Of Heads and Hearts--February 27, 2020

Of Heads and Hearts--February 27, 2020

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also." [Matthew 6:19-21]

I think we've got our internal organs all confused.  And at least part of what Jesus has come to do is to get them straightened out.

For one, we have accepted this split in our day between what we think the "head" does and what we think the "heart" does, and I'm not really sure where it came from.  Our culture talks about the "head" like it's all cold logic and austere rationality, and then we give all the fun stuff to what we call the "heart"--emotion, intuition, love, commitment, romance, passion, dedication, and faith, too.  We have a way of belittling "head" knowledge and saying that it is somehow better to just feel things in... well, you know, in our "hearts."  But maybe that split isn't fair, not to our heads or our hearts.  And maybe more than that, accepting the idea of a rigid head-heart split like that is actually part of our problem.  Maybe it's actually killing us.

And maybe, in fact, Jesus' alternative picture could bring us back to life again, both in whatever our "heads" and "hearts" actually are.

Take these words from what we call the Sermon on the Mount here (words that are still ringing in my ears from hearing them on Ash Wednesday). Jesus doesn't talk about "the heart" in that sort of schmaltzy, purely emotional sense that we do, in our common talk that "the heart wants what it wants."  We tend to think that the heart is about emotions while the head is only about math.  And therefore we end up treating these two like they are enemies or opposites, so that you have to choose whether the head trumps the heart, or our hearts have to overrule our heads in other situations. We end up assuming (incorrectly) that "head" and "heart" are mortal enemies, or at least polar opposites, rather than inseparable elements of being whole selves. Seriously, it seems like the plot of every romantic comedy seems driven by the belief that feelings (the "heart") should outweigh everything else, and that the characters who aren't recklessly steered by their endorphins are somehow cold and unlovable.  But this, I firmly believe, is a load of dingoes' kidneys.

The way Jesus talks, by contrast, suggests that we have some power in directing where we want our hearts to be, and that really the issue is about rightly ordering our loves.  (The well-known church father Augustine took this idea and ran with it, but I think the notions are there in Jesus' own teachings and the underlying mindset of first-century Judaism, too.)  When Jesus talks about not treasuring our possessions, it's not because clothing or real estate or food are sinful--just that they are not meant to be the thing we love the most.  When we value "stuff" over God, we are loving lesser goods over the Supreme Good, namely God.  When we use people and love things, we are doing the same.  It's not about having a fight between "head" and "heart," but about getting clear on what order our loves should be in.  And yes, Jesus believes that "stuff" shouldn't get a higher ranking than God, or even than our neighbors--even neighbors who will never be able to pay us back.  When I get my loves in the wrong order--when I value stuff over people, or, say, "The American Dream" more than God--something dies in me.  And then, no wonder I can never be happy, but will always and endlessly be "pursuing" it (as our American way of talking about it goes), forever chasing after something that will always elude me because the problem is in my disordered self, rather than "out there" in the world.

So for Jesus, there is good news to be found here.  If you want to be someone who gets your loves in the right order--who treasures what really matters, and who can let go of the things that don't--put your energy, time, and self into where you want your heart to go... and it will.  Jesus doesn't teach us to follow blindly wherever our emotions lead (like every terrible romantic comedy made since 1980), but rather to choose to invest our selves, our energy, and our time on the things we know should matter most--and then our emotions follow.  That's not about putting "head" over "heart"--that's about knowing what loves should get more of our attention, and which loves should get less.

Take, for example, the guy who loves his city's major league baseball team and who also loves his family.  When the team gets sold to another city--or even just goes down somewhere tropical for spring training--nobody thinks it's the right call to part ways with his family so he can follow his team in the new city. Hopefully we'd all be clear that love for your family should get a higher priority than love your local sports franchise.  And if he's got a job in his home city and needs to be able to provide for his family's well-being, it's not even a "win-win" to bring his family along to the baseball team's new city, because that seems dangerously irresponsible.  It's not that his "head" has to win over his "heart," but rather that his loves (which involve the whole self, including reason and emotion) need to get sorted into the right order.  And when that means he has to give up a certain attachment to his baseball team, yeah, it may hurt a little not to get to see them with his season tickets--but that is sometimes exactly how you measure love: what you are willing to let go over for the sake of showing up for what matters most to you.

You can love the comfort and convenience of your car, but don't love it more than you love your children.  You can love the warm weather and salty air of the beach, but don't let that become more important than the people who matter most to you if they need to be working the family farm in Iowa.  You can love having disposable income, but it's a sign you're partially dead inside if the money becomes more important than being able to give some of it away so that someone else can eat or have a shelter for the night.  It's ok to love being busy with your very important work, too, but again, something has gone wrong inside if that means you pass by the man at the side of the road like the priest and the Levite because you can't spare the time to help him.  The Samaritan surely has just as important a to-do list, but he understands the right ordering of his love--and people come before even the seemingly almighty to-do list.

This is what I think Jesus has in mind when he talks about getting our hearts in the right place.  When we are willing to let our loves be sorted into the right order, we come alive.  And when we insist on loving things before people, or conveniences and creature comforts before God, or even our pet wish lists before the relationships that matter most to us, something has already died inside of us... and needs to be resurrected.  We don't need to pit "head" and "heart" against each other as opponents--we need Jesus to get our loves in the right order.

Today, maybe it's worth a second look inside our whole selves, heart and head and everything else all together, to see where we need to be brought to life again... and where our loves need to be realigned.

Lord Jesus, come rearrange our hearts in line with what you see matters most, and help us stop being at war with ourselves, but to find our peace in loving you most of all.