Sixty-Seven Minutes an Hour

Sixty-Seven Minutes an Hour--August 15, 2016

"Praise the Lord! How good it is to sing praise to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars; he give to all of them their names." [Psalm 147:1-4]

You know that feeling, I'm sure--the way that you can tell that someone who loves you just made you a priority, when you know full well they had other things to do.

Whatever the stripe of love we are talking about--spouses, parents, dear friends, siblings, what-have-you--it is almost like one of the rules of time and space gets stretched and bent, when you know that someone has gone to great lengths or effort for you, and you know they surely have a long list of other things to do already.  It feels like they managed to squeeze 67 minutes out of an hour somehow.  And, having discovered such an Einsteinian trick to bend time that way, that you were the reason for it, rather than a bit of extra productivity at work, another item checked off the to-do list, or just getting a extra moment of relaxation--that is amazing.  It is an amazing thing to realize that someone who has a long list of other stuff to do nevertheless deems you important enough to them to set the other things, perhaps very urgent and important things, aside for a time (they will get done, don't you worry) and to turn their attention to you, and to what you need in this moment.  It is a humbling and honoring thing all at once.

So, if you and I know what it is like to realize that Dad had to leave work early to come pick you up when you were sick at school back in fourth grade... or that your friend ditched their tickets to the ball game because you needed a hand with a project in your yard... or that someone stayed up late to fold laundry after you got too tired to keep balling socks... consider this quirk about God: binding up broken hearts is on God's priority list higher than keeping track of the stars.

Wait--what?

Well, yeah.  I mean, I know that Psalm 147 is not given as a divine to-do list, with a set of items the Almighty is supposed to check off by the end of the day.  But it is striking, isn't it, that as the poet is listing off the reasons that God is worth our praise, our broken hearts and the welcome of outcasts both come earlier on the list than the entire rest of the universe! It's almost like the psalmist is saying, "Oh yeah, and God also manages all the stars in all the infinite vastness of spaces, not only counting them but knowing their very names, every last one... but that's never more important to God than, well, you."

When your heart is broken, that is higher on God's attention list than tallying the number of red dwarf stars in the Orion nebula!  When your heart is sorrowful and your spirit weary, that is earlier on the list of God's concerns than keeping an eye on that blue star on the verge of a supernova in the Cygnus region. And when others are cast out and treated like they are disposable, that gets a higher billing on God's personal agenda for the day than the pulsar at the other end of the western spiral arm of the Milky Way. 

That doesn't deny that God is present, upholding and sustaining and filling all of the rest of creation at every moment in all places in this mind-bogglingly large universe.  But it just means that, as the poets and pray-ers in the Bible tell it, universe-maintenance is only second on the ol' divine resume...following the care for the brokenhearted and left-out.

That means, too, of course, that God has plenty of other things that God could be doing... and yet, your heart is the priority.  Mine, too.  And the man who slept under the bridge or out in the woods last night--his, too.  And the kid whose house was just destroyed by a bomb that fell in the night.  And the girl who just got bullied at school today because she's different.  And the sandwich-generation working mom who feels pulled in a million directions because both her kids and her own aging parents need her attention.  And the dad whose son was just killed yesterday in the news story you and I didn't bother to read because it happened in another city and we didn't want to have to think about a 'downer' on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  All these hearts matter to the living God, who makes the time and pulls 67 minutes out of every hour to bind up a world full of broken hearts, and to sit on the ash heap with them.

We have been talking this month about how grace changes our hearts, and often that conversation veers in the direction of God taking our cold, apathetic, indifference and rekindling love for neighbor, for stranger, and for enemy, or how God turns us around in what church jargon calls "repentance."  And yes, all of that is a part of how grace does in fact change our hearts.

But at the very same time, sometimes the change grace works in our heart is both the one we most need and have the hardest time believing: that the Maker of the universe, the Source and Ground of all being, who upholds each and every Higgs boson and spins every spiral galaxy to keep it going in every moment, is more interested in being known for meeting you at your lowest point and upholding you and keeping you going in those times. Just knowing that will do something to you.  Just knowing that, and daring to believe it, even against the backdrop of a star-filled night sky in August, will change your heart already.  You and I will be both humbled and honored at the same instant, as we realize that the God who surely has a lot else that could be on the divine to-do list has chosen to take the time to tend to the wounds on your own heart.

You are so beloved. 

You are so beloved.

You are so beloved.

Lord Jesus, bind up these wounded hearts of ours, and keep us mindful of the way you love and care for broken spirits amidst all the rest of this vast universe's need.