My Heart

Let me take you on a time warp:

Psalm 36 1-4:
1 Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in their hearts; there is no fear of God before their eyes.
2For they flatter themselves in their own eyes that their inquity cannot be fourn out and hated.
3 The words of their mouths are mischief and deceit; they have ceased to act wisely and do good.
4 They plot mischief while on their beds' theay are set on a way that is not good' they do not reject evil.

Pretty plain, don't think I need to explain.
Now for 37, (someday we'll be in heaven) (sorry I just HAD to make the rhyme there since the first line did it on its own. Please! with me, don't pick a bone!)

30 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak justice.
31 The law of their God is in their hearts; their steps do not slip.

All jesting aside here, things are pretty clear (I'M SORRY!!!! I can't help it the rhymes are appearing on their by themselves. It must be the inspiration of elves)
Really all jesting aside take a look at the passages:

verse one of 36 says that transgression (read sin) is DEEP in the heart of texas . . . uh I mean the wicked. Sin is deep in the heart. they don't give a rip about God. This first statement is without parallel in the old testement. Transgression (crossing a line, sin) has here, taken the place normally reserved for God in the OT: that of oracle or speaker to the heart.

And look at the consequences of that: the "wicked" are blinded by their own flatter and lies to themselves: they see neither the fear of God, nor the fact that their sin is real and can be "found out and hated". The words which they speak and the actions which they plot are mischief and deceit.

in 37 30-1 this situation is reversed, this reversal is even emphasized by the text itself. Whereas the wicked have transgression deep in their hearts and speak mischief and deciet, the righteous speak wisdom and justice and the "law of their God is in their hearts."

In fact, if you look at the entirety of the two Psalms you see that the psalmist is setting up this exact dichotomy the psalmist begins with the transgression in the hearts of the wicked and shows th fruits of that situation, then goes on to speak of the virtues of God until the end of 36. In 37 he exhorts the people to the way of the Lord, and begins to illucidate the fruits which are born from having the law of God in the heart. "1 Do not fret because of the wicked; do nt be envious of wrongdoers, 2 for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb. 3 Trust in the lord, and do good; so you will liven in the land and enjoy security. 4 Take delight in the lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will act. . . . 34 Wait for the Lord and keep to his way"

The obvious key to the point of the passage is what resides in the heart of humanity. When transgression resides in the heart (shall we here say soul, spirit . . . something else?) then necessarily the way is wickedness. When the "law [notice here this is not the capitalized Law of judaicism] of God" resides in the heart the then necessarily the way is righteousness. Obviously, there is a dichotomy between transgresion and God, and just as obviously there is a dichotomy between the heart which has God deep in and with it vs. the heart which lives in/with transgression. This passage also implies that there can be a transformative and redemptive move from the way of transgression to the way of God.

Now time warp a few hundreds of years into the future. To the words of a man who has actually incarnated this redemptive move: our man Paul.

Paul uses the same argumentative logic in Romans which is used in the above passages. In 6:16 Paul states "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one who you obey,either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin have ome obedient from the heart to the form or teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you ,having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."

We again see that it is through the heart (I repeat: shall we here say soul, spirit . . . something else?) and what resides in the heart -- or could we say where the heart resides? -- that there is either the way of wickedness or the way of God. But here, Paul takes the psalmists allusions to their final conclusion. The residents/ce of the heart is obedience to the point of slavery, the utter and complete giving over of the self to another; to the other. The Way


So, What or whom is your heart's resident/ce









AHA! you thought that was the end of the post didn't you? Of course not! That question is too banal, to flippant, to easily thrown out, then thrown away. Especially by christians. We, as christians use so much "in" language, so much jargon, and especially shorthand. "Where does your heart lie?" "Are you Born Again?" "Have you except Jesus as your Lord and Saviour?"

Yes, Jim is absolutely right when he writes on the 27 of Feb in We all need Grace that for the sake of those not "down wit JC," those who enter the doors of a church once or twice a year, or maybe in a time of chaos and chrisis, we need to step out of our tech jargon. The fact is that, in the end, do we who are "down wit JC" even know what that or the above shorthand questions really mean any more then those who aren't?

I would argue that many of us don't.

We come enter the church building in our sunday best, we sing the songs, we listen to the sermon, we even go to sunday school classes. And then we go home, take off the sunday best, and with it, oft' times our christianity.

Paul exhorts us to put on Jesus Christ. But Jesus is not some special added extra woven into the fabric of our Sunday Best, to be taken off when outside the walls of the church building. For as soon as we take him off, as soon as he no longer resides in our hearts, and we in his, then we are no longer bound in obedience to him. Christ is not woven into our garments to be taken on and off as we chose. Rather, The Way is woven into the very fibers of our hearts. We are bound to him and he to us so that "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things ppresent, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nnor anything else in all creation, will be able to serarate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is thus that the redemption from "wicked" to "righteous" is wholly transformative of the self; it is a giving over of the self (in its entirety) to the radical other: GOd. And through him, a giving over of the self to the not so radical other: the neighbor, the friend, the enemy.