Direct and Rule Our Hearts

The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

“O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Collect of the Day)

Come, Thou Fount of eve’y blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.

Our passions are naturally inclined towards self and selfishness. The law of Christ to love thy neighbor as thyself comes not naturally from our hearts, but supernaturally from the grace that opens its floodgates when the sinner’s soul is captivated by the loving eye of its Maker and Master. We need our Lord’s direction to love what He loves and His protection from the crouching eyes of sin, which seeks to destroy us. This week’s collect teaches us that “without thee we are not able to please thee.” Yet God does not abandon us; instead, He sends His Son to shed His lifeblood, so that we may have life in our veins by faith. Moreso, He sends down the mighty and powerful Holy Spirit, whom He grants to us weary pilgrims so that now we “may in all things” wander aimlessly no more but follow the path laid ahead. The Father has sent the Spirit so we may have Him to “direct and rule our hearts.”

Teach me some melodious measure
Sung by flaming tongues above;
O the vast, the boundless treasure
Of Thy free, unchanging love!

A renewed heart does great works. Mind you, I did not say miracles, for a great work glorifying God is often the simplest acts of faith. Such an act of faith greets our ears in today’s Gospel lesson. We have Jesus, a man with palsy, and some untold number of godly friends who are good neighbors to their brother who suffers from palsy. (Gospel Lesson, Matthew 9:1-9). St. Matthew records these neighbors of grace bringing their palsied neighbor, “lying on a bed” to Jesus. (Matthew 9:2, KJV). Let us pause for a moment and consider, are we willing to literally lift up our neighbor and bring them to Jesus?

Prior to knowing Jesus, we too needed another to lift us up and take us to Christ. For those of us within the Church who know HIm, it is now our time, and our duty to not only carry the Gospel to neighbors, but ot carry our neighbors to Christ.

What is astounding in today’s Gospel is that “Jesus seeing their faith,” that is the faith of those saints who brought the palsied man, prompts Christ to say “unto the sick of the palsy, ‘Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.'” (Matthew 9:2). How powerful is the faith of others! We see this in every infant’s baptism, when by the faith of the infant’s parents and godparents we commit to raise the child in the faith. Today, we see it in the faith of neighbors willing to bring their crippled friend to Christ’s feet.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Freely shed His precious blood.

Yet faith is offensive to those on peril’s path and the road that leads to destruction. For “certain of the scribes said within themselves, ‘This man blasphemeth.'” (Matthew 9:3). These scribes enter in dangerous territory, for in their hearts, they attribute blasphemy to what the Spirit has done through Christ Jesus. Yet the scribes cannot keep their sinful thoughts hidden, for we worship the Living God “unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.” (Collect for Purity). “And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, ‘Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?'” (Matthew 9:4). Indeed, where does the evilness of our hearts come from? These learned Jewish scribes, have the law, yet their thoughts betray that their love is not for God’s ways but for man’s selfishness. Although they are sons of Abraham by blood, truly they are walking “as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” (Epistle lesson, Ephesians 4:17-18).

It is a darkened heart, a jealous mind, and in ignorance that we too once walked before the Gospel in Christ illuminated us. Dwell in the light and not in the darkness. Close not your heart to Christ’s defeat of death, sin, and the devil, lest you become like the Gentiles that St. Paul warns against, “who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” (Ephesians 4:18). These scribes Jesus encounters are dangerously closing their hearts and minds to the Gospel. Yet Jesus does not allow their secret thoughts to remain secret, but instead, Jesus exposes them by asking, “For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?” (Matthew 9:5). No answer comes from the scribes. So Christ answers them, “But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house.” (Matthew 9:6-7).

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

God was glorified in two ways in this Gospel. The first is the faithfulness of the men who brought the diseased neighbor to see Jesus. The second is Jesus proclaiming the paralyzed man’s sins forgiven and then restoring his legs so that he can walk again. As a result, “the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.” (Matthew 9:8).

The day is late and evening is nearing on our walk in the ancient Western lectionary. What does the old catholic Church in the West desire to speak into our hearts this day?

That we have two ways: the way of death and the way of life. We can bring our neighbors to Christ or scoff at God when He blesses and honors with grace the work of the saints to bring sinners to the Son of God. Have we truly learned what Christ is teaching us? Or are we harboring a piece of our heart to ourselves instead of asking the Lord to “direct and rule our hearts?”

Keep nothing back from God, for “ye have not so learned [in] Christ.” (Ephesians 4:20). If “ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22-24). The old Adam dies hard, but let him die. Die to yourself, and put on the new Adam, which is putting on God Himself, full of grace, truth, righteousness, and holiness.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love,
Here’s my heart; O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Shedding the snakeskin of the old Adam means “putting away lying” and instead speaking to “every man truth with his neighbor,” which includes boldly sharing the Gospel of Jesus to those who may or may not have ears to hear. (Ephesians 4:25). Life in the new Man, in Christ Jesus, is throwing off the chains of anger, and sinning not, for we are to “let not the sun go down upon your wrath,” and by doing so we shall “neither give place to the devil.” (Ephesians 4:26-27). Clothing yourself in the flesh and blood of the new Adam, is to “steal no more,” whether it is theft of goods, theft of time, or theft of loving your fellow man. (Ephesians 4:28). The Lord hath provided you hands, not to remain idle but “rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give him that needeth.” (Ephesians 4:28). And our neighbors lay on mats needing picking up, for they need to be brought to Jesus.

St. Paul is brilliantly teaching us and the Ephesians that when we belong to the new Adam, our entire body belongs to He who bought us at a great price. Already, Paul has commended us to give our speech over to Christ, give our emotions – our hearts – over to Him. So too, Paul tells us to give our hands over to the Lord. Now Paul tells us to hand over our mouths, and “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29). Above all else, as members of Christ’s body, “grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” (Epheshians 4:30).

Grieve not the one whom we pray this week to direct and rule our hearts. Let Him rule over you by ruling through you so finally He can work to destray “all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” (Ephesians 4:31). When we yield to Christ, the old man of sin finally dies. When we live through the Holy Spirit, finally we enter into the new life where God directs and rules our hearts and minds so we may be “kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32). Therefore, as Christ has forgiven the man laying on the mat, so too do you go and forgive others. As Christ in His tender heart had mercy on the crippled, you too have mercy on the one in need. As Christ has opened the secrets of men with the Gospel of grace, you, too, bring Good News wherever your feet may tread.