2.25.2024 | Have Their Hearts Been Altered? | Rev. Andrew Chappell

Today is DENSE. But it’s not my fault, it’s Paul’s fault.

 

Romans 4:13-25

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression. For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 

 

Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 

 

Therefore “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

 

This is the word of God for the people of God.

 

A Change of Heart. 

One of my favorite Jesus movies is a movie called Mary Magdalene. The movie stars real life husband and wife Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix as Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth. The movie follows the ministry of Jesus through the eyes of Mary, and of course, the movie takes a lot of creative license throughout, but it does some things really well. 

 

In one of its greatest scenes (I showed this to our women’s wednesday morning bible study), Jesus and his disciples are shown entering Jerusalem and the Temple during a festival week. The crowd is enormous. Money is being exchanged for animals and then the animals are taken for slaughter, as a means of forgiveness from God per the ritual.

 

You know this scene from scripture. It is in every gospel. It is typically referred to as the Cleansing of the Temple. 

 

And the camera shows the crowd and the sacrifice, but its main focus is on Jesus, watching all of this happen. And you can tell he is getting frustrated and angry. He begins a conversation with one of the priests. And if you remember, in the gospel of Mark, this scene is short, with Jesus quoting scripture: 

 

“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?

But you have made it a den of robbers.”

 

But the screenwriters of this movie have done their best to add additional dialogue to the scene to give it greater weight and to really show you what is going on in Jesus’ heart. Jesus questions the sacrificial practice, he questions everything that has been built around this temple ritual, the way of life and the application of this religion, and Jesus – and as he looks around at all the people purchasing and buying their forgiveness,  he asks the priest this question, “(Is this how people show true repentance?) Have their hearts been altered when they leave this place?”

 

I think that the screenwriters capture the heart of Jesus well in that question. After all, throughout the gospels, that seems to be Jesus’ overarching concern. It’s not the practice of religion. It’s the heart. And if your religion is not affecting and altering your heart, what good is it?

 

Have their hearts been altered when they leave this place…?

 

I wonder that about this place, about us, about what we do here, day in and day out, about this body of believers. I wonder if through fellowship through relationship, through music and tradition and reading and singing, I truly wonder, “Have OUR hearts been altered when we leave this place? Or are we merely paying lip-service to some sense of duty that we feel we have?” Is there still a spark? Or has the fire died? 

 

Have our hearts been altered?

To me, that is the central question of Paul in Romans. In his last and longest letter, written to a community he never got to know well, he is curious about the work that God is doing in their hearts. In fact, he’s written a letter to care for their hearts. Because he’s heard that there may be conflict…

 

The conflict is (a little bit) the result of powers beyond their control. Before Emperor Nero, who would be responsible for Paul’s death, Emperor Claudius was in charge. And during his reign, while the fledgling Roman church was in its early stages, Claudius apparently expelled some Jews from Rome because of some social disturbances. Because of the expulsion of the Jewish population, it seems that the Roman Christian community became very Gentile. And because of that, when the Jews were allowed back, they came back to a very different church.

 

Remember, the Christian movement was first, a Jewish movement. And as it moved into the Gentile world, there was tension. Because the Jews are a people of the Torah, of the Law. They have tradition and dogma that is very important to them…and as the church grew and began reaching out to Gentiles, some of the Jewish Christians fully expected any and all Gentile converts to adopt THEIR ways.

 

But a theme of Paul’s ministry is telling folks that Gentiles don’t HAVE to adhere to all the Jewish laws. This Jesus stuff is actually a whole new ball game. 

 

And so after the return of these Jewish Christians, Paul writes this letter to help this “ethnically mixed community…knit itself back together, both practically and religiously.” He’s trying to glue this community of conservative Jews and liberal Gentiles back together. 

 

Now we wouldn’t know anything about that today would we? 

There are no conservative/liberal struggles in the 21 century!

There are no fights over differing ideas and struggles for unity today…

 

This Roman church conflict is one of a kind! (But in all seriousness) Romans is (sort of) a treatise on how to stick together. On how to find the simplest common ground, that we might all be one. And at its very center is a deep concern for the heart.

 

What is Paul Doing?

Now if you read Romans, it is dense. In fact, I recommend you use The Message translation to help. Seriously. It is hard to read. 

 

And of course it is. Because while Paul is trying to break everything down, he has to do a lot of explaining to get there. He is trying to simplify and explain what it is that Jesus has done for us and what we are to do with that knowledge now!

 

Paul calls what God has done: “God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him” (Romans 1, MSG). I love that. God’s powerful rescue plan. And it is open to any who trust God.

 

And throughout the letter, while Paul does in fact talk about the importance of FAITH, he does so with some interesting language. You see, for Paul, belief or faith is really TRUST and EMBRACE of the way of God. You see those words a lot in the first few chapters. TRUST. EMBRACE.

 

And through those words, Paul is already foreshadowing where he is going, because he is using “heart” language. Embrace. Trust. And he wants the community to share in that embrace of God together. 

 

But in order to do that, he’s gotta tear them to pieces first. He has to point out just how silly they’ve been. He has to show them how wonky their priorities have become.

 

And he goes after the Gentiles a little bit, but he REALLY goes after the Jewish Christians. He says to the Jewish Christians, “Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval” (Romans 2, MSG). “Don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy…(you insiders).” Did you know that “God prefers outsiders who keep God’s ways over the insiders who don’t.” Indeed, God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews…God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion” (Romans 3, MSG).

 

You see what Paul is doing right? He is deconstructing the importance of the institution and the material parts of religion. In the Message paraphrase of this letter, Eugene Peterson gives this section the following title: Religion Can’t Save You. And that’s what Paul is saying. He’s telling the people of the church of Rome that religious practice is no longer the main uniting force of our faith. There is something greater at work. 

 

Chapter Four.

And in chapter four, Paul anticipates some of the Jewish Christians arguing back with questions like: “What about our being the chosen people of Abraham? What about the promise to Abraham? You can’t just do away with our religious traditions like that. Aren’t we God’s people? Aren’t we special?”

 

And Paul says, “Yes and no. You are indeed the people of Abraham, but it isn’t just you anymore…Because, ‘what we read in Scripture is, “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and THAT was the turning point. He TRUSTED God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own”’” (Romans 4, MSG). 

 

What Abraham received was “sheer gift.” And Paul says, “Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in [our disciplines, in our traditions]?...It was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God...[Indeed] Abraham is father of ALL people who EMBRACE what God does for them…

 

Abraham…[TRUSTED] God and his way, and then simply EMBRACED GOD and what he did [and what he does]” (Romans 4, MSG). 

 

(I told you it was dense didn’t I)

 

So this is Paul’s point to the Jewish Christians: “Abraham is indeed your father (feels like Star Wars).

 

Abraham is your father. But not just yours. Because this is not a human or racial thing, not a Jewish or Gentile thing. This is a faith thing. It’s a spiritual thing. Abraham is OUR father (Gentile AND Jew) because: “When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he COULDN’T do but on what God said he WOULD do…

 

THAT is the faith of Abraham. It is a heart-filled embrace and trust of God – that even in the darkness, in the wilderness, God will do something. GOD WILL SAVE. That’s the thing that saved and changed Abraham. It was God’s work in the heart. And it altered the trajectory of all time.

 

And Paul says, “But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we EMBRACE (and TRUST) the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless” (Romans 4, MSG). 

 

When we have the same faith, the same reckless trust and embrace of the God who does impossible things, we are to be considered children of Abraham as well. There’s nothing WE can do to earn the love and favor and mercy and grace of God. It is only what GOD does.

 

Ash Wednesday.

A few weeks ago, as I was preparing for our Ash Wednesday service, I knew we were down a clergy with Connor out on paternity leave, but I thought for sure that there wouldn’t be that many folks here. So I decided to have just one station for ashes. Just me. 

 

Sure enough, there were more people here for Ash Wednesday than we’d had in a LONG time. Both aisles were backed up to the ends, people waiting to have a cross marked on their foreheads in the shape of a cross. And why? It’s not like having an ashen cross mark on your head is going to do anything. Of course not. No, people showed up to remind themselves that life is short, death is coming for us all, from dust we come and to dust we return. And that there is nothing that we can do to change that. There is nothing we can do without the grace of God.

 

Pete Holmes.

Comedian Pete Holmes says, “Water can’t help but get you wet. And God can’t help but love you…There’s nothing you can do to increase or decrease the infinite love of God, but there are things you can do to increase or decrease your awareness of that love.”

 

And that’s the point of this moment in Romans: that there are some Jewish customs and traditions and things that no longer matter. They no longer keep the fire alive. And to heap them on new Gentile Christians is a mistake. And how do you know if these customs are helping or hindering? 

 

Perhaps a question might be asked, something like: Have their hearts been altered when they leave this place? Are the customs we are obeying altering our hearts? Or are they making it harder for us to understand and access God?

 

It immediately makes me think of the season of Lent. We are in that season, a season where we traditionally give up something. I’ve learned recently that if you have a baby around the same time, the baby takes care of that for you. In fact, I think I’ve given up enough for the next few lents. 

 

BUT here’s the question: if the practice of giving up something for lent does not affect your HEART, does not bring you closer to the divine, then what good is it?

 

If what we do in here, if the rituals and the creeds and the hymns and the standing and sitting, and the sermons, if all that is not working to alter our hearts, to spark something bright within us, then what good is it?

 

Circumcision of the Heart.

In one of John Wesley’s most famous sermons, titled “Circumcision of the Heart,” a 30 year old John Wesley tackles Romans and this very thing. And in that sermon he says, “the distinguishing mark of a true follower of [Jesus], of one who is in a state of acceptance with God, is not either outward circumcision, or baptism, or any other outward form [of religion], but [rather] a right state of soul, a mind and spirit [and heart] renewed after the image of Him that created it…”

 

As an 87 year old, Wesley would agree with his younger self when he said, “I believe the merciful God regards lives and tempers of men [and women] more than their ideas. I believe [God] respects the goodness of the heart rather than the clearness of the head; and that if the heart of a man [or woman] be filled with the humble, gentle, patient love of God and [humanity],” God will certainly not cast them out.

 

That comes from a man who surely knows what God can do in the heart. After all, it was at a prayer meeting, while reading Martin Luther’s preface to the book of Romans, that a 35 year old Wesley, broken and discouraged, felt God reach into his heart and warm it in a way that made him sure that God loved him and forgave him and had some things for him to do. And his heart was surely altered that night. And for the rest of his ministry, Wesley sought to be used by God to foster a change in the heart. 

 

A Letter to Jack.

Last week, we honored and remembered Jack Jackson. Jack and Patsy have been members here a while, and their daughter Nancy has been our preschool director for 27 years, we’ve baptized their kids here and grandkids.

 

Jack was a renaissance man who had interests all over the place. He was a good man. A man who knew who he was and he was good with that. Jack spent his career as a teacher. He taught history and he also developed the Drivers Ed program at his school.

 

Just before the service began, a lady came up and asked if I could read a letter in front of the congregation, a letter she had written to Jack. I’ve never had that happen before. Nancy told me to go ahead and do it. 

 

So I did, many of you were there. The letter was from a student of Jack’s named Linda. The letter reads like this:

 

Dear Mr. Jackson,

 

Your passing has left a hole in all our hearts, especially for me. I will miss your laugh and your bow tie and that you never seem to age. I was one of your driver’s ed students. And through the years, you taught so many of us how to drive. To this day, I can still hear you saying slow down—you're in a construction zone.

 

I wanted to write to you to tell you that in high school, I didn't get to drive a lot like most other kids. I really only got to drive in your class. And I loved your class. I couldn't wait for Drivers Ed. And countless times you would skip your lunch period and take me out driving so I could get some extra time behind the wheel. And that meant so much to me. 

 

I remember, I didn’t get a car until I left home. I was 18 years old. I bought a ‘73 Ford Maverick even though I still didn’t have a license yet. I couldn't even drive it off the lot. A friend drove it off the lot for me to my apartment complex where it sat all weekend. I could only look at my new car. But as soon as I got my license, I couldn't wait to drive to school to show you my car before anyone else.

 

I write all this to say thank you for everything you did for me and to tell you how I turned out. I was a shy and isolated kid in high school, but you were certainly a bright spot. And I became a police officer for 32 years and I did get into a couple of chases in my career, which you never covered in your class!

 

Mr. Jackson, teachers are very special people and SOME touch lives and hearts beyond words. You were one of those teachers.

 

The mold has now been broken. God bless you and keep you,

 

Linda.

 

Sounds to me like Linda’s heart was altered, because of Jack! Something was sparked in her long ago because her teacher recognized that what mattered most was the heart. And friends, when the heart is altered, anything is possible. Lives change. Goodness is found. 

 

Conclusion.

In Romans 5, Paul says that when our hearts EMBRACE and TRUST God’s ability to change us, to alter us, to make the impossible possible, “We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us…[When] we have actually [receive] this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!” (Romans 5, MSG). In other words, it affects our hearts. Our hearts are altered!

 

Barbara Brown Taylor - “What if the real test of our success as God’s servants is not what we do but how we do it? What if the real measure of our extraordinariness as Christians is not our thoughtfulness or our friendliness and our busyness” or our worship style or our rules or our dogmas or our creeds “but our spark.”

 

Has your heart been altered? Has it been warmed? Has your heart embraced the possibilities with God? If not, what’s hindering you? What’s stopping you?

 

Amen.

 

Benediction.

There are lots of reasons to be divided lately. There are lots of reasons to be un-united. The world is hurting. And I think more than ever, this world needs to know that no matter what anyone does, they are loved beyond measure. That is a message that could truly produce a unity that might be unbreakable. But a message like that truly needs to begin in our hearts. 

 

May you seek God with all your heart. And may your hearts be truly altered by the God who seeks to transform this whole world.