Homily for March 17

Today, for the second time in 51 years, I overslept on a Sunday morning and missed the mass I was scheduled for!  The first time, the folks in church were there waiting for me to show up (which, eventually, I did).  This morning, however, a brother priest was in the church and subbed in for me at the last minute.  Thus, I have neither a video nor an audio of my homily - just the text which follows below.

 

 

Such beautiful words in Jeremiah this morning:

“I will place my law within them,
I will write it upon their hearts, says the Lord.”

 

That’s definitely one of my

Top 10 Favorite Verses from scripture

And there’s no doubting

it prompts some personal questions

For each of us to ask ourselves.

 

Questions like:

Who gets to write on my heart?

Who HAS written on my heart

– maybe when I wasn’t looking?

Who has scratched some graffiti on my heart,

Words I find hard to erase or forget?

What’s been written on my heart

That now seems to have faded away?

What’s been indelibly penned on my heart?

What has the LORD written on my heart?

 

At the very moment I was conceived,

My parents began writing on my heart

- in the language of their DNA.
My mother was writing her love for me on my heart
- and I on hers - in the intimacy of her womb,
before I knew a single word.

When I was a child my parents, my family,

my friends, my teachers
all had opportunity to write upon my heart

- sometimes before I had a choice

 to accept or reject what they wrote.

What some folks wrote was loving, helpful and life giving.
What others wrote was wounding, hurtful and damaging.
Some wrote the truth on my heart

- and others wrote LIES.

Some of what was written was fuzzy, illegible – not clear -

And to this day,

I’m still trying to figure out what the message was

And how has it shaped my life…

As we grow up and grow older

We become more protective of our hearts,
we begin to shield them,

Doing our best to allow only a select few

To write on such a tender slate.

Still, there may be times when we’re so desperate
to have someone write something there
that we open our hearts foolishly and indiscriminately.

 

Certainly, there’s nothing sweeter, no message kinder,
no memory more satisfying, no intimacy more lasting.

Than what’s written on our hearts

With tenderness and love

By those we trust and welcome into our souls.

Perhaps just the words i’ve spoken here

Have led you to that place in your heart

Have been found loving and helpful

And others painful and hurtful.

It’s in just that place  - in your heart and in mine -
it’s in just that place

That the Lord writes his word to each of us:
the WORD, the LAW, the PROMISE of his love.
It’s in the depths of our hearts,

In our heart of hearts that the Lord wants to write
the word he has for each one of us.

Perhaps – this morning –

Perhaps what the Lord desires to write

on my heart, on yours,
is a word of healing,            

Or a word of forgiveness,

or a word of challenge.

or a word of comfort.
It might be a word of great tenderness - to console me,
or a word of strength meant - to give me courage

or a word of pardon - to give me peace.

Each of us, without exception, can be sure of this:
The lord waits, pen in hand, to write on our hearts.

And whatever the Lord wants to write 

on my heart or yours
that word, that message is precisely the one

I most need to read there.

 

You know, i’ll bet that we all check our mailbox every day.

And if you have email

you check that at least a couple of times a day.

and if you text,

then you’re checking your phone

and replying to texts all day long.

 

We’re always checking in

To see what word others in our lives are sending us.

 

But I wonder, how often

Do we check to see 

what word the LORD has written to us?

 

How often this LENT, have we checked

To see what word, what text, what message

The Lord has been writing on our hearts in this holy season.

He writes every day:

Have we been looking for,

Have we been trying to read what he’s written?

 

There are two weeks left before Easter.

What if we spent that time asking the lord to help us read

what he’s been writing on our hearts?

 

What words of love and promise and healing,

what words of mercy and comfort and challenge

- has he been writing on our hearts?

 

And remember:

Whatever the Lord wants to write on my heart

And whatever word from him we’re searching for,

Hungering for, hoping to find
that word, that message is precisely the one

I most need and want to read there.

 

Jesus invited his father to write on his heart
and so there were inscribed on the heart of Jesus

all the sins of humankind, including yours and mine.

They were written on his heart

So that he might carry them for us on the cross
and redeem us, save us from the harm they do

-- to others and to ourselves.

In the sacrament of this altar

The Lord gains access to our hearts
when we open our- selves

To receive his Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

 

He enters our hearts to heal what’s wounded

and to write upon them

the law and the promise of his love.

May our hearts be laid bare

That the Lord might write upon them there

The words each of us of most needs to find and read.

 

 

 

 

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