Where Is Your Heart?

A Meditation for Ash Wednesday...

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

On a cosmic level, we are dust...everything is dust...space dust particles finding patterns and form. But we’re more than that, aren’t we? There’s something that holds our particles together, something that fills them. There must be.

When I was 10 my grand dad died. At his viewing was the first time I had ever seen a dead human body. It looked like him, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t breathing anymore.

Genesis 1 tells of a Creator God whose breath brings light and life and order to chaos. God’s words are exhaled in a wind which stirs the waters of the cosmic womb. The breath of God sends waves of purpose rippling through the universe. Genesis 2 tells of a Creator God whose breath lifts to life a sculpture of soil. By the breath of God, dust and dream combine, soil and spirit fuse, all of creation becomes integrated with the divine imagination. Despite this, we do a poor job expressing the integration of our physical and spiritual reality. We like to think of physicality and spirituality as existing in completely different realms.

Genesis 3 is the story of the temptation to divest our earthly accountability from spiritual intelligence. The creature is tempted by the physical senses to see as ‘good’ what spiritual wisdom knows to be unhealthy. Simply put: God says “Don’t”, creature says, “But I wanna.” Adam and Eve disrespect the wisdom the spirit by acting on earth to contradict the wisdom of heaven. God’s words in verse 19, “you are dust, to the dust you will return” remind us that we cannot escape God’s purposes for soil and spirit.

If one isn’t careful, Jesus’ words from the 6th chapter of Matthew can be interpreted by the same temptation to believe that earth and heaven, soil and spirit are not integrated but separate. “Stop collecting treasures on earth, instead collect treasures in heaven.” This certainly makes it sound as though earth and heaven are completely unrelated. But I think Jesus’ concern here is to help his listeners’ recognize the relationship between the two realms.

The hypocrites are so focused on their concern for heaven that they overlook God’s concern for the earth. They scoff when Jesus eats with lepers and sinners and makes friends with the poor and dirty. They are trying so hard to be "worthy" of the spirit that they forget they are soil. Jesus teaches us to integrate our will with God’s will, our vision with God’s vision, our heart with God’s heart.

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” is just another way of encouraging us to be mindful of what we value and why we value it. Jesus wants us to see creation through the eyes of the Creator who called it “good.” Jesus wants us to see ourselves and others through the eyes of God, as beloved and valuable. Jesus wants the spiritual realm to influence how we live and move on earth. We know from how Jesus taught us to pray that integration, and not segregation, of the earthly and heavenly realms are important to him, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.”

You are dust, and to dust you will return. But for now, you are held together and filled by the breath of God. You cannot escape God’s purpose for soil and spirit. I hope your heart is in a place where that sounds like good news. Amen.