The Heart’s Response
Psalm 32; Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32
Fourth Sunday of Lent: March 14, 2010


As we come to the fourth Sunday of Lent, as the cross continues to move closer to us, we continue to reflect on ways we can in our own lives draw near to God. As one theologian put it, “Lent is a time for life with God. In Lent we may draw away from public life enough to give energy to this relationship with the God who hears and answers, who summons, who forgives.” (Walter Brueggemann) I fear that when we leave church on Sundays and plunge into the rest of our week, we tend to get distracted – busy, stressed, lonely, overwhelmed – and we too easily lose any connection we might have made during worship with the holy or divine. I don’t mean this is a criticism at all. I think it is just a reality of life that we all face.

My hope is that we can use this Lenten season to try to find ways to stay connected to the divine in the midst of our daily lives. The reason I have chosen this sermon series – looking at all of these different spiritual “types” – is because I believe we sometimes need practical suggestions about how we might connect with God. At the same time, I’ve noticed that, in the church, practical suggestions generally come in a one-size-fits-all kind of way, leaving many of us frustrated and feeling inadequate.

So I am exploring different types of spirituality hoping you resonate with one or more of them, at least a little bit. Then I give practical suggestions of things you can do to draw closer to God – suggestions that are particularly suited to each spiritual type. The past three Sundays we looked at people who are head types, pilgrim types and servant types. Today, we will talk about “heart” types.

Heart types connect best with God through experience, emotion and relationships. And the goal for the heart type is to rest in the heart of God. It is to seek a relationship with God that connects heart to heart until the human heart takes on the quality and character of the divine heart. In other words, in drawing close to God, heart types both seek to understand God’s heart and they begin to take on God’s heart as their own. They are especially open to this because, as the saying goes, they wear their hearts on their sleeves. Their heart is open and exposed, and so it is particularly available for both a relationship with God and for being transformed by that relationship.

We can’t ever completely know God’s heart. That is a mystery. But in telling the parable the prodigal son, Jesus does give us glimpse of the heart of God. And we see God’s heart in the experience of both the parent and the son. In the first we see the depths of God’s mercy, and in the second we see God’s willingness to go the distance with us.

This parable is commonly called the prodigal son. “Prodigal” means extravagant and reckless – which surely describes the behavior of the son. He takes what he can from his family, then lives recklessly until it is all gone. But, as one author pointed out, it may be just as apt to call this parable “the prodigal parent”. (Kate Huey) The parent in this story might also be described as recklessly extravagant in how he offers forgiveness and love. This forgiveness doesn’t seem deserved or fair – it is not appropriate. It is reckless. In fact, isn’t that the complaint of the older brother?

When the son returns from his life of sin, he never even gets out his confession that he intended for his father in order to beg for forgiveness. While the child is still far off, before he ever utters a word, the parent runs out to meet him with unconditional love. It’s not just forgiveness, as in “I forgive you, even though you were bad.” Instead the forgiveness comes when the child is completely vulnerable with no way to hide his poverty, his shame, his desperation. In this state, he walks home right into his father’s heart and finds extravagant, reckless love. The “bad” part of his life becomes entirely incidental to the story as soon as the child is home and back in relationship with his family.

If one of the lessons of this parable is that in the actions of the parent we see the nature and character of God, then we have a prodigal God as well. God’s heart is defined by reckless extravagant love and forgiveness. When we are vulnerable and know we deserve judgment – or when we have just plain been beaten down by life – we can turn to God. When we do – when we start walking home, while we are still far off, God abandons all decorum, dismisses conventions, and runs to us, arms open wide. We are given forgiveness, we’re met with compassion and our lives are celebrated with joy. All that matters is that we are seeking, moving closer to God in some way, and are making our hearts vulnerable to whatever God has to offer.

The second aspect of God’s heart that we find in this parable is what many have called the “pathos” of God. Pathos is the willingness of God to open God’s heart to us – it’s God becoming vulnerable to the world and it’s pains. It is God experiencing with us, and suffering with us, and rejoicing with us. God’s heart is on God’s sleeve and so it too is especially available for connection with us and for being changed through relationship with us.

I have suggested before that if the parent is meant to be God, maybe the son is meant to be Jesus. I know it’s hard to think of Jesus being so irresponsible and manipulative and greedy. But the point is that Jesus is human. And Jesus entered fully into the world – he did not stay back protected by home and family. And he was completely vulnerable to all life had to offer. In the traditional language of the gospel writer, we have the father and the son - the first and second person of the trinity – and the son – the human aspect of God – sets out to experience the world.

At the very least, I think we can imagine Jesus going with the son when he leaves home. Notice that this parable is told because Jesus is telling his critics why he spends so much time with sinners. Luke writes, “the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” This parable is about being with sinners. If Jesus is nowhere to be found with the sinner in this parable, the parable doesn’t exactly make sense as a response to the accusations of those questioning Jesus.

God sent Jesus into this world – to be with us wherever we are. Our God is not a God that simply “stays home” metaphorically speaking, sitting back and waiting for us. If that were the case, God would not have come in human form, leaving home and going out into the world. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s heart. And whether he is the prodigal son or is with the prodigal son, the experience of the son gives us insight into God’s heart. It has suffered, it has broken, it has felt shame – just like all of our hearts at one time or another. God’s heart is not protected from all the world has to offer.

That’s how this passage shows us the heart of God. Now, if the goal is to connect with that, how might someone with a heart spirituality do that?

Just as God did in Jesus, the path is found in opening and exposing your heart. It’s risky and inevitably invites some pain. But if you learn through your heart, you will need to let your heart be in relationship with God and others. And that requires pathos – the willingness to feel things deeply and know the depths of human nature and experience as fully as you can. This will lead to a broken heart at some point – just as God’s heart was broken when Jesus suffered on the cross. But pathos – suffering with our brothers and sisters – is the way to draw near to our God – because our God does exactly the same thing.

The heart can be opened in many ways. One thing heart types might try is opening the heart through prayer. Specifically, prayer that focuses on connecting you to God and others. Holding in prayer the experience of others might allow compassion to stir in your heart. Praying for those who need healing, forgiveness, hope, will soften your heart to their experiences. Once your heart is softened, and you begin to take their experiences into your own being, you will know God better – because God is right there feeling everything you are.

Another way you might expose your heart is in confession. We see this so well in our Psalm this morning – And Psalmists are heart people to the core. In their hymns, we see them lay themselves open in complete honesty before God. We call it confession. Confession is not just cataloging sins. It is making yourself vulnerable to God so that you may be touched by the extravagant, reckless forgiveness and love of God.

To keep parts of yourself hidden from God is to shut off your path to God’s heart. When the author of this Psalm kept his heart hidden, he says, “my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” But then he goes on to write, “I confessed my true self to you, and I did not hide anything from you…and you forgave me fully!” And that brought tremendous joy, and it brought him into a close personal relationship with this forgiving God. He felt engulfed by God, guided by God and known completely by God.

So there’s prayer, there’s confession, but mostly in this spirituality type, hearts are opened, and lives are connected to God, through experience – through relationships with others. Heart types learn from these, they see God at work in others and themselves when they take time to pay attention. This might be doing devotions, or journaling, reflecting on one’s experiences of being lost, experiences of being lavishly forgiven, and experiences of the pain of others. Heart types trust their experience as a valid way of knowing and learning about human nature and the divine creator. That is their path to the heart of God.

Just as with all the spiritual types, the non-heart folks need the heart folks. We need to see their passion, their emotion, their joy. We need to be reminded to look for God in our daily lives and relationships. The most beautiful thing about this type of spirituality is to watch the heart’s response to encountering the prodigal God. This response of the heart types gives us a window into God’s heart that we might otherwise have difficulty seeing. Again we turn to our Psalm. The Psalmist describes what happens when he has been met with God’s extravagant forgiveness and love. He says, “My heart is glad in God and rejoices and shouts for joy.”

The response is a heart that is “glad in God.” It’s a heart that knows God and the joy that comes from that. The Psalmist believes once we make ourselves vulnerable to God, the relationship will follow – because of God’s love for us. And in this relationship with God, heart types are able to sense the heart and will of God – they are open to God’s guidance. “I will instruct and teach you the way you should go;” God says in the Psalm. “I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” When someone who lives life through their heart connects with God, their response is just like that of the prodigal God. They are reckless and extravagant in their love for others – they feel deeply, and rejoice immensely.

It’s Lent, and Jesus is on his way to the cross. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s heart, and so if we walk with Jesus to the cross, we will know God’s heart. We will know what God wants for us, how God feels with us, and ultimately how God rejoices to be in relationship with us. If we walk with Jesus, we dwell in God’s heart, and when that happens, our hearts will leap in response – we will become the embodiment of God’s heart here on earth. Amen.