Your Dorothy Soul

We are making our way down the proverbial yellow brick road in our Easter season worship series looking at Jesus’ teaching on the greatest commandment: to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Using the Jewish Shema prayer, Jesus’ response was to listen to God; love God; and leave a legacy of love for God by loving others. This past Sunday we explored the soul as the second part of Jesus’ teaching. 

The meaning of the soul in the biblical languages is the living breathing creature within our mortal and temporal bodies that connects us to the eternal. The first mention of the soul we see in Scripture comes when God created Adam, saying the Lord breathed into the nostrils of the pile of dust that was the first man and gave him life, or his soul, as it’s stated in the King James Version. The soul comes to us from God and has a very specific purpose: to integrate our mind, body, and will. We still find ourselves in the ongoing struggle within the heart between following God’s purposes or our own sinful and selfish desires. If we love according to God’s purposes, we experience the integration of mind, body, and will. If not, however, it is like throwing water on the Wicked Witch of the West and we experience dis-integration. 

Renowned theologian, Dallas Willard, describes integration like the components of a car all working together to get the driver from point A to B. The car is more than just an engine, transmission, suspension, etc., and all parts must work together for the vehicle to function properly. The soul serves as the steering wheel, because it takes into account the freedom of will to turn as needed. Dis-integration in a metaphor such as this would be something similar to wheels that are out of alignment. Keeping a vehicle moving in a straight line when the wheels are out of alignment requires constant over-correction, causes uneven wear and premature degradation of the tires. When we experience dis-integration – and in life this comes when a job is lost, a relationship breaks down, poor health, financial misery, etc. — we feel as though the world is coming unglued for us. This is precisely why Jesus said what He did in Matthew 11.28-30: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your [soul]. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (MSG)

Ecclesiastes 3:11 states that God placed a bit of eternity in the human heart. This is what helps our soul connect our temporal existence to eternity in heaven. As a result, there is a sort of natural rhythm of dis-integration we experience when trying to fill the voids in life with anything other than God’s purposes. When we aim to fill those voids with money, power, sex, drugs/alcohol, toys, or pastimes, they might bring a moment or two of pleasure, but will never fulfill the longing that God placed within us. This is the essence of of Saint Augustine’s poignant quote, “You created us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

Dorothy Gale felt this pull when she failed to find meaning in her life with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in Kansas. She longed for a place somewhere over the rainbow, thinking that’s where everything would make sense. Similar to how we might experience a metaphorical storm that rocks our world, the twister carried Dorothy to Oz. It didn’t take long, however, for her to realize that life was imperfect there, too, so she began to long for the place where she belonged so she could enjoy the life she had and the people with whom she shared it. The manifestations of her heart, mind, and strength in Oz — the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Lion — enabled Dorothy’s soul to once again find integration and joy right where she belonged. 

Are you experiencing dis-integration in life? Do you find your soul longing for a place on the other side of God’s promise to be with us forever? You can find it right here and right now in the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus. Listening, loving, and living for Christ is the ultimate way to find rest for the soul. So take the necessary time to allow your soul to get re-integrated and learn from the One who placed the yearning in your heart to begin with. 

Have a great rest of the week, and I hope to see you Sunday as we explore Your Scarecrow Mind.

Your Tin Man Heart

This past Sunday we continued our journey down the "yellow brick road," exploring the nature of the heart in Jesus' teaching about loving God with all we have and are, and neighbor as self. In the biblical context, the heart is the emotional center of a person, but also the location of a great inner struggle between giving in to sinful desires, or following God's purposes. This is a daily battle, if not a constant struggle, so we must be mindful of the condition of our heart. 

The human heart is really in a predicament. In Jeremiah 17:9-10, we read: "The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings." Jesus knew this to be true, not just from studying the Scripture, but because He could see into the human heart. He taught that the eyes are the window into the soul, but also that the mouth speaks out of the overflow of the heart (Matthew 6:22, Luke 6:45) In other words, our words and deeds reveal the condition of our heart. If it is devious and perverse, what are we to do? Plain and simple, we need a new heart!

We do need a new heart, but this isn't something any one is capable of accomplishing on his or her own. Moving beyond the muscular organ that pumps blood and oxygen throughout the body, and back to the emotional center of a person, we need a brand new heart. In Psalm 51:10, we read a prayer for God to create a new heart in us and to renew a spirit within us that is loyal to God as opposed to our selfish whims. Part of Jesus' mission was to come and reveal to us the heart of God as one who wants to replace our sin-ridden heart with one of love, grace, and mercy. 

Considering our recent "Wizard of Oz" theme, the backstory of the Tin Woodman is really insightful. The Tin Woodman wasn't always a man made out of tin; no, his name was Nick Chopper, and he was in love with a maiden in Oz. The maiden worked for a family that was lazy and feared losing her to Nick, so the Wicked Witch of the East cursed Nick's ax, so that every time he was filled with fancy feelings for his fair fräulein, his ax would turn against him and lop of a part of his body. Nick was friends with the tin smith of Oz, who would fashion a new appendage for him to replace the one removed by the cursed ax. As Nick was overcome with feelings for the maiden, he lost himself and became a man solely made of tin. The problem? The tin smith could not make a tin heart...the "new" man needed someone wholly different to replace the heart. 

Let's face it, the curse of sin weighs heavily on us. We try to love, and make ourselves vulnerable by virtue, but sin dents, dings, and damages us. We easily could be left cold and hard as though we were made on tin, but this is not God's desire for us. God wants to create a new heart in you and renew your spirit so you are loyal to Him and not your sin nature. With a new heart and loyal spirit, you are able to engage the world for God with His love, knowing your ultimate home is somewhere far beyond the rainbow, but as close to you as the next beat of your redeemed and restored heart. 

Please come join us on Sunday as we continue our recent "Wizard of Oz" worship theme and explore "Your Dorothy Soul." 

To Listen...To Love...To Leave A Legacy

This past Sunday we began our journey down the yellow brick road in the first message in our new “Wizard of Oz” themed worship series. We took a great first step looking at part of the most important prayer in Judaism: the Shema.

The Shema prayer is lifted first thing in the morning and just before going to bed at night. It is also believed by some to be the last prayer many utter before passing away. The word, “shema,” is actually the Hebrew verb meaning, “to hear.” So basically, the first instruction in this prayer is to listen to God, but that isn’t all. The Shema goes on to instruct about love and legacy in how we pass this on to future generations. Listen, love, legacy — the components of the Shema prayer. Though the entire Shema prayer is rather long at three paragraphs, the part we are studying comes from Deuteronomy 4.6-9: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

In Jesus’ earthly ministry, He was once asked about which commandment was first or greatest, depending on the translation you read. There are some 613 commandments and laws form the Torah to the Talmud, so this was an entrapment question posed to Christ. In that exchange, when asked about the most important of all the commandments, Jesus turned the conversation on its ear by bringing up the concept of listening to God, loving God, and leaving a legacy for God. This is captured in Mark’s Gospel, 12.29-31: “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” In answering this question, Jesus argued for a forward looking view of living out faith as opposed to a rigid rear view.

The Biblical languages gives us some very powerful insight as to what Jesus meant when He focused on loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as self. Consider the important insight we garner when we love God with all our…

• Heart: The seat in the center of one’s inward life — the place of human depravity or the sphere of divine influence. How will you find life, by living for self or living for God?
• Soul: The living breathing creature within us. We believe that when we accept Christ as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes to breath new life into us. CS Lewis one said that you do not have a soul, but you are a soul! Your soul, therefore, is the living God within you that connects your mortal life to the eternal God.
• Mind: Our intellect, the place where we analyze, figure-out and plan things; the place where knowledge and understanding are analyzed to bring about a conclusion or decision. Living in faith doesn’t mean we check our brain at the door; rather it means that we engage our mind while considering the mystery of God.
• Strength: Our outward response in word and deed that brings together what happens internally among our heart, soul and mind. Its root meaning is using a fire poker to rake, move quickly, and turn-over hot coals. Basically, it means to keep the flames burning hot, or reaching into a fiery situation and turn things around or make them right. A picture is forming here: God does not want us to love Him with just parts of our being, but rather, will ALL of our being — every single moment of every single day.
• Neighbor as Self: Jesus answered this in His parable of the Good Samaritan as He taught that one’s neighbor is anyone within our spheres of influence. These are the people we meet different levels in our own local community, larger region, and people abroad.

We are called to listen to God, love God, and live in such a way as to leave a legacy of God for others. This requires us living wholly for God and the people God places in our life. As we continue down the yellow brick road, we will explore how the journey that Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tinman, and Lion took transformed their understanding of heart, soul, mind, and strength/courage. I hope you will make plans to be present with us each week in this journey, because it promises to help us all deepen our appreciation for what it means to listen to God, to love God and others, and to leave a legacy of love by wholly engaging our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

God bless, and I hope to see you Sunday!

Pastor Mark