We can hear the gospels all our lives and then, seemingly out of no where, come upon a verse we never heard before. This might be one of them:
Jesus said, "Then comes the time when many will lose their faith and will betray and hate each other. Yes, and many false prophets will arrive, and will mislead many people. Because of the spread of wickedness the love of most men will grow cold..." Matthew 24:10 ff J.B. Phllips New Testamentor another translation
"And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold." Matthew 24:10 ff Revised Standard Version
We might think, Jesus had our time in mind. Or conversely, we might think Jesus had some other people in some other time in mind. No era or generation since the days of Jesus has a corner on hate or wickedness. I'd suggest Jesus was speaking rather generically, as if to say, "This is how it is with human beings."
I'm thinking of that other gospel we might never have heard, or so it might appear as the church gets weighted down with crisis after crisis and can wind up seeming to spend more time in the courtroom settling cases more than in the inner secret room Jesus invites us to enter, where we are to close the door and speak to our heavenly Father in intimacy.
I remember in seminary the priest-professor going on at length as to whether or not Jesus intended to form a new religion. I don't remember his answer, but it was the beginning of my thinking that no matter the answer, what Jesus clearly did leave us was a new sense of religion that has the heart at its center. Christianity, before anything else, is a way of the heart. Christianity requires heart-work, heart-wonder, the en-spiriting of the heart. We can settle for less.
43 For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" Luke 6:43-45
What beautiful language Jesus uses. Three lines and the word good appears four times. Three lines and the word heart appears twice. Treasure, twice. The last sentence expresses the nature of Christ's way splendidly: "For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
In the 1987 film A Month in the Country, Colin Firth plays Tom Birkin, a young man just back from that most stupid of wars and has found a summer's job in rural Oxgodby, England. He meets the Anglican priest who lives in a huge, empty rectory with his lonely, wife. We discover at once the priest is angry, that the one thousand pound bequest is contingent upon the restoration of a medieval painting over the altar. I'd suggest he's really opposed to the restoration because he's afraid it will distract the parishioners from paying attention to him. Blinded by resentment, he couldn't be more inhospitable when the stammering veteran shows up in the soaking rain — no offer of a meal, no cup of tea, not even a room in his empty rectory. Judd is reluctantly offered a couple of feet up in the belfry. Can you think of a more awful place for a shell-shocked soldier to be living? Come Sunday Tom watches and listens from above as the priest reads the lesson of the day — Matthew 25 — "When I was hungry, thirsty, naked, a stranger, sick..." Failed religion gone off into the the weeds.
Notice in the verses above Jesus uses the word treasure. Treasure is what we hold on to dearly — our prejudices, our go-to defenses, our justifications, the lies we tell ourselves, our denials, our insistences, what we buy into, that has nothing to do with Christ — the authentic, whole human person. Christ — the Kingdom Man, the one who thinks God's thoughts, who lives in God's heart.
Growing up in the 1950's and 60's, the key words of my youth were obedience and disobedience. You don't become a whole human person by simply being obedient. In the Australian TV series Brides of Christ, when things begin to change in convent life, Sister Philomena has a breakdown before the entire community and weeps, "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it." Again: we don't become whole human persons by simply being obedient.
But Jesus speaks of "the abundance of the heart." Our hearts (inner selves) can hold a lot. We hear, "I'm heart broken," "I'm heart sick" My heart is full of hate." Our mouths only express what's inside. Some folks never really explore this.
Our nation fashions itself as religious. As the world goes we still have a rather high rate of church attendance. But statistics don't really say much. Statistics say nothing about the spiritual heart condition of the Christian. Statistics don't call out how we can go off into the weeds: how we might be motivated by fear, money-love, racist bigotry, power-quest, violence (even as entertainment), ignorance, lies (smears, denials, self-protection). These can fill the collective heart, become the nation's abundant heart-treasure. Social media (including [YIKES!] Catholic sites) is the great heart-revealer today. The mouth speaks what's stored up abundantly in the heart.
