Sermon for 7th August 2022, Trinity 8

Lectionary Readings for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity

Hebrews 11: 1–3, 8–16

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, ‘as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.’

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Luke 12: 32–40

‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

‘Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. ‘But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’

Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be, also.

The heart, as a symbol, has become so dumbed-down in the popular culture that if you see the phrase I + heart + you your brain is supposed to automatically read this not as I heart you, but as I love you. Heart and love are the same: heart = love. And please don’t spell that L U V!

But throughout history the heart has stood for a much wider range of emotions directing the behaviour of human beings—-and as a symbol of the innermost, deepest, seat of our very identity.

Carson McCullers wrote a novel called The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The title comes from a poem by the Scot, William Sharp: Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still, But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill. McCullers’s is a brilliant and overlooked novel of 1940, her first novel, written when she was 23. A writer out of the American South, she stands in the line of Faulkner and Eudora Welty. The heart she uses as a symbol in this particular novel is embodied in the relationship of two men who are deaf-mutes. They have come from other places to live in a small, desperately poor Southern mill town in the 1930s. John Singer is a patient, meticulous assistant in a jewellery shop; he is devoted to the friend with whom he lives, Spiros Antonapoulos, a fat, sensuous grocery clerk who allows his friend to shower him with loving attentions of all kinds, from preparing his dinner to entertaining all his selfish whims. Antonapoulos spirals into mental illness, and, despite every attempt by Singer to cover for his erratic misbehavior, is eventually put into an insane asylum in another town. Singer is bereft. Although his love for Antonapoulos was, to the reader, grossly misplaced and certainly not reciprocated, Singer remains centred upon his devotion to Antonapoulos. He fails to realise how important a figure he is in the lives of four other misfits in the limited, limiting society of the town. In his silence and his hospitality he serves as a pastor to them all.

Love can often be misdirected. In The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, the love Singer pours out onto Antonapoulos seems wasted, mis-spent on an unworthy object. But it has given Singer an object for the love he must express. He has made his choice, to give his heart away. But as a marvellous consequence, the love that makes him who he is overflows onto the suffering others of the town and ministers to them.

The heart is an organ of fire. Another brilliant novel, The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje, uses the symbol of the heart in a very different way. It is the animating force of the passionate love that leads to an act of treachery—an act of treachery upon the system that destroyed that love. László de Almásy, a Hungarian Count and desert explorer, cartographer of the North African desert, cool and dispassionate, becomes consumed by the fire of love for a woman with whom he is thrown together. He, also, makes a choice to pursue the love that comes to constitute the inner fire of his very life—-all that makes it worth living. Love can often be misdirected, to one’s own and others’ destruction. But, perhaps, the misdirected love that has posed the greatest danger for humankind is the love of things, not people, caricatured in Moliere’s great play, The Miser, and endless other expressions in literature and art, throughout history.

The love of money is the root of all evil has become a modern proverb. Here is its context, from the Letter to Timothy in the New Testament:

Chapter 6, verse 6:

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. Those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

Think back to last week’s reading from Luke: the parable Jesus told of the wealthy farmer who tore down his storage barns to build larger ones, telling his soul, having done this, to relax, eat, drink, and be merry. But God says to the farmer, You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

Love misdirected toward wealth cannot but fail us.

With this group, faithfully gathered here today, I think that most of us know where our heart is. We are not liable to the temptation to accumulate wealth as the greatest object in life—the assumption of the capitalistic society in which we live. We don’t hoard our treasure in a heap of coins. We love others as much as we love ourselves—we love others often at our own expense—-and our lives are deepened and enriched by this fact. This is one of the distinguishing features of the Christian faith we profess.

We do attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus, that simply caution us to know where our treasure is—-if it consists in the expression of our heart’s love for all those whom we meet, those of our family and friends, but also those who are unattractive and cast off. This is what it means, from last week’s verse, to be rich towards God.

What I most love about the passage for today is the first few lines Jesus speaks, lines of the deepest existential reassurance:

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

We are not to be afraid of being in want: we will be cared for. Our ultimate security must lie in the loving Providence of God. The loving acts of sacrifice that Jesus lived out in his life, as we imitate them, will indeed be our lasting treasure. The love we show to others will constitute the treasure of a life committed to Christ, for whom all of life was an opportunity to show God’s love to the world.

May we continue on the path of love, directing our hearts solely to the face of God, revealed in Christ.

The Revd Dana English

The United Benefice of Holland Park, London August 7, 2022