Purity of Heart
The Collect for Purity is a beloved prayer
that comes to us from St. Alcuin in the 8th century, and here it is as
the opening prayer of The Cloud of Unknowing, the classic work on Christian contemplation from the 14th century.
O God unto whom all hearts lie open
Unto whom desire is eloquent
And from whom no secret thing is hidden;
Purify the thoughts of my heart
By the outpouring of your Spirit
That I may love you with a perfect love
And praise you as you deserve.
Amen.
This is a prayer about purity of heart, inward purity. It
reminds us, as we begin our celebration of the Eucharist, that the
experience of communion necessitates a state of inward purity. It is
not dependent upon outward shows of piety or purity. It is an inward
grace, invisible to the ordinary eye. But it is not invisible to Jesus’
eye, as we see in this passage from Luke. Jesus is a reader of hearts,
and again and again in Luke, we see him defending the pure in heart
against the judgments and criticisms of those who pretend to purity by
outward shows of piety, yet harbor dark thoughts about others in their
hearts without the slightest remorse or move towards repentance.
The story we heard this morning about King David is the universal story
of how real conscience will confront us with the truth about our own
sinful thoughts, attitudes and ways of acting towards one another. For
all of us, the experience of being outraged at someone else’s sin and
asking, and hearing “It was you, you are the one who did this, or
thought this, or simmered with this terrible emotion,” is the greatest
freedom. Our path towards real spiritual growth leads us right through
such humbling encounters with truth.
And once again, I read this Gospel story and see the Pharisee in my
personality – the one who is so enamored of the façade of
religion, so concerned with details and getting it right for outward
consumption, even as he forgets all about the inward state of his
heart. But it is the inward state of the heart that is most
important. Remember when Samuel originally calls David from his
father’s house. The call has nothing to do with outwards
appearances – the Lord looks to the state of the heart. In David,
Samuel saw someone who would respond to the truth and not negate the
truth in trying to justify or defend his image of himself.
And remember Mary, so inwardly devoted to Jesus that she kneels at his
feet when he visits and listens only to his teaching. Martha, who
is fretting about her sister’s behavior, asks Jesus to rebuke
her. Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the best way, the
way of complete devotion – the inward state of devotion to God is a
state of purity in the heart; it is the best. Mary is so single
hearted in her devotion that she is undisturbed by her sister’s
opinions of her. There is simply nothing better for a human being
to be than singly devoted to God and undisturbed by the criticisms or
praise of others.
In today’s passage from Luke, Jesus once again steps in to halt the
criticisms that are launched at the pure in heart. And this is a
wonderful allegory of the different states of heart that exist within
all of us.
It is easy for us to be like Simon. Everybody is doing it.
Everybody is concerned with the outward show, how things appear, and
keeping up appearances. We want to get the approval and
approbation of other people. We learn very early to seek
approval, and this keeps us in a prison of egocentric need. What
is sad is that it can so easily get in the way of our seeking the
Kingdom of God. For, as this story reminds us, people tend to
criticize those who are truly seeking the Kingdom because they just
don’t understand how anyone could be freed from all this
self-concern. It is not what most people are spending their time
doing – and even religious people, who give lip service to seeking
first the Kingdom of God, rarely put that search first. Usually,
the search for a good opinion of oneself comes first, way before the
Kingdom of God. We can train ourselves so well to think of
ourselves and how people do or do not treat us that it can consume our
thoughts; it can consume our lives, our attention, our energy, our
feelings. So when someone puts the Kingdom of God first, they
appear strangely free from all that consumes us.
And so it is with the uninvited guest at Simon’s party. Here
Simon has put together an amusing evening – the chief amusement, the
latest spiritual fad, Jesus, is his guest and all his religiously
astute friends can enjoy the popular rabbi’s presence, and, of course,
present him with their own oft-repeated opinions, attitudes and
complaints. But a woman crashes the party – a woman of ill
repute, embarrassing them all as she kneels at Jesus’ feet and washes
them with tears of repentance. Simon’s mind and heart are
brimming with judgmental opinions. Politeness prevents his
speaking this aloud in the rabbi’s presence, but as soon as Jesus
leaves, you can bet that he and his friends will devour this delicious
bit of gossip, excuse me, not gossip, but friendly intellectual
speculation as to Jesus’ lack of good judgment.
They are not going to speak of it in his presence of course; that would be rude.
But Jesus reads the heart. He knows what they are thinking.
He turns to his host and asks permission to speak truth about the wrong
thinking that is in everybody’s mind.
“Simon, I have something to say to you.” That is pretty clear isn’t it.
Simon, to his soul’s credit, gives Jesus permission to teach him.
So, he is not just Simon the false personality, so busy keeping up
appearances. Simon is also seeking the kingdom and he is willing
to have the corruptness of his own heart exposed by truthful teaching
that can set him free.
Very few people are willing to take the Gospel this seriously.
And yet, this is what it takes. We simply have to stop pretending
that we know it all already, and that we are sincere about seeking the
Kingdom while we provide an ideal harbor for negative thoughts,
feelings, and judgments about other people. This is the hard part
of the Gospel, it asks us to clean out our inner closet – to see
clearly all the junk we have stored there and to stop pretending that
we are so kind and good while we secretly harbor these harsh judgments
of one another.
Simon takes the very important step of giving Jesus permission to show
him a very different picture of his inner state than he would admit
to. And in great compassion, Jesus tells him what is going on
here.
There is a woman who sees the overwhelming love and truth of God, and
she is completely humbled and overshadowed by this. She turns
immediately from her state of sin and seeks grace. Like all of
us, she has lived in a prison of sin, a labyrinth of false thinking and
confused feeling. She repents with great love and purifying tears
of sincere devotion. Her love, reflecting the God of love whom
she seeks with all her heart, is very great. The love is even
greater than her sin. God’s love overshadows it all.
There is a man who sees only himself in competition and rivalry with
everyone else. He must pretend that he does not sin in order to
gain approval and impress others. He does not love much, except
for his own comforts, pleasures, and accomplishments. He is a
Pharisee, that is, he pretends to teach about God, but he is not living
in God’s love, he can’t live there because he is living in rivalry with
his neighbors in a desperate concern for his own merit and
self-esteem. His life is a seeking for superiority over others –
and so he judges them, but that is not the Kingdom of God, that is the
prison of this world. In order to seek the Kingdom, he must see
this serious error – he is way off course. He is not meant for
something so petty and small as this. He is meant for a pure
devotion to God’s love, not endlessly worrying his estimation of
himself.
If you have ever had someone point out the false personality in you
when you are sincerely seeking the Kingdom, you know that, as harsh as
it may sound, it is actually experienced as the greatest compassion
you’ve ever encountered. And it releases true humility in
you. For the insight brings a freedom never known before, a
freedom to seek the kingdom at last, and to seek it rightly. At
last, you want to see through the façade of external
appearances, rather than continue to hide there.
So let’s pray again the Collect for Purity. And let’s say it 3
times: once out loud, once in a very quiet whisper, and once with no
outward show at all, just letting the prayer sound within our hearts,
which is where true prayer lives, not in the outward repetition of
words, but in the inward sounding in our hearts. Let’s take this
prayer within us, and truly seek the deepest meaning it can have for us.
The Rev. Edie Bird
17 June 2007
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