It’s the Heart that Counts

I love trivia. We’ll be having breakfast and I’ll say, “On this day, 40 years ago, the 1968 Democratic National Convention began in Chicago.” Actually, it was more like a week from today; that’s just an example. Incidentally, three weeks later, the Detroit Tigers clinched their first American League pennant in 23 years. I love trivia. Drives my family up the wall! It’s one of the few areas in which I can beat my brother in an argument. “No, Dad’s first car wasn’t a Model A, it was a ’36 Ford V8; coupe. No, I don’t know what colour it was; what do you think I am, a walking encyclopedia?!” Drives people crazy, unless we’re playing Trivial Pursuit. Then everyone wants me on their team. Suddenly they appreciate the fact that I know that Newfoundland was the last province to join confederation in 1949.

Trivia is a lot of fun. As long as you don’t take it seriously. Jesus had to contend with people who did take it seriously. He had to contend with people who devoted much of their lives to trivia. I’m talking about the Pharisees. In their passion for the Jewish law they sometimes got so focused on enforcing the small details that they missed the big picture. The Pharisees said, “You mustn’t do any work on the Sabbath (the day of worship and rest). Healing a sick person is work; therefore if you see a sick person on the Sabbath you have to leave him or her to suffer until the next day. Jesus figured that it was more important to heal the sick, regardless of the day of the week. The Pharisees said, “There are certain people who are unclean, or who eat food that’s unclean; you mustn’t share a meal with them.” Jesus didn’t much care whom he shared a meal with. “If you’re a child of God” – as all people are – “then I’ll break bread with you.” That’s the way that Jesus saw it. Jesus was less concerned with the rigorous enforcement of long standing laws and routines, and more concerned with the content of a person’s heart. He couldn’t be bothered with either the pickiness of the Pharisees, nor with the fact that they were bothered with his more liberated approach to life. His attitude seemed to be, “If they’re going to get uptight about that, that’s their problem.” So when the disciples said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees are offended by the things that you’re saying and doing,” Jesus said, “Don’t get all tied up in knots about the Pharisees. If they want to be offended, let them be offended. I’m just going to do my own thing.”

Now in fairness to the Pharisees, the New Testament paints something of a caricature of them. You know, it’s like a political cartoon in the paper: some of the ugliest features are exaggerated, and some of the better features are ignored. In a lot of ways, the Pharisees were the good guys of Jesus’ day. Amidst the oppression of the Roman officials and the arrogance of the Temple priests, it was the Pharisees who upheld the Jewish law, which at its heart had to do with compassion and justice and the well-being of the community. These concerns are anything but trivial. So the Pharisees really were concerned with important matters, and not just with trivial things. But the New Testament focuses on their concern for the trivial.

Let’s put that in its historical context. Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees is especially acute in Matthew’s gospel. This may tell us more about the Jewish world at the time that Matthew was writing then it tells us about Jesus. Matthew’s gospel is written around AD 80, at a time when a lot of Christians still see themselves as good Jews. And some scholars have suggested that there’s a fight going on between some of these early Christians on the one hand and the Pharisees on the other over which interpretation of Judaism – which faction of moral leadership within Judaism – is going to be the dominant one: is it going to be the Pharisaic faction, or the Jesus faction? It was a philosophical and political struggle within the Jewish community. Well, you know, you always paint a less than complimentary picture of your political opponent. If we had a record of what the Pharisees were saying about Jesus and his followers, we might have as much trouble recognizing them as Jewish scholars today have trouble recognizing the picture of the Pharisees that Matthew paints.

But Mathew’s point remains valid: don’t sweat the small stuff. Don’t get so focused on details that you miss the big pictures. As someone once said, “Don’t major in minors.” And there’s nothing like a good church fight to bring out a tendency to major in minors. More accurately, there’s nothing like two factions trying to avoid a fight to bring out this practice of majoring in minors. The real issues – the substantial issues – are simmering somewhere below the surface. But good religious people aren’t supposed to fight with each other, right? We’re supposed to be nice all the time; right? So we keep the real issues below the surface and we bicker over the trivial things: like who gets to take the tea towels home to wash. One time the Executive of Toronto Conference was receiving a report on how an amalgamation of several congregations was going. Two or three congregations were becoming one new congregation, and decisions had to be made about the ministry of this new faith community. One of the highlights of the report was that the congregations had agreed on the colour of the choir robes. Someone on the Executive said, “Now that the choir robe issue has been settled, I have hope that some of the less challenging issues in the world can be settled too; like peace in the Middle East.”

Don’t sweat the small stuff. Focus instead, Jesus said, on the weightier matters of the law, like caring for the widow and the orphan and the stranger. Outward appearances like the colour of the choir robes isn’t really that important. It’s what’s inside the heart that counts. A heart that craves power is going to focus on trivial matters and try to control everything. A heart that is centred on God will look beneath the surface and focus on the real issues that are dividing brother and sister within a community of faith; the real issues that are dividing factions within a nation; the real issues that are dividing nations within the world.

A young minister, fresh out of seminary, was sent to a congregation in a small town in Saskatchewan. It didn’t take him long to discover that there were two factions in the congregation which fought over everything. If one faction liked certain hymns, the other faction liked different hymns. If one faction thought the sermons were too short the other faction thought the sermons were too long. It didn’t matter what the issue was, you could pretty well predict who was going to be on one side of the fight and who was going to be on the other. And the minister wondered, “What is going on with this congregation?” Then one day he went for a long walk. He was a few miles out of town when he came upon an old cemetery out there on the prairie. Well, you know, in Canada, where’s there’s a small cemetery, there’s often a church; or at least there use to be a church. So the minister did a little investigating and he discovered that years ago presbytery had closed this little church on the prairie and the folks from that congregation were told to go to the bigger church in town. And maybe there were good reasons for closing that little church, but the point is that there was little notice, and no proper closing service; one Sunday they were in that little country church and the next Sunday they were in town. And the folks from the rural church were the one faction, and the folks who’d always worshipped in town with the other faction. And they weren’t fighting over the real issue. The real issue was that for all these years the folks from the rural congregation had been hurt and angry and they hadn’t been given a chance to grieve. So one Sunday the minister took the people who’d been members of that little church out to the cemetery; the church building was long gone, so they went out to the cemetery, and they stood out there on the prairie, and they had the closing worship service that they’d never had years before. The got out the old blue hymnaries, and they sang their favourite hymns, and they wept. After that, the fights ended.

It’s what’s in the heart that counts. If there’s grief or anger or fear there, it’s going to come out one way or another. And it’s often going to come out in disguise. It’s often going to come out under the cover of a trivial issue that has nothing to do with the real issue. Because the real issue is some kind of fear; or it’s some kind of pain that’s long been denied.

What’s in your heart? What kind of pain is there, or what kind of joy is there? It is good, as the psalmist says, when brothers and sisters live together in unity (Psalm 133:1). But not the artificial unity which comes when we avoid the real issues. It’s when you become vulnerable, and your heart breaks open, and all that’s there comes out – both the pain and the joy – it’s then that what really matters gets talked about, and the unity of the Spirit is possible. Amen.

Text: Matthew 15:12-14
Preached by Bruce D. Ervin
17 August 2008