Saturday after Ash Wednesday
“Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart.”
I love that hymn for the deep sense of yearning to follow Jesus that it expresses. I say that despite the fact that whenever I sing it, I always have to ask myself if I truly am a Christian in my heart. That question can be quite unsettling, And it invites other questions. What does it mean to be a Christian in my heart? How do I know if I am or am not such a Christian? What should I do if it turns out that I am not a true Christian?
Of course, the season of Lent is the time in the Church year when, among other things, we take stock of our faith and seek to enrich it. Given how challenging and complex such questions are, I am grateful that our readings for today from Isaiah and Luke help to clarify things a bit. Here’s what I see.
What is a Christian, according to the reading from Isaiah today? How may I know if I am a real Christian?
The text from Isaiah seems pretty clear. A Christian is someone who works to eliminate oppression, uses speech judiciously, gives bread to the hungry, seeks to help the afflicted, follows God’s ways rather than the world’s ways. That’s the sort of devoted follower God desires. And when God encounters someone like that, God is pleased. This is the way of being in the world that God wants for us.
So, the word from Isaiah seems pretty straightforward. If I want to be a true Christian, then I am called to the hard work of relieving oppression and serving the other according to their need. I am called to be a repairer of the breach—that is, to suture together what has been ripped apart, divided, separated. I am called to discipline my speech. If I wish to be faithful to God, then I can’t say whatever I feel like saying whenever I feel like saying it. I have to think first about whether my speech helps repair a breach or perhaps more likely will widen it.
Serving the other, repairing our breaches, disciplining our speech—three key commitments/practices of a true Christian. Do I have these commitments? If I do, do I live them out? Am I a true Christian? Maybe.
When I turn to our reading from Luke today, I hear Jesus adding one more thing to this list. If I want to be a Christian in my heart, he seems to be saying, then I am called to think seriously about who I dine with.
The Pharisees thought Jesus had a problem because he dined with tax collectors and sinners. But Jesus thought the Pharisees were missing the point. Jesus wasn’t about purity. He didn’t walk among us in order to clean house by kicking out all the “undesirables.” On the contrary.
He walked among us, at least in part, to demonstrate that all are welcome at his table, even sinners. Even those most vilified by a culture. Even me.
What did Jesus add here to the list from Isaiah? I would say humility. I think what Jesus is trying to teach me is that if I can truly embrace the fact that I am that sinner the Pharisees couldn’t countenance, then maybe, just maybe I’ve got what it takes to be a Christian in my heart.
—Susan Trollinger