Through the Waters
“O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed.”
This is the “weeping prophet” Jeremiah, as depicted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Jeremiah looks out over the utter destruction and desolation of his beloved Jerusalem. We see embodied here the anguish and ambivalence he expresses in the first verses of our reading from his prophecy; which is, indeed, the experience of prophets, apostles, disciples, and messengers of God in every generation, as Jesus warns us in this week’s Gospel lesson. “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master,” Jesus warns us. “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?” (Matthew 10:25)
Take me out of the mire, lest I sink; O let me be delivered from those who hate me, and out of the deep waters.
— Psalm 69:15
Third Sunday after Pentecost
Texts for This Week
Prayer
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Hello, My Old Heart
The Oh Hellos are an independent brother-sister folk duo from Texas … who have a tendency to gather around them a large and eclectic group of musicians to play in their introspective and often long-form musical storytelling. Their majestic, Celtic-inspired folk-pop, which often touches upon themes inspired by their Christian faith and experience (including several songs inspired by CS Lewis’s fiction, and a whole album based on the Screwtape Letters). This video is the entirety of the “tiny desk concert” they played on NPR back in 2015. Each of the three songs is lovely, but the first, “Hello, my old heart” is of particular interest. The theme of the song is one of rediscovering one’s heart, after pain and fear have caused the singer to wall it off and protect it, to the point of it’s being almost unreachable in their innermost depths.
As we discover in this week’s lessons, the prophet and apostle — whose mantle we share, if we indeed share the name of Christ — is fated to experience a particularly form of heartbreak. The theme of “reconnecting to one’s heart” is thus a lovely compliment to our readings — and indeed, our prayers, as this week we cry out, “Graft in our hearts the love of your Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.”
The Reconciling Heart - A Meditation for Ordinary Time
What is the reconciling heart? The reconciling heart is aflame with faith. It burns with faith, not because it embraces counterfactuals or believes in spite of evidence, nor because it commits to a fantasy narrative or froths itself up with wishful thinking, but because it experiences, in its uttermost depths and essence, how deeply it is seen, known, loved, and forgiven. Transparent to such deep and such absolute love, it cannot help but become love itself. Every barrier, every boundary; every marker, every tribal distinction is erased to it. It loves all people — indeed, every created thing! — because it beats in time with the rhythms of the resistless and uncreated Love that is the source and summit of all Being. It remains small in itself, but boundless in its scope. It is circumscribed in its presence, but unlimited in its benevolence. It navigates this world like every other creature, subject to all the ambiguities and ambivalences, all the terrible and tragic limitations of our sad mortal estate. But it blooms with hope irrepressible, because it knows so fully, beyond all doubt or discussion, that God in Christ Jesus is reconciling all things to himself, not counting our sins against us: and its own presence to and participation in this beautiful ultimacy, is for to delight in this ever-unfolding divine work, and not accomplish it.
