Hearts and Hands and Voices

A Lenten Service by Brent J. Eelman

Abington Presbyterian Church

February 25, 2007

 

Romans 10: 8b-13

‘The word is near you,
   on your lips and in your heart’
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. ¹¹The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ¹³For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’*

 

The well known thanksgiving hymn begins with these words: “Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices.”   The hymn writer was stating that faith manifests itself in these three ways.  Faith is something that we feel and believe in our hearts.  Faith is something that we say or confess with our voices.  Finally,  Faith is something that we live with our hands and bodies.  On this first Sunday in the season of Lent, I would like to examine these three ways that our faith is manifest.  The section of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome that was just read speaks about two of the manifestations of faith: heart and voice.   The third manifestation of faith, hands, derives from the first two and should be at the core of our Lenten journey of faith. 

I

Heart:  When we speak of the heart today, we are usually speaking about one of two things: first, the physical heart… that pump in our breast that circulates the blood that keeps us alive.  It is an absolutely vital organ, and necessary to life. Second, we associate the heart with the center of emotion.  When we say, “She speaks from the heart,” we mean that her words reflect her feelings about the subject.  When we say, “This appeals to the head, not the heart,” we mean that it appeals to the rational part of our being as opposed to our emotions.  The heart conveys a sense of warmth… “She has a good heart.”  It also communicates love. Two weeks ago we gave those whom we love cards with hearts on them.  The heart is the locus of love, affection, feeling and emotion. 

 

Paul’s understanding of the heart was much broader.  The heart, for the ancients, was not merely the seat of the emotions; it was also the center of the intellect.  It was rational part of the human being.  The Hebrew people believed that the process of cognition or understanding was a function of the heart. The heart was where human beings sought knowledge and understanding.  The Hebrew language expressed the idea of human thinking, using the expression: “say with the heart.” 

 

Finally, Paul believed the heart was the center of the moral life.  The heart was the originator of evil and good.  We still speak about the heart that way today… “He has a dark heart.” 

 

The heart was where the moral compass is found.   Some scholars have argued that because the Hebrew understanding of the “heart” was so broad and all encompassing, the best word that we have for it today is “personality”, meaning the fullness of the person. 

 

In the text for today, Paul wrote “the faith that we proclaim…is near you… it is in your heart.”  Paul was stating that faith is something that involves the entirety of the personality.  It is not merely an intellectual ascent to an idea, nor is it an emotional ecstatic utterance.  Faith engages all parts of our being: our emotions, our intellect, our reason, and our behavior.   The core issue is salvation.  Paul was stating that we are made right with God and saved by faith.  Faith involves the entire being. 

 

Soren Kierkegaard used the expression “leap of faith.”  When I was a child standing on the dock in my swim suit, my father would be waist deep in the water with his arms out and saying… “Jump Brent…leap!”  This was a leap of faith.  It required my entire being to respond.  Faith is not merely a function of idea or emotion… When Paul wrote about the faith of the heart, he meant.. one’s entire being!

II

Voice.  Today we (will) use(d) the Baptismal creed as our statement of faith.  We rise and respond to the questions regarding God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  We will affirm our beliefs, our faith, with voice.  Voice, words and the ability to communicate through sound is one of the important dimensions of being human.  Our confession or affirmation of faith is necessary and closely tied with the faith of our heart. 

 

Faith is not merely an internal thing.  It is not merely something that is inside of us…we need to give it voice.  For many, this is a huge challenge.  It is a necessary challenge.  I had a college professor who said, “You don’t know something until you can express it in your own words.”  Do we really believe something unless we can express it in our own words?  Paul would argue that we do not. 

 

On National Public Radio, there is a continuing series entitled, “I Believe.”  People, ordinary and famous relate what they believe about the world, human nature, God, science, meaning and other things.  As I listen to the different individuals, one of the things that strikes me is that their words usually belie a struggle of expression… and that struggle helps clarify what they believe.  One of the challenges that we might consider during this period of Lent is to write out, in words,  “This is what I believe.” Or “this is my faith”.  Give what is in your heart a voice.  Share it. 

 

I remember the first time I completed a will, the document said: “Last Will and Testament”.  I was troubled by the wording, because my last testament dealt entirely with my earthly belongings.  I sat down and wrote a testament of my faith… as something to leave to those who survive me.  What is yours?

III

Hearts, Voices.. Hands:  Voice and heart belong to most mammals, hands are distinctively human.  Some anthropologists posit that the hand with the opposable thumb contributed as much to human development as our mental facility.  The word “man” referring to human beings, comes from the Latin manus, for hand.   

 

Faith emanates from the heart.. it is given voice by the lips, and it is given form and full expression by our bodies: our hands.  The expression: “She not only talks the talk, she walks the walk”  What we do with our hands, our actions, our use of time, our stewardship of our wealth and belongings reflect our faith.  What we do reflects what we believe about God, the world, other people and ourselves. 

 

The word for living out what we believe is “holiness”.  Last week, I met for three days with a group of colleagues.  We have spent the last 2 ½ years working on the theology of salvation and the church.  This past week we struggled with the question, how does our belief about God, salvation and the church manifest itself in how we live?  What does it mean to be holy?   Holiness has a bad rap these days.  It is not cool.  Ministers go to great lengths not to seem, “holy”.  We are put off by the expression, “holier than thou…”  but this does not get away from the challenge that our faith needs concrete expression in the way that we live our lives.  If someone were to observe your life, from Monday through Saturday, would they know that you are a person of faith.  I am gathering the information to complete my income taxes.. and one of the questions that it raises for me is… is my faith visible in my use of money? 

 

Faith lived out in our lives goes beyond these personal dimensions.  How does holiness respond to the global AIDS crisis?  In our hearts we know it’s horrible.  We can voice all kinds of pronouncements. But does faith not require a concrete response with our hands?  How does our faith manifest itself in terms of war, in terms of violence?   How does faith manifest itself in the disasters that occur throughout the world?  A year ago, on a cold winter night, our youth confronted this question head on: How does faith manifest itself in a city where homelessness is a reality? 

 

At the heart of Paul’s letter to the Romans is the message that we are made right with God by faith.  Faith involves the intellect, the emotions, and the personality. Faith needs to be expressed in words. Faith is shared with our lips.  Finally faith is evident in our lives. Hearts and hands and voices.  This is the challenge of the good news.  Amen. 

 

*The New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org