So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

-Matthew 5:23-26

I’m told that this passage from the Sermon on the Mount provides scriptural basis for the exchange of the peace in our liturgy. In that liturgy, the sequence is clear. Before we can come to the table to receive bread and wine, we need to come to reconciliation with each other. So we exchange the peace before the offertory.

Covid has made us rethink this part of the liturgy, not only how we exchange the peace and remain socially distant. Covid has also made us think about what it means. That’s a good thing. What used to involve handshakes, hugs and even the kiss of peace has morphed into a long distance wave or bow or peace sign. This sits just fine with some. I remember a story about the reintroduction of the peace in one church some years ago. (It hasn’t always been part of the liturgy.) An earnest young parishioner turned to a mink-clad matron in the same pew, extended his hand ready to exchange the peace. She looked down her nose at him and said: “Don’t even think about it.”

What I’ve been thinking about this week is the fact that we exchange the peace of the Lord, and not our own peace. It’s the peace gracefully given to us by God. If I was exchanging the peace of Jay, it would probably be extended only to those I like, or those who agree with me on issues. I’m guessing it might be withheld from those who don’t fit in those categories.

But one of the distinctive (and occasionally annoying) things about the community that follows Jesus is that we don’t get to pick who gets in, who we are called to serve alongside, or who turns up in the pew with us. We sure don’t participate in a community of agreement. We enter into a community where there are people who drive us nuts, people who push our buttons, people who view life differently. Often those are the people who have the most to teach us.

In this sermon, Jesus teaches that his followers (you and me, folks) are to do the work of reconciliation with all of those folks, even and especially the irritating ones. Invariably we are going to hurt each other, as we note in the confession when we declare: “We have not loved neighbor as ourselves.” It doesn’t say if we have done that. It assumes we have, and that we do, and that we will. Our work is cut out for us. It involves taking inventory and making amends, thinking about ways, witting and unwitting, that we have caused injury, and asking forgiveness.

There is also injury that comes in interactions that leave us resentful. As we reflect on those who have injured us, we may refuse to forgive them, a violation of Jesus’ teaching in the Lord’s prayer and elsewhere. When that happens, in a way we are inflicting injury on our relationship with those folks. Injury evokes injury. When we savor resentments (they can be quite delicious), treat them like trophies (we can regard them as precious), we are injuring others, and souring our soul.

Between the injuries we inflict and the resentments we harbor, it’s a wonder any of us ever make it to the altar. In all of our relationships, I hear Jesus saying: Be reconciled. It matters, because our relationship with God, including our worship, is hampered by the brokenness of our relationships with each other. Jesus tells us that the two can’t be separated.

That’s why it’s important that we exchange the peace of the Lord, and not the peace we muster on our own. Our own capacity for peacemaking is too shallow, too compromised. As the letter to the Ephesians says, Christ is our peace, breaking down dividing walls. We are asked, week after week, to remember that we are always on the receiving end of amazing grace. As we await the arrival of the prince of peace, think about the ways you can exchange the peace with those in your life, the ways you can be reconciled. How might you approach that this week and in this holy season?

-Jay Sidebotham

Ready to help your congregation refocus on their spiritual journeys?  Join our January cohort of RenewalWorks participants…

The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

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You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

-Matthew 5:21-22

As I reflect on these verses from the Sermon on the Mount, I hope you will be relieved to know that I have never been charged with murder. But the truth is that I have been angry with a brother or sister (widely defined). In my own way, I have insulted the same. And there have been way too many times when I’ve at least thought someone was a fool, apparently making me liable to the hell of fire.

If Jesus was preaching this sermon today, he might refer to road rage. I have often yelled at some idiot driver. (My windows rolled up, of course, and without my clerical collar.) I would never speak that way to someone in the car with me.

If Jesus was preaching this sermon today, he might say something about social media, how easy it is to take off with dismissive language about someone else. In both the cases of road rage and social media, what is lacking is relationship (let alone compassion or empathy) with the person who has set us off. That lack of relationship can often reveal darker, toxic tendencies.

When Jesus says those things are somehow equivalent to murder, I can chalk it up to ancient near eastern hyperbole. But that misses the point, in many ways. Jesus is probing our hearts, to see where there might be murderous, hateful intent. The crowd knew the law which spoke against murder. For the most part they could say: Haven’t done that. But Jesus wants to go deeper, to say that what matters is the intent in our heart. Though we may keep it well hidden, there can be toxicity there.

If we are taking this bit of the Sermon on the Mount seriously, taking it to heart, we have to begin by admitting that we may harbor dark intentions. It’s amazing how they can even come up even among religious folks. I’m always struck that the first murder recorded in the Bible, when Cain killed his brother, was really a fight about worship. You could say it was a church fight. Once we’ve admitted that, what are we to do about it?

In today’s heated political climate, I’ve been praying about the toxicity in my own spirit towards folks who see things differently than I do. There’s a lot of hateful rhetoric being thrown around. It’s easy to respond in kind, to become what we judge.

I’ve received a couple answers to those prayers recently.

One answer came in a book I just finished called Saving Grace by journalist Kristen Powers. Give it to yourself as an early Christmas gift. The subtitle captures the aim of the book: Speak your truth. Stay centered. And learn to coexist with people who drive you nuts. I admit that subtitle may sound like mere tolerance. Her counsel is more profound than that. She speaks about how important it is to practice grace. You can get a sample of what she is up to in the column on the left.

Another answer came in a recent RenewalWorks call focused on how we can learn about prayer. A rector spoke about what she shares about prayer with her congregation. She explores a variety of ways to teach about prayer in a series of 2 minute videos. She shared one in which she speaks about praying the news. As she reads the paper, instead of fuming or despairing, she prays for the situation, including prayers for those who drive her nuts.

Finally, we can always go to the baptismal covenant, which calls us to answer these questions: Will we seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving neighbor as self? Will we respect the dignity of every human being? Note that they don’t say seek and serve Christ in all Episcopalians, or people who agree with us, or Americans, or liberals, or conservatives? Same with the dignity piece. We are called to an expansive love, which recognizes the centrality of a relationship with God and with each other.

Jesus came to give us a clean heart, to give us his heart. As we get ready for his arrival at Christmas, may we be given grace to practice grace. What will that look like for you this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

Ready to help your congregation refocus on their spiritual journeys?  Join our January cohort of RenewalWorks participants…

The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

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Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

-Matthew 5:19-20

When I embarked on a journey through the Sermon on the Mount, I knew there would be Mondays that would leave me saying, “Huh?” Today’s one of those days.

Let’s get right to it, with that bit about righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. As I scanned commentaries, I found I’m not the only one who finds this perplexing. The whole narrative of the gospels seems to be that the scribes and the Pharisees, the really religious people of the day are clueless. (Let’s just say I hear that as a caution to those of us who serve as clergy.) Little children and promiscuous persons and tax collectors and outsiders have more understanding of the kingdom than religious leaders. Is Jesus saying that we need to try to be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees, whose hypocrisy is in plain view? Are we supposed to follow their script when Jesus has called them blind guides and whited sepulchers? That’s one possibility.

Another possibility is that Jesus is asking disciples to consider these questions: What race are you running? In what stream are you swimming? What do you think will get you where you want to go? What do you value?

If you want to play the scribes and Pharisees game, which is to try to get your theology right, try to get your practice right, try to cross every “t” and dot every “i”, to never make a mistake, go for it. But that’s a big mountain to climb, that teeth-gritting effort to be a spiritual super-hero. Trying to make sure we get it all right can be a rat race and it’s been noted that the problem with winning a rat race is that at the end, you’re still a rat. We can enter into that kind of righteous rat race, if we so choose. It can all be so exhausting.

But there is another way, which in my mind is what the Sermon on the Mount is laying out for us. That way says that the way to the righteousness of spiritual over-achievement is simply the way of love (which is the commandment Jesus embraces). It begins with understanding righteousness not so much as a moral checklist as a matter of relationship, being rightly related. And that way (St. Paul called it a more excellent way in the lead-in to his hymn about love in I Corinthians 13) exceeds the righteousness of scribes and Pharisees. By way of a sneak preview, the verses we’ll look at in the coming weeks talk about lives lived in righteousness. Jesus says it’s not as much a matter of outward actions as it is a matter of the heart that sets us in right relationship with God and with each other.

If this is indeed what Jesus had in mind (and folks, I could be wrong), then we are called to pursue a righteousness that comes by faith in the power of God’s grace to make us what we were created to be. It begins by recognizing that we can’t do this on our own, by our own willfulness. We need help because we will fall short. It continues with expressions of gratitude (which we observed over the past weekend) that it’s not all up to us. We will with God’s help. And then it finds expression in the practice of love of God and neighbor, the two being inseparable, the two commandments that sum up all the law, even the least of the laws. That practice is a reflection of the grace that has been shown to us. When we all get around to that kind of practice, I imagine that is what the kingdom of heaven will be like.

Give it some thought, give it a shot this first week of Advent.

-Jay Sidebotham

Ready to help the folks in your congregation refocus on their spiritual journeys?  Join our January cohort of RenewalWorks participants…

The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

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Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

-Matthew 5:17-18

In discussions in church, I often run across the opinion that the God of the Old Testament underwent some kind of personality change in the New Testament. That’s based on associations people have with some stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, where God seems to resemble Zeus throwing lightning bolts down on unsuspecting earthlings, or perhaps a more recent image, a Gary Larson cartoon where God is depicted sitting at his computer. On the screen, we see that a street scene. A rope lifting a grand piano has snapped. The Steinway, plummeting earthward, is about to smash a pedestrian. God is pressing the smite button on his keyboard. Does that ever fit your image of God?

No doubt about it, there is judgment in the earliest books of the Bible. But there is also judgment in the New Testament (Have you read some of Jesus’ parables of judgment, or the Book of Revelation recently?) And while the God of the New Testament is associated with grace and mercy, there is plenty of grace and mercy to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, surfacing in the oft-repeated word hesed which means lovingkindness.

All of which is to say that we often pit grace and law, mercy and judgment against each other. Our faith seems to be either about rules or relationship, about laws or love. You can have one or the other. Our proclivity for dualistic thinking tells us you can’t have it both ways. But Jesus shows us another way.

As we continue reflection on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we can imagine listeners, including critics, imagining that he was trying to scrap tradition. In today’s verses, he makes the point that he comes to fulfill the tradition, not abolish it. Fulfillment is the keyword.

We get a glimpse of what he meant by it when he was asked about the most important commandment. Jesus didn’t come up with some new-fangled vision. He returned to the first pages of the Bible to find that all the law and prophets is summed up in grace, in love of God and neighbor.

It is apparently easy for religious folks to turn the law into a matter of rules, and thus a source of division, using the law as a bludgeon. Jesus chooses another way, as he speaks about embracing the law given by Moses. He says that those laws are key to the healing of our souls, and the healing of the world. Those laws (the word teaching may be a helpful synonym for law) given by God, we’re all about helping people, coaching people, leading people in the way of love. And when those laws seemed to butt up against each other (e.g., when Jesus is led to heal long-term illnesses on the Sabbath), the law of love and compassion takes precedence. Lord knows we could use that kind of guidance in the wilderness of our broken world.

So what’s the so-what factor in all of this? Religious rules are ultimately about relationship. When they divide us, or damage relationship, the law is not fulfilled. But even the nit-pickiest, most persnickety religious rule can be seen as an expression of love of God and neighbor and self. When that happens, we see the law fulfilled.

Sure, we can turn our faith, our religious practice, the scripture, even a theology of grace, into something that divides people, into a source of pride. But Jesus calls us to see everything we do through the lens of love of God and neighbor, a fairly rigorous standard (perhaps even a law) which turns out to be a pretty good way to look at the world. It’s a good lens to regard our religious practice, whatever that may be, to think about how we put faith to work in the world, as a response to God’s call to the way of love. It’s a good lens to bring into this week when we’re asked to think about thanksgivings. How will you be a follower of Jesus, fulfilling the law?

-Jay Sidebotham

Ready to help the folks in your congregation refocus on their spiritual journeys?  Join our January cohort of RenewalWorks participants…

The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

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You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

-Matthew 5:14-16

Jesus doesn’t say: Try to be the light of the world. You ought to be the light of the world. You better be the light of the world. He offers a declarative, unequivocal statement. A statement of fact to his followers. This is who you are. So be who you are.

Do you feel like a light this morning? I often feel like a dim bulb, stumbling in the dark. That makes it hard to believe that I can provide light for anybody else. Not enough wattage.

But Jesus says let the light that you have shine. Not so that people will say: What a great person that guy is! Our lights are meant to point beyond ourselves to an experience of God (see bit about John the Baptist above). Our lights are meant for people to see good works and by the light of those good works, to have a sense of the glory of God.

What do we know about the glory of God? In reflection on these verses, I kept thinking about St. Irenaeus, who, in the second century said that the glory of God is the human being fully alive. We shine a light on the glory of God when we live fully into what God has called us to do and be. Jesus said that he came to bring life and to bring it in abundance (John 10:10). Our good work is to live into that abundant life, to love God and love neighbor, to be fully alive in a world where powers of death are strong. The letter to the Romans (6.11) speaks about how we formerly were dead to sin. The letter to the Ephesians (2.1) says we were dead in trespasses but are made alive in Christ by grace.

So we, beloved children of God, objects of grace, are called to let that light shine, not because we’re so awesome ourselves (though you are a great group of readers) but because God is awesome. We can be light because Jesus is light.

Of course, that old ego (You know that ego is really an acronym for edging God out) finds its way into our psyche, into our hearts. I find it almost impossible to avoid self-consciousness about good works. (How lucky God is to have me on the team!) When I become aware of a good work, the next step often can be to compare and contrast with others, asking why don’t those folks do the kind of good works I do? Why don’t they care about causes I care about? What’s wrong with those spiritually deficient folks? The good works clearly can become fertile ground for the most unattractive qualities of religious folk

But thanks be to God, All Saints’ Day is still fresh in mind. I love the phrase from the Prayer Book that speaks about saints as lights in their generation. For all the saints (i.e., all of us) have light to share, as I often hear at the end of yoga practice, where the teacher will say some version of the following: The light in me sees and honors the light in you. How will you let your light shine so that people can see something of God’s activity, so that people can come to understand something of the love of God, the grace of God, the glory of God? How will you live into that call to reveal the glory of God by being fully alive this week?

Here’s what I propose for this Monday morning: Confess that there are always mixed motives. Our light can flicker. Get over that and then think about how your own life can point to the glory of God, how you can let your light shine this week.

You are the light. Be the light.

-Jay Sidebotham

Ready to help the folks in your congregation refocus on their spiritual journeys?  Join our January cohort of RenewalWorks participants…

The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

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You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

-Matthew 5:13

After a talk I gave at a church on the topic of spiritual growth, a woman confessed: “I don’t know why all this talk about spiritual growth and transformation. I don’t expect anything to happen to me at church.” As I thought about her comment, I recognized that many people come to church to be comforted, to experience solace, to heal the wounds the world inflicts. In an unsettled world, many people seek stability, constancy, predictability. All good reasons. But maybe not the whole story.

Because if ever there was a change agent, it would be Jesus. He repeats metaphors about growth. He calls his disciples to follow him, not to stay put. He comes offering new life, abundant life and he invites his followers to participate in that process. Which brings us to the salt metaphor which he uses in the Sermon on the Mount.

Over the years, the phrase “salt of the earth” has come to mean what? A mensch? The real deal? I don’t know exactly what Jesus had in mind with the image, but I think of all the properties of salt. It heals and cleanses. It preserves. It melts coldness. It makes stuff taste better. In Jesus’ culture, it was highly valuable. It makes life more interesting. Put all that together, and whatever Jesus had in mind, it seems that transformation is intended. His disciples were meant to bring growth, to bring change to their contexts, to make life more interesting, more appetizing, more healing. To make a difference.

So this morning, take this opportunity to look in your own spiritual rear-view mirror. How over the course of your life have you been transformed? Compare your spiritual life this morning to where you were spiritually five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago. Are you in the same place? Have you changed? How so? What were the catalysts for that change?

Then think about whether you expect to be changed now. Are you open to the possibility that God has something new in store for you? That you can keep on growing? One church that was identified as being a particularly complacent crafted this tongue-in-cheek tagline: “We’re spiritually shallow and fine with that.” The call of the gospel is to keep on growing. As disciples, we are learners, and there is always more to learn.

Finally, think about how you might be that agent of change in your own context. What are the opportunities for you to be a healing, cleansing agent? What opportunities are there for you to preserve? What opportunities are there for you to melt coldness of heart? What opportunities are there for you to simply make life more interesting for the sake of those around you?

When I was serving as a rector, someone once asked me: “If tomorrow morning your church disappeared from your community, would anyone notice? What would be the difference?” We can ask that about our faith communities. We could ask that about the impact we have as individuals. Jesus calls us to be salt in a world that is hungry, hurting, calling for healing, preservation, interest. How will you live out that kind of saltiness?

-Jay Sidebotham

Ready to help the folks in your congregation refocus on their spiritual journeys?  Join our January cohort of RenewalWorks participants…

The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

-Matthew 5:9

I’ve read the beatitudes many times. In this time around, one of the things I’ve noticed (which you all probably have seen forever) is how each beatitude makes a different claim. Each holds a different promise. Some who are blessed will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Some will inherit the earth. Some will be comforted. Some will be filled. Some will receive mercy. Some will see God.

In today’s verse, we note that peacemakers will be called children of God. Think with me about what that means. Aren’t we all God’s children? It occurred to me that maybe what it means in this context is that peacemakers will bear a family resemblance to God. As God is a peacemaker, so those who make peace in our world will be called, seen as, identified as God’s children.

St. Paul spoke about God being our peacemaker, mostly through the ministry of Jesus. The letter to the Ephesians offers a reflection on the mystery of the church where people who had been distant from each other are brought together. In that letter, whether written by Paul or one of his students, we read that God working through Christ is our peace: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2:13,14) Jesus, as he prepared to leave his disciples, said “Peace I leave with you.” (John 14:27) It was admittedly an other-worldly kind of peace (not as the world gives). So what does that other-worldly peace look like, that might create a sense of resemblance to God?

Peacemakers are those who do that work. And it can be work. Consider it first on a global scale. Yitzhak Rabin, whose work for peace ultimately made him an assassin’s target, spoke about peacemaking this way: “You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.” I suspect both sides of that peace agreement felt they were dealing with unsavory enemies. But they signed an agreement.

A bit closer to home, partisan divides in our nation make it important that we figure out how to live with people we disagree with, without resorting to violence. As Gandhi said: “An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.” At the same time, the refrain “No peace without justice” means that peacemaking is not a matter of papering over differences or ignoring disparity. As Desmond Tutu has taught us, truth and reconciliation go hand in hand.

In our churches, in our liturgy, we act out peacemaking in the eucharist. We exchange the peace. It can become rote, even an occasion for exchanges of pleasantries, where people compliment each other on a good haircut or a strong fashion statement, or marvel or grieve over last nights’ sport scores. But that liturgical moment has huge importance, as it says that the work of peacemaking must always go on in the church, where injury often takes place, and where there is always a path toward reconciliation. The work of peacemaking must happen before we are fed spiritually with the bread and wine.

We have opportunity to be peacemakers in our homes, in our closest relationships, where peace is often the most difficult to achieve. Someone once told me that the Bible is really just a story of sibling rivalry. From the days of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, David’s rebellious sons, Jesus’ brothers, scripture tells us that peace in our homes may take work.

Maybe it all begins with doing the work that will bring peace in our hearts. That begins with carving out quiet time, like Milan Kundera with his dog. That comes with a deepening trust in God’s care and provision, gratitude for the love from which we can never be separated, love that calls us to freedom from anxiety, inviting us to give thanks in all things.

In our lives, there are all kinds of opportunities to be peacemakers. Is there some way you can take on that holy work this week? Is there some way you can pray (in word and action) for peace in our world, in our churches, in our homes, in our hearts? Apparently, it’s what children of God do.

-Jay Sidebotham

Please join us November 4th at 7pm Eastern

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Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

-Matthew 5:8

The beatitude before us today, with its promise that the pure in heart will see God, reminds me of a favorite, rather strange short story entitled Revelation by Flannery O’Connor. Written towards the end of her too short life, the story features good Southern Christians, one woman in particular named Ruby Turpin. Ruby’s religion is unattractively mixed up with her own sense of superiority, her racism, her self-righteousness. (Have you ever heard of such a thing?)

The story ends as Mrs. Turpin has a vision of a procession, people crossing a bridge of light from Earth to Heaven. The people who ascend first are the ones Mrs. Turpin regarded as white and black trash, freaks and lunatics at the bottom on Ruby Turpin’s hierarchy. They ascend as “joyous, disorderly Christian soldiers.” The last in line include those like herself and her husband, though as they march upward “she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.”

I was interested to learn that Flannery O’Connor, toward the end of her life, signed some letters as Mrs. Turpin, perhaps indicating that she detected some degree of self-righteous superiority in herself.

Purity of heart suggests sincerity. I had been once told that the root of the word “sincerity” has to do with burning away wax so metal can be made pure. Apparently, that is probably not true, which is too bad, because it ought to be. It would have served my purposes to say that purity of heart, a.k.a., sincerity, is about burning away those (perhaps impure) aspects of our life, those parts of our heart that draw us from the love of God, that obscure our vision of God.

The fact is, purity of heart, at least as I look at my own heart, is mostly aspirational. I’m guessing none of us achieve it fully in this life. One of my wise predecessors in ministry, Alan Gates, now Bishop of Massachusetts, repeatedly told his congregation that he never met a motive that wasn’t mixed. Martin Luther said that we are saints and sinners at the same time. So we might as well start by admitting that purity of heart remains a growth opportunity. And then move on to take steps toward that purity, or at least, arrive somewhere in the neighborhood of purity of heart. How might that happen?

Once we’ve admitted that we need to have even our virtues burned away, that our pride about our virtues can be an impediment, we are free to realize that purity of heart has to do with love. It has to do with where we give our heart. Jesus said: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The desert father, Abba Poemem said: “Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.” So check in. Take your own inventory. Where are you giving your heart? Are you giving your heart to satisfying things?

Then develop practices that might deepen your love of God, love of neighbor, love of your world, love of self. The more that can happen, the closer we come to purity of heart. Growing that love, in all its aspects, has to do with practice. It’s about a relationship with God, and like any relationship, it comes with dedication of time and energy. In the Christian spiritual journey, that’s a matter of gathering for worship, commitment to service, rhythms of silence and prayer and study, especially study of the scripture through which the Spirit speaks, discernment about what we watch and what we won’t watch, what we listen to and what we won’t listen to, what we believe and what we refuse to believe. In all of these areas, we take steps toward purity of heart.

As we take those steps, ever purer hearts recognize dependence on God to lead us in the journey. That movement doesn’t happen because of our own wisdom or resources or fortitude or virtue. (Remember Mrs. Turpin.) It is a gift, a grace. Can we accept that gift this week, in some way, great or small? When that happens, we might just get glimpses of God. How cool is that?

-Jay Sidebotham

Please join us November 4th at 7pm Eastern

RenewalWorks: Connect with Jerusalem Greer and Jay Sidebotham
to discuss My Way of Love for Small Groups

Join our RenewalWorks: Connect email list to receive more details and the Zoom link