Tag: Heart

The Evil Eye

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My mind has very much been on the parable for this coming Sunday, one of two brothers far from Home. One figuratively, and one literally – although perhaps we might get them the wrong way round??

In the English Church calendar it is of course Mothering Sunday, and that bit of ‘the old country’ still lives on in some Anglican circles here in New Zealand. In part it is founded on a Sunday halfway through Lent when servants, often girls (my great grandmother did a spell ‘in service’), were allowed home to enjoy its comforts.

Home and the heart are deeply interwoven – we might ponder Jesus’ words about ‘where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’, in this respect. Your true Home, where you belong is found within your deep desires . . . but our deep desires are distorted and so we are homeless . . .

 

The evidence of that lostness, that distortion within us,  Jesus speaks of in terms of Sight – what our eye is set upon. Of course in so doing he does no more nor less than refer us to our shared story in The Garden, where amidst all the Goodness of God, our eye is drawn, directed even to the one thing that will bring death . . .

We might understand that as being our ability to see the speck in our brother’s eye, not something any of us is a stranger to, or at least not yet. We are surrounded by a myriad ways in which we might set our eyes on the speck . . . that is to see with the evil eye, the eye attuned to death.

 

But,  Jesus warns us about where we set our eye. ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is Good, then your whole body will be full of light, but if the ‘light’ within you is darkness, then how great is that darkness’

 

Like the brother who has the log in his eye, so cannot see to take out the speck of his brother’s eye, we believe we can see, but if our eye is set on that which is ‘wrong!’, ‘bad!’ ‘Wicked!’ – then our body has no light within it. We are full of darkness for we look at the darkness . . . which is of course Death itself manifested amongst us. We see the Sin . . . this in part is where ‘loving the sinner and hating the sin’ collapses. If we truly see the Sin, we are presuming that our own hearts are full of light . . . but if our focus is on ‘what is wrong with the world’ then we are full of great darkness. Our Eye is evil

 

This is why the heart of the Christian Life is the transformation of the heart – that we might see aright. For to See aright is to See how God Sees – to look out on a fallen world as God does, full of Love and Compassion and Mercy.

Certainly this is hard. If we consider what is ‘in the papers’ and evidenced in our FB feeds etc. then we do not look on the world in this way. ‘Those people!’ ‘Those Conservatives!’ ‘Those Progressives!’ ‘That type of church!’ ‘That president!’ ‘That President’s supporters’ ‘The Brexiters!’ ‘The Remainers!’  – our eye’s seem fixed on what is hateful to us . . . and so the weary story goes on, and all we seem capable of doing is adding to the darkness, as the hate and the bile that fills our own hearts pours out, upon these ‘worthy targets of our scorn’, our eyes full of death. Lord have mercy.

 

The first Commandment is this – You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind and all your strength. Set your Eye on That which is Good, Pure, Beautiful and True! Let your Eye become Good – that is the journey of Christian Transformation, through which with Jesus we pray for those who persecute us, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do . . .’ (Of course few if any of us are being persecuted, but we seem incapable of looking with mercy even though this be the case)

Seek God! Seek to know His Love, His Mercy, be transformed by the renewal of your inner eye. Look not upon darkness for it will only fill your soul, ‘and you will surely die’

Look to Jesus. Allow His light to flood your soul – and you will become that which you were created to be, the bearer of the Light of God, Having the Heart of the Father. This is where our true Home is – within us and around us.

That way not only will you be saved, but perhaps also a few around you

 

Through the Bible in a Year – May 2nd

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

Jdg 7-8; Mark 8; Psalm 3-4

Our Psalms offer us very contrasting prayers although one speaks to the other.

Psalm 3 we are told is of David, when he is fleeing from his son Absalom. The story of David and his son we will come to in time in our journey through the Old Testament – but for now it is enough to know that Absalom has staged a coup and David with a small band of those who have remained loyal have fled.

For the cast majority of those who read posts such as these it is hard to comprehend the depths of David’s loss and terror. His son has risen against him, his kingdom torn from his hand, and now he flees for his life. None of us can really know anything like this – yet in the midst his entire confidence is in God. He is both transcendent and imminent – a shield around him – and also the one who sustains him. God is his life, yes even David’s life.

Having said that we cannot know the depth of David’s predicament – who amongst us has every fled from those that seek to kill them – there is still as much disquiet in our hearts as if this were the case. The human creature often knows fear and distress which seems not to have a comparable external referent. And in the midst of this, Psalm 4 gives us wise wise counsel. For in the midst of the turbulence it is all too easy to be reactive and lash out against the ‘enemy’ – to ‘take the law into our own hands’, which is in effect to ‘take the name of the Lord in vain’.

The Psalmist calls us to a better path – a life giving path – ‘When you are disturbed, do not sin. Ponder it on your bed, and be still’

When our life is lived in the light of the knowledge of God, our perspective radically alters. We need not sin. It is the turbulence of our heart that is the very source of sin. ‘Trust in the lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding’ That is the path of Peace – of Shalom. Of discovering Home (your life is hid with Christ in God)

Through the Bible in a Year – March 20

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 8-9; 2 Cor 3-4; Psalm 102

Paul gives us a beautiful picture of the Christian Life here

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

There are two brief things we might consider here

Firstly, once again, Paul has hard things to say to the Corinthians in the letter, yet at the same time he sees quite clearly the Life of Christ amongst them. The Life that he has proclaimed amongst them is now inscribed on their hearts.

Paul looks on the heart – he does not judge with the eye, he has learned to see as Christ sees.

What is more he sees the Christian Faith not in static terms but in terms of growth – extraordinarily ‘into the glory of the Lord’, or put another way, into the likeness of Christ. So much of Western Protestant Christianity in particular denies our ‘telos’, our end, an thus is directionless. It sets no path before us by which we may so e transformed, indeed it isn’t even expected. We rather ‘hope for heaven’ beyond this life, rather than look in Hope for its gradual emergence amongst us.

Secondly we may well ask of ourselves, in what sense are we ‘a letter of Christ’? How is this ‘shown’? How are we being transformed in and through our common life that as a people we are changed from one degree of glory to another?