table. Throughout ourharangue he never opened his mouth. I glanced down the

table and saw tears rolling down his cheeks. "What's the

matter, Dominique?" I asked. His voice was barely audible. All

he said was, "Ils ne comprennent pas." They don't understand!

How many times since that New Year's morning has that single

sentence of his turned resentment of mine into compassion?

How often have I reread the passion story of Jesus in the

Gospels through the eyes of Dominique Voillaume, seen Jesus

in the throes of his death agony, beaten and bullied, scourgedand spat upon, saying, "Father, forgive them, ils ne

comprennent pas."

The following year, Dominique, a lean, muscular six-foot,

two inches, always wearing a navy blue beret, learned at age

fifty-four that he was dying of inoperable cancer. With the

community's permission he moved to a poor neighborhood in

Paris and took a job as night watchman at a factory. Returning

home every morning at 8:00 A.M. he would go directly to a littlepark across the street from where he lived and sit down on a

wooden bench. Hanging around the park were marginal

people, drifters, winos, "has-beens'< and dirty old men who

ogled the girls passing by.

Dominique never criticized, scolded, or reprimanded

them. He laughed, told stories, shared his candy, accepted

them just as they were. From living so long out of the inner

sanctuary, he gave off a peace, a serene sense of self-possession and a hospitality of heart that caused cynical young

men and defeated old men to gravitate toward him like bacon

toward eggs. His simple witness lay in accepting others as they

were without questions and allowing them to make themselves

at home in his heart. Dominique was the most nonjudgmental


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person I have ever known. He loved with the heart of Jesus

Christ.

One day, when the ragtag group of rejects asked him to

talk about himself, Dominique gave them a thumbnaildescription of his life. Then he told them with quiet conviction

that God loved them tenderly and stubbornly, that Jesus had

come for rejects and outcasts just like themselves. His witness

was credible because the Word was enfleshed on his bones.

Later one old-timer said, "The dirty jokes, vulgar language, and

leering at girls just stopped".

One morning Dominique failed to appear on his park

bench. The men grew concerned. A few hours later, he wasfound dead on the floor of his cold-water flat. He died in the

obscurity of a Parisian slum.

Dominique Voillaume never tried to impress anybody,

never wondered if his life was useful or his witness meaningful.

He never felt he had to do something great for God. He did

keep a journal. It was found shortly after his death in the

drawer of the nightstand by his bed. His last entry is one of the

most astonishing things I have ever read: "All that is not the loveof God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have

no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ

Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word

and witness. If he wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my

prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his

concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about

that"

In Dominique Voillaume I saw the reality of a life livedentirely for God and for others. After an all-night prayer vigil by

his friends, he was buried in an unadorned pine box in the

backyard of the Little Brothers' house in Saint-Remy. A simple

wooden cross over his grave with the inscription "Dominique

Voillaume, a witness to Jesus Christ" said it all.


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More than seven thousand people gathered from all over

Europe to attend his funeral.

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up inhis heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored

up in his heart

And so we pray:

Lord, open my eyes to understand my heart and the places

where my heart is held captive. Give me the courage to

explore my pain. Give me the grace to accept myself as I

really am. Give me the grace to do whatever I need to do torecover my hearts so that I can then freely give it away in love.

Amen.

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What Are You Talking About