"Heart Troubles"
5-18-14 (Easter 5A)
Acts 7:55-60; John 14:1-14
Heart Troubles
Do not let your heart be troubled, the savior says. Do not let your heart be troubled. But how could their hearts not have been troubled? How could they not be worried, confused, and scared as their leader, their teacher, and their friend is sitting with them, telling them that this meal he shares with them will be their last together and that he is about to be betrayed by one of them, then denied by the greatest of them? It would be enough to worry anyone - and yet Jesus’ first words to his disciples after he tells Peter that he will deny him and that he cannot follow him are “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
He tells them that they cannot follow him because he is going ahead of them to prepare a place for them. He tells them that he will return and take them to himself, so that they may be with him. But then he throws them another curve-ball and tells them that they know the way to where he is going. The disciples are already confused and concerned - but Jesus expects them to have understood everything he’s told them already and to know what is about to come.
But the disciples don’t understand - and it only serves to trouble them further. These men had given up everything to follow Christ - their homes, their families, their careers… everything. And they’d built up some expectations along the way of who they thought Christ was supposed to be as the Messiah. As we walked with these men on the road to Emmaus after Christ’s resurrection, we heard about some of these expectations - they were looking to Christ to turn the world upside-down, to overthrow the Roman Empire and put the people of Israel back into their rightful place as God’s chosen people. They were looking for a king - and now the man they’d put all their stock in is telling them that not only does he know he’s going to die, but that he’s going to be betrayed before he goes to his death, that he’s going to be mocked and scorned, that no one will stand up for him in his defense, despite the fact that he’d done nothing to deserve it but to talk about the love of God and of God’s desire that all people should know and love God in return.
How could their hearts not be troubled? How could our hearts not be troubled? When we wake up each morning and listen to the news or read the newspaper, how can our hearts not be troubled? When we hear about the girls kidnapped in Nigeria, the reports of murders, abuse, of blatant exploitation and disregard for basic human dignities, how can our hearts not be troubled? How can we not be troubled every time we open another envelope, seeing yet another bill and working out where each dollar we earn is marked to be spent? How can we not be troubled when the car starts making yet another clunking sound that means another trip to the mechanic, or when our bodies start making yet another creaking sound that means another trip to the Doctor or to the store for Aspirin? How can our hearts not be troubled as the list of worries and disappointments, of things left still undone, of “if only I had’s” grows longer and longer and we never seem to make any progress on it day in, day out?
How could their hearts, or ours, be anything but troubled when they looked at their situation and considered what Jesus was telling them?
And yet this is what Jesus tells them, all the same. In the midst of the devastating news, even in the knowledge of his own oncoming death, Jesus’ word remains unchanged: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Some translations read, “Trust in God, trust also in me.” And there’s something inherently calming in those words as I read them again and again this week. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God - trust in me.
Jesus doesn’t ask much in this passage - and yet somehow, he also asks everything. He asks the disciples to trust in him, to believe what he is telling them and to hear what he says when he tells them that he will return. To have faith that he is not abandoning them, nor will he ever forsake them entirely. And everything he tells the disciples in response to their questions is nothing more than that: just a repetition - trust in me.
Thomas wants a physical location, a road map, a GPS to give turn-by-turn directions: “We don’t know where we’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus says: Trust in me. I am the way, the truth, and the life. If you want to get to where I’m going, if you want to get to the Father, then you have to go through me. You have to trust in me.
Phillip asks him, “Why not just show us the Father, then? We’d be satisfied with that.” And Jesus says again, “Trust in me.” If you’ve seen me for who I am, then you’ve seen the Father. If you trust in me, then you trust in the Father. I and the Father are one. When the disciples looked into Jesus’ eyes, they were looking into the very eyes of God. And he tells them: trust in me.
We come before God with the same questions - “Where is this all going? When will it end? Why?” We look for all the answers, hoping time and time again for some kind of explanation… we try new fads, both in the church and out of it, thinking that this one will give us the answers we need or that that one will finally make us feel better about it all. We flock to the newest celebrity preacher’s blog or television show, thinking that they’ve got to have it figured out somewhere along the line… and yet as we open up on the next day, we find ourselves just as the disciples did: still lost, still confused, still wondering “why” but trying to convince ourselves that we know the answers anyway. As a pastor in Philadelphia puts it, “In response to the first commandment, Martin Luther asks what it means to have a God and answers that God is what you hang your heart upon. The heart that is troubled is a heart not hung upon God but hung rather on all the things that the world peddles to soothe a troubled heart.” The world offers us answers and fixes, things to make us feel better about ourselves, to feel like we’re in control. But in the end, they still leave our hearts troubled.
Jesus tells us, “Trust in me.” When we weep and worry over all the things going on in the world, when we lift them up in our prayers and pray for God to do something about it - God says, “Trust in me.” God says, “Trust in me.” And it sounds so easy - we turn it into a copout answer at times, even. We hear people say so many times, “Just let go and let God.” But that turns trust into yet another shallow, worthless “fix” that still leaves us troubled. We let it go, but it still stays in the back of our minds, troubling our hearts nonetheless. You see, the disciples are allowed to be worried - what Jesus says should worry them, at least in some ways. It’s completely human and normal to be worried when someone tells you they’re about to die. And Jesus doesn’t just dismiss their concerns and treat them like children for having their concerns. But Jesus does remind them who he is. His words point back to himself and to God’s authority and identity at work in him, reminding the disciples where their ultimate trust should be. And it’s in holding tightly to that identity of Christ that our hearts can finally be left untroubled.
We may worry and get disheartened by the things in our lives and in the world around us - we live in a broken and hurting world, after all. But if we trust in Christ, if we remember that Christ has already gone before us, that he lived and died for us, that he rose from the grave for us so that we might know that the troubles of this world do not have the final word… we can find peace. We can find hope and live with untroubled hearts. Because we know that in Christ, God has the final word. And that word is love. Always love. To God be the Glory. Amen.
Acts 7:55-60; John 14:1-14
Heart Troubles
Do not let your heart be troubled, the savior says. Do not let your heart be troubled. But how could their hearts not have been troubled? How could they not be worried, confused, and scared as their leader, their teacher, and their friend is sitting with them, telling them that this meal he shares with them will be their last together and that he is about to be betrayed by one of them, then denied by the greatest of them? It would be enough to worry anyone - and yet Jesus’ first words to his disciples after he tells Peter that he will deny him and that he cannot follow him are “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
He tells them that they cannot follow him because he is going ahead of them to prepare a place for them. He tells them that he will return and take them to himself, so that they may be with him. But then he throws them another curve-ball and tells them that they know the way to where he is going. The disciples are already confused and concerned - but Jesus expects them to have understood everything he’s told them already and to know what is about to come.
But the disciples don’t understand - and it only serves to trouble them further. These men had given up everything to follow Christ - their homes, their families, their careers… everything. And they’d built up some expectations along the way of who they thought Christ was supposed to be as the Messiah. As we walked with these men on the road to Emmaus after Christ’s resurrection, we heard about some of these expectations - they were looking to Christ to turn the world upside-down, to overthrow the Roman Empire and put the people of Israel back into their rightful place as God’s chosen people. They were looking for a king - and now the man they’d put all their stock in is telling them that not only does he know he’s going to die, but that he’s going to be betrayed before he goes to his death, that he’s going to be mocked and scorned, that no one will stand up for him in his defense, despite the fact that he’d done nothing to deserve it but to talk about the love of God and of God’s desire that all people should know and love God in return.
How could their hearts not be troubled? How could our hearts not be troubled? When we wake up each morning and listen to the news or read the newspaper, how can our hearts not be troubled? When we hear about the girls kidnapped in Nigeria, the reports of murders, abuse, of blatant exploitation and disregard for basic human dignities, how can our hearts not be troubled? How can we not be troubled every time we open another envelope, seeing yet another bill and working out where each dollar we earn is marked to be spent? How can we not be troubled when the car starts making yet another clunking sound that means another trip to the mechanic, or when our bodies start making yet another creaking sound that means another trip to the Doctor or to the store for Aspirin? How can our hearts not be troubled as the list of worries and disappointments, of things left still undone, of “if only I had’s” grows longer and longer and we never seem to make any progress on it day in, day out?
How could their hearts, or ours, be anything but troubled when they looked at their situation and considered what Jesus was telling them?
And yet this is what Jesus tells them, all the same. In the midst of the devastating news, even in the knowledge of his own oncoming death, Jesus’ word remains unchanged: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Some translations read, “Trust in God, trust also in me.” And there’s something inherently calming in those words as I read them again and again this week. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God - trust in me.
Jesus doesn’t ask much in this passage - and yet somehow, he also asks everything. He asks the disciples to trust in him, to believe what he is telling them and to hear what he says when he tells them that he will return. To have faith that he is not abandoning them, nor will he ever forsake them entirely. And everything he tells the disciples in response to their questions is nothing more than that: just a repetition - trust in me.
Thomas wants a physical location, a road map, a GPS to give turn-by-turn directions: “We don’t know where we’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus says: Trust in me. I am the way, the truth, and the life. If you want to get to where I’m going, if you want to get to the Father, then you have to go through me. You have to trust in me.
Phillip asks him, “Why not just show us the Father, then? We’d be satisfied with that.” And Jesus says again, “Trust in me.” If you’ve seen me for who I am, then you’ve seen the Father. If you trust in me, then you trust in the Father. I and the Father are one. When the disciples looked into Jesus’ eyes, they were looking into the very eyes of God. And he tells them: trust in me.
We come before God with the same questions - “Where is this all going? When will it end? Why?” We look for all the answers, hoping time and time again for some kind of explanation… we try new fads, both in the church and out of it, thinking that this one will give us the answers we need or that that one will finally make us feel better about it all. We flock to the newest celebrity preacher’s blog or television show, thinking that they’ve got to have it figured out somewhere along the line… and yet as we open up on the next day, we find ourselves just as the disciples did: still lost, still confused, still wondering “why” but trying to convince ourselves that we know the answers anyway. As a pastor in Philadelphia puts it, “In response to the first commandment, Martin Luther asks what it means to have a God and answers that God is what you hang your heart upon. The heart that is troubled is a heart not hung upon God but hung rather on all the things that the world peddles to soothe a troubled heart.” The world offers us answers and fixes, things to make us feel better about ourselves, to feel like we’re in control. But in the end, they still leave our hearts troubled.
Jesus tells us, “Trust in me.” When we weep and worry over all the things going on in the world, when we lift them up in our prayers and pray for God to do something about it - God says, “Trust in me.” God says, “Trust in me.” And it sounds so easy - we turn it into a copout answer at times, even. We hear people say so many times, “Just let go and let God.” But that turns trust into yet another shallow, worthless “fix” that still leaves us troubled. We let it go, but it still stays in the back of our minds, troubling our hearts nonetheless. You see, the disciples are allowed to be worried - what Jesus says should worry them, at least in some ways. It’s completely human and normal to be worried when someone tells you they’re about to die. And Jesus doesn’t just dismiss their concerns and treat them like children for having their concerns. But Jesus does remind them who he is. His words point back to himself and to God’s authority and identity at work in him, reminding the disciples where their ultimate trust should be. And it’s in holding tightly to that identity of Christ that our hearts can finally be left untroubled.
We may worry and get disheartened by the things in our lives and in the world around us - we live in a broken and hurting world, after all. But if we trust in Christ, if we remember that Christ has already gone before us, that he lived and died for us, that he rose from the grave for us so that we might know that the troubles of this world do not have the final word… we can find peace. We can find hope and live with untroubled hearts. Because we know that in Christ, God has the final word. And that word is love. Always love. To God be the Glory. Amen.
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