Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I went back to the biggest, richest suburban Presbyterian Church in this city for worship yesterday ('cause I had the Sunday off from preaching, and this church was sort of on my way to other places I needed to be Sunday afternoon), and even more than on my previous visit last month, I was totally blown away by the sermon preached by the head pastor.

So much so, in fact, that it inspired me to do some research and further thinking on the subject which I'm trying to put into this LJ entry today. ( Read more... )The preacher concluded by saying something to the effect that if our hearts are broken enough times, we may find that they have become so large that even God dwells within them.

Besides finding this a very personally relevant Word, given my ongoing struggle with despair and my predisposition always to avoid the risk of heart-break by not asking or hoping for anything much (which only feeds the despair, of course, since to live without hope and the possibility of disappointment is to pretty much invite despair in as a permanent house-guest who never cleans up after him/herself and contributes nothing to the costs of upkeep), I couldn't help but make connections to Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion, as well as to a rabbinical commentary that I heard Madeleine L'Engle mention in an NPR interview almost six years ago.

The preacher's imagery of hearts being broken in prayer (and in the process, enlarged to provide more room for God to live and work there) -- in conjunction with the words of Jeremiah 31:33 ("But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.") -- put me forcefully in mind of this quote from Madeleine L'Engle, from the end of an interview with Margot Adler on Nov. 15, 1998 (the complete interview can be found here):

"There's a story that I love of a student who says to his rabbi, 'Rabbi, in Deuteronomy, why are the words of God placed on the heart, instead of in the heart?' And the Rabbi says, 'Well, we are not yet ready to have them placed in the heart. But if we lay them carefully on the heart, when it breaks, they will fall in.'

"We have to be broken. Abandon power. Listen. Go to unexpected places."

And then there are these quotes from near the end of chapter 26 of The Curse of Chalion:

"I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.

"He knew where it was. It was on the other side of every living person, every living creature, as close as the other side of a coin, the other side of a door. Every soul was a potential portal to the gods. I wonder what would happen if we all opened up at once? Would it flood the world with miracle, drain heaven? . . ." (pp. 403-4)

and

"Welcome to sainthood, Cazaril. By the gods' blessings, you get to host miracles! The catch is, you don't get to choose what they are. . . .

"Betriz had it exactly backward. It wasn't a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you. Could an old siege-master learn to surrender, to open his gates?

"Into your hands, O lords of light, I commend my soul. Do what you must to mend the world. I am at your service." (p. 405)


I have more to say on the subject of reluctant saints (like Cazaril) and prophets (like Jeremiah, who at one point accused God of practically violating him in the act of putting God's words within him and using him to tell the world things that nobody at all wanted to hear), but I've got to get ready to teach my class now.