The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



Saturday in the Week of Proper 18, Year I, September 10, 2011, ECW Annual Meeting, Holy Trinity Church

“It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Lk. 6:45).

There’s a direct relationship between “what we say” and “what we do,” and “who we are.” I’m increasingly worried about this after several years of driving around the greater Nashville area and listening to myself talk about the other drivers on the highway. My wife Caroline tells me that she feels bad about herself until she rides with me and hears me talk while I’m driving. I’m glad I’ve been able to bring comfort and spiritual encouragement to at least one of the faithful, but I’m pretty sure that this is not how God intended me to do it. Maybe it’s an occupational hazard for bishops, since they spend so much time in the car, and perhaps I shouldn’t feel so bad. Still, as Jesus says, it’s out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks, and the source of my worry is that the mouth is revealing an abundance of foolishness in my heart; or, to vary the image, not an abundance but a spiritual scarcity instead. If “who we are” depends on “what we say” or “what we do,” then perhaps we should all be paying attention.

So let’s get to the heart of the matter. “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to their doings” (Jer. 17: 9-10). God searches the secrets of our hearts, for unto him all hearts are open: so we better be paying attention to our hearts, seeking to have generous and abundant hearts, hearts with wide and ample spaces in which God can be at home. The heart is the home of the will, the seat of desire and love, and as St Augustine said in his prayer, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee”. We don’t want to be “double-hearted” (Ps. 12:2), as the Scripture says; we don’t want our hearts to be “divided” (Hos. 10:2), nor do we want hearts that are “gross and fat” (Ps. 119:70) like the hearts of the wicked in Scripture. The early warning signs of this illness are what the mouth speaks, in all its foolishness. “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil” (Lk. 6:45). I think it’s also true that what we say and what we do reinforces who we are, so that the last end for us is even worse than the first if our mouth produces foolishness, because the blowback goes straight to the heart.

Now don’t check out on this sermon yet, because it’s not a counsel of despair; or if you have checked out check back in, because there is Gospel here for us, Good News for the People of God. God’s intention is to give us a new heart and a new spirit, as it’s says in the Prophet Ezekiel. “I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezek. 11: 19-20). What a relief, for we all know what that heart of stone feels like. We need new hearts, living hearts that are fresh and new, and the Good News is that God gives them to us. God does this through grace, through his power and presence in our lives, freely given and freely received.

You see, God is greater than our hearts, and he gives us the grace to be transformed through Jesus Christ. “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us” (1 Jo. 3:18-24).

Now I wish that I had said that, but it’s from the First Letter of John. If our hearts would condemn us, God is greater than our hearts. The Apostle and Evangelist is calling to mind that mysterious action of grace within us that makes us a new people in Jesus Christ. That grace is all around us, but for us today it’s focused in the Sacrament we celebrate. We need look no further than this altar to discover that grace present in our lives. In a moment we will invoke the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine of the Eucharist so that it may be Christ’s Body and Blood, the living presence of God in the world; and we will invoke the Holy Spirit upon the Church, so that we too who gather round may be the living presence of God in the world, the Body of Christ ourselves. Today we remember that God is powerfully present within us, making our dead hearts live again, filling them with the abundance of new life so that from this abundance we may speak.

- The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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