The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
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Dublin St. Patrick's Cathedral Ambulatory Southern Section Window Lift Up Your Hearts 2012 09 26.jpg
Ezekiel 2:1-5
2 Corinthians 12:1-10
Mark 6:1-13
Lift up your hearts!
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
As I reflected upon the readings for today, I found myself humming and singing the Sursum Corda. Sursum Corda is Latin for “Lift Up Your hearts.” It is also shorthand for describing the six lines that begin The Service of the Sacrament.
The Lord be with you/And with thy spirit.
Lift up your hearts/We lift them up unto the Lord.
Let us give thanks unto the Lord, our God/It is meet and right so to do.
The church has been saying these words to lead it into the consecration and reception of the Body and Blood of our Lord in the West since the third century and in the East since the fourth century.
“Lift up your hearts” is a command that the presiding pastor gives. The congregation responds with the orientation of where the church lifts her heart to. We lift our hearts to the Lord.
I think the reason this was coming to me during my time of study and prayer is because of what the lectionary readings say. Let’s begin with Ezekiel.
Our reading is a small portion of an extended description of God’s call to Ezekiel to serve as a prophet. Ezekiel is already a priest because of his tribal lineage. Ezekiel tells us in chapter 1 that he is 30 years old and that he is in Babylon, not Judah. Ezekiel is not in Babylon by choice. He is one of the captured. He is a slave in a foreign land. He is currently 900 miles away from the Temple in Jerusalem where he would now, at the age of 30, be eligible to begin full service as a priest in the temple. Instead of a priestly role in the temple, God calls Ezekiel to serve as a prophet. Chapter 1 contains a truly astonishing vision that includes seeing the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ. The pre-incarnate God is the one who speaks to Ezekiel and calls him into the prophetic ministry.
God makes plain to him from the beginning that he is in for a difficult time. God calls Ezekiel’s fellow slaves a “nation of rebels who have rebelled against me.” Ezekiel is given the task of explaining why the invasion has happened. He will call out the people on their idolatry and sinful ways. And, the Lord makes clear that he will not speak to receptive ears and willing hearts ready to repent. Any sense of fulfillment, any sense of satisfaction that he is going to have of a job well done will be in the fact that Ezekiel is faithful to what God calls him to do.
This is a group of people who are displaced, angry, businesses were ruin, family members killed or separated from one another because it suited their new masters. They will blame God for all that has happened far faster than they will ask “what did we do to deserve this and how can we change?”
Ezekiel is left with the truth of the matter: “I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD GOD.’ And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.”
As a part of Ezekiel’s call to repent, he must command God’s people, “Lift up your hearts.” In other words, focus not on yourselves, but focus on God. And, Ezekiel, is going to need the strength and stamina that only God can give in order to keep going. He has the vision of God. He has God’s Spirit. He has God’s Word. Yet, the task is daunting and exhausting. He too, must lift up his heart to the Lord regularly for strength.
Ezekiel’s experience foreshadows our Lord Jesus’ experience. As the Lord predicted and as Ezekiel reports, Ezekiel met lots of resistance. Yet, he persisted. Jesus too meets plenty of resistance. Perhaps we are not surprised that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes resisted Jesus. But, it must have hurt his humanity quite a bit that those closest to Him could not, would not, receive Him with faith. They could not get beyond the fact that Jesus is, well, Jesus. He’s the carpenter, son of Mary, kin to all the rest. He’s familiar. And, they take offense at him for what he says and what he does.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus regularly left the Apostles to retreat and pray. In his earthly ministry, he had to lift up his heart regularly. He communed with the Father and the Spirit. In the Transfiguration, we learn that Jesus is also in conversation with Moses and Elijah. How long has that really been going on? Probably throughout Jesus’ ministry, it’s just that the time was right to show it to Peter, James, and John. And the time was right for them to hear the Father’s affirmation that Jesus is the Father’s Son and that they should listen to Him.
The Apostle Paul met a lot of resistance. He even suffered violence because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He had a remarkable heavenly vision that sustained him. But, he also had a terrible “thorn in the flesh.” We don’t know what it was, but it caused him problems. He was made weak because of it. The only way he could continue was to “Lift up his heart to the Lord.” For the Lord is his strength. He cannot rely on anything else for the ministry, other than the Lord. “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
The command to lift up your hearts comes to us because we are about to approach Jesus. Jesus is lifted up on a cross to die for our sakes. In his suffering and death on the cross, he took all our sin upon himself. He dies so that we may see heaven. He dies so that we too may join the fellowship that includes Moses and Elijah and Ezekiel and Paul and all the rest. He dies for us so that our prayers of repentance are heard and received. We lift up our hearts so that we can receive the gifts of mercy that Jesus gives us. You are forgiven. You receive Jesus. He goes forth into the world with you. He gives you peace.
We lift up our hearts to the Lord, because we are weak and he is our strength and hope.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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