Open Hearts
Philippians 1:3-11

If I am backed into a corner, I don’t feel very generous.  My kids will tell you that I can be like that trapped dog with a pretty loud bark.  None of us like feeling stuck.  There are so many things that can fence us in.  An article from the Associated Press tells us that despite an increase in consumer spending last quarter, national unemployment is still expected to rise through the remainder of this year.  Feeling trapped.  Stuck. Paralyzed.  These are all phrases we hear in sound-bytes on the evening news.  Our eyes get glued to that computer screen. We can hardly find the will to get up off that couch from in front of the t.v.  We surf channel after channel as this nation is addicted to bad news of the economy.
The people of the early church knew nothing about the American recession.  But people have always known the crisis of entrapment.  Roadblocks are a part of life on this side of Paradise.  Paul, the famous spokesman of the first century church was literally trapped, incarcerated, imprisoned.  There was no religious freedom in his time and place.  There were consequences for stirring up a crowd, for inciting hope, for preaching about Jesus Christ and gaining a following.  And so, this man who was so free in Christ found himself chained in a prison cell in the capital city of Rome.  From this prison, Paul wrote to his friends at the church in Philippi.  He didn’t hide his situation from them.  He referred to himself as a prisoner.  He implied that he very well might die in prison.  He has every reason to despair.  But he doesn’t.  Instead, his letter to the Philippians overflows with hope.  Some have called this the Letter of Love. 
As we begin this three-week series on “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” I think of Paul in prison as a classic example of a heart wide-open in hope and generosity despite his outward circumstances.  His heart could have become more and more encrusted  He could have been trapped in his own prison of self-pity.  He could have turned into a bitter old man who, at the end of his life, felt robbed.  He could have blamed God for his cold prison cell and refused to talk to God anymore.  We all know someone like this who lives in his own self-imposed prison.  Hurt has led to bitterness that has led to a spiritual lock down.  For these people, the heart was hidden away a long time ago, and the key was thrown away.
Paul in prison showed a remarkable sense of peace, marked by joy and generosity.  His body may have been incarcerated, but his spirit was unbound.  It was in this prison that Paul wrote, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it…”  He wrote great words of encouragement.  His letter gushed with hope.  Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi is filled with signs of an open heart, the kind of heart that pleases God.

First I would like to point out that Paul’s prayers reflect an open heart.  I believe that many of us approach prayer as a great Santa Clause wish list.  It’s like our hearts are open, but with a one-directional vacuum of need.  Great black holes that suck up everything we can from God.  Paul’s heart was of a different quality.  The prayers flowed easily.  “I thank God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you…”  Whatever external, damp prison he faced, Paul’s focus was on the flowing of God’s Spirit to others.  Instead of fixating on his prison time and his bondage, he opened his heart to God and to the plight of people.
Some of the greatest backbones of the church are shut-ins who know how to pray.  Our bodies can be weak.  Our hands can be arthritic.  Our hips can ache.  But our level of compassion does not have to diminish over the years, and our ability to pray certainly does not weaken.  There is no greater act of love than to use our prison times to pray for others.  Our sign ministry team put a message out in front of our church a couple of weeks ago.  Perhaps you saw it:  “Stuck in traffic.  Redeem the time.  Pray.”  The open heart knows how to pray when stuck in a prison, when backed into a corner, when caught in a web.  And the prayers are not just whiney pleas.  Great spiritual giants know how to direct their prayers towards God on behalf of a hurting and broken world.  Spiritual giants know how to pour love upon even their enemies through prayer.  This kind of openness of heart to God’s transforming power can change the world.

The second sign of an open heart is what Paul calls a “sharing in the gospel.”  There is an infectiousness about generosity.  This is such a fundamental rule that we almost forget it.  When you are kicked at work you are tempted to go home and kick the dog.  When you are given love and support you find it easy to pass that encouragement on to another.  When someone is touched with the unconditional, lavish love of Jesus, there is an overflow that can happen.

The following film clip.is a snapshot picture of what it means to share in the gospel. “In “Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story,” Dorothy is no saint. She lives hard, makes mistakes, and endures the consequences. But the unquenchable fire burning within her cannot be contained. Dorothy wants to make a difference. During the Depression, she vows to house the homeless, feed the hungry, and tend the sick. Easily said. Not easily done when her total finances amount to 97 cents in a battered canister. Yet Dorothy persists, walking on frequently stormy waters of faith.”

“What are you going to do for shoes?” Dorothy Day asks Peter.  Unlike the family dinner table where siblings duke it out for the last piece of pie, the church is the place where a radical sharing occurs.  I am only beginning to hear your stories of how Jesus has touched your lives, but in our short weeks together I have already seen signs of open hearts.  You keep track of your shut ins.  Two weeks ago eleven of you worked at the Akron Canton Food Back.  There is a team of faith friends already praying for the mew members who will join in two weeks.  You poured out gifts of funds for the summer mission trips.  In the same way, I know that you read in our newsletter the need for world missions gifts through our conference commitments.  This church has always met its obligations in missions.  In challenging financial times, what better way to say that we share God’s generosity than to give with open hearts?  If any institution can make a difference in these days of institutional decline, the church still can and does!
We love because God first loved us.  We pour out our forgiveness, generosity, compassion because God poured out these very things on us through the life and new life of Jesus Christ.

Finally, there is a sign of open hearts that cannot be ignored – an increase in the stamina of the body.  It can go further, faster, longer.  Whenever I commit to regular exercise at the Y, my body seems to work better.  The blood has been pumping.  My stamina increases.  My heart is stronger and enables me to be my best.  When I lay off of it for a few weeks, the sluggishness sets in.  The fruit of my labor is strength and health. 
The same is true of our generous hearts.  When we pump generosity, love, acceptance, forgiveness through our church, our strength increases.  The result is touched lives.  Paul praises the Philippians for producing a “harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.”  People notice our walk and they are attracted to it.  The message of the gospel is catapulted to new places.  We find this encouraging result after a tragic situation:

Earlier this summer on June 5th, Mychel Neuman, a college student in southern California was driving home to Missouri when her car was struck on I-40, and she was killed.  One of the devastating details for her family was to collect her belongings which had been strewn all along the highway outside of Weatherford, Oklahoma.  In his desperation, her father, a Jewish man, recalled the United Methodist campaign, Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors that  he had seen on billboards.  This encouraged him to call the Weatherford UMC.  Rev. Pam Brack and the congregation lived the open heart that they publicized.  A UM news source tells us that:

On June 16, several members met at the wrecking yard.
"They sorted through all the belongings with loving care, respect, and dignity," Brack said. "We looked for things that may have been missed, and we found her passport. That’s when this became real. It really made an impact on us."
Using a truck and trailer furnished by member Arlen Hamburger, the group moved the items to the church’s fellowship hall. In all they prepared about 20 large boxes for shipment. At a Weatherford glass company, church members Stacy and Brian Fox stacked the boxes on two wooden pallets and secured them with shrink wrap. Helen Swearengin assisted her daughter, Stacy, with the pallets.
"The Methodist members assisting in the project all signed a sympathy card, with personal messages from each for the family," Brack said. Members also took photos of the project to create a record for the family that showed how Mychel’s effects were treated and prepared for shipment.
"Mr. Neuman has written us many lengthy e-mails" since that time, the pastor said.
Brack continued, "He said, ‘I will think of Mychel every day of my life. I hope at some point I will stop being selfish and allow myself to celebrate her life rather than mourn her death. Your church has helped me very much in the process. But I will always wonder. Why would you do this for complete strangers from Missouri?’
"I told him, ‘That’s just what Christians do for all God’s children."

            Friends, whatever prisons walls we face, whatever enclosures we feel with our own lives, the good news is this:  Before our birth, blood was pumped into our physical hearts by our mothers, and as children of God, Christ’s blood was poured into us for the strength of our spiritual hearts.  Nothing can stop the beating.  We are invited to live with open hearts, allowing the life of God to flow into us and through us for the sake of a hurting and dying world.

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Open Minds
Romans 12:1-8

Okay. You have figured out by now that I don’t wear sweater vests. Women, you will appreciate when I say that it’s no easy task for clergywomen to decide what to wear on Sunday. Everyone has one opinion or another. A colleague of mine once received a note of constructive criticism for wearing shoes with decorative bows. Another received a challenge to be little dressier.
It’s not just clergywomen who have to deal with the appearance issue. That’s just the one I know most intimately! The back-to-school season challenges kids to want to look their best. The beauty industry is one of the fastest growing areas of our times. Even in recession, some women shell out up to $100 for a tube of lipstick. Botox for men and women is as common as a haircut, sometimes even provided at shopping mall kiosks. In so many ways we want to change our appearance.
Why do we want to look different than the way God made us? Why does this culture obsess over the weight and wardrobe of celebrities? Why do we let the beauty industry convince us we need their products? The answer is probably more complicated than one pastor can understand. But I suspect that somewhere buried in the conversation is a great need we feel, a void, something unfulfilled. Who am I? the adolescent asks as she becomes dangerously thin, controlling her body when she cannot control anything else. Many people try to conform to standards of beauty that are incredibly hard, even dangerous, to achieve.
“Do not be conformed to this world,” says Paul. “But be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” The good news of Jesus Christ is about transformation. Not conformation to a cookie cutter pattern created by this world.
Today we focus on open minds. Our Bible talks about worship as the time to bring our total selves, including our minds, to God. There was an anti-drug campaign in the 80s. “This is drugs,” a narrating voice describes a pan of hot oil. “This is your brain on drugs.” An egg is cracked into the pan, splattered and fried. The mind – the seat of consciousness – is a malleable thing. Our influences matter. In worship we bring our total selves, including our mind, the seat of thoughts to the great Potter who might mold and shape us into life.
Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us that the Church of the Open Mind specializes in Transformation. Trying to conform to the crowd leads us nowhere. It’s not just kids who get caught in webs of conforming. Many of us know the dead-end feeling of looking around, wondering how we measure up. How am I doing? We ask ourselves at age 25 when the world tells us we are supposed to be in a serious relationship. How am I doing? we ask at age 35 when other people have settled down with a house, kids, and an SUV. How am I doing? we ask at 45 when other peoples’ 401ks are growing. How am I doing? The 65-year-old asks when everyone else seems to be able to retire with loving kids and grandkids circled around. This kind of conforming does not lead to life. It only opens the door for much anxiety and self-doubt. The kind of maturity the bible talks of has little to do with the outward actions that we perform – the jobs, the purchases, the agendas. The most important growth we do is of an inner kind. We can be beggars in rags and God will rejoice with us if our inner life is rich with things like love, joy, patience, kindness.
An area high school displays a poster this week as kids come back to school. The wall hanging is a reminder of how character grows. “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” The gospel according to a high school poster is not too far from Paul’s letter to the Romans. The chain begins with thoughts. Teachers, staff, students pass that poster. Millions of thoughts swirling in thousands of minds as they walk down the hall past the poster. As you walk down the hallway of a school, or of an office building, or of a church, or in your home, are you ruminating on dead end thoughts? Are you cycling the same old thoughts of envy and hatred, lust and desire? Or is there an opening in your mind where the Holy Spirit might come in? Have you ever sat in quiet and asked God to silence the stuff in your head? Repeating the Lord’s Prayer while heading to sleep. Saying the name of Jesus again and again while facing temptation. A mind open to God’s transformation takes discipline – for many other voices claim our attention and trap us in the same old, same old cycles. “Let the same mind be in you as in Christ Jesus,” says Paul in another passage. He dares to say this because he believes that it can be true. Open your mind regularly consistently to thoughts of Jesus and you will open your life to the presence of Transformation.
The Church of the Open Mind is spiritually mature. Toddlers kick their feet and turn blue in the face when their plans are challenged. If we are to grow up in our Christian walk, it is mandatory that we put our best effort into maintaining an open mind to new possibilities all around us. The book of Exodus in our Old Testament lists ten commandments. We know all about that murder commandment, and the one forbidding adultery. But what about closed-mindedness? Commandment number two says: “You shall not make for yourself an idol…You shall not bow down to them or worship them.” Now I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been guilty of carving any little bronze statues lately. And while I do recycle, I don’t worship trees. I feel pretty free from this idol-worshipping thing. Free that is, until I realize how many thoughts I cling to like my life depends on them. Anytime we find our opinions rigid and unmoving, anytime we are dog-certain that we are right, it is a good idea to think again.
One of my favorite theological journals and websites is The Christian Century. It offers articles, blogs, and thoughts every two weeks or so on faith and culture. I remember a series they ran a few years ago that featured well-known theologians. The series was called, “How My Mind Has Changed.” I don’t even remember the topics covered, but it impressed me so very much that there was a public forum where public people would admit that over time their opinions and thought had changed. These people are faithful Christians who believe that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but they also believe that we have limited vision on this side of paradise.
The issue of race and religion is a classic example of the way Christians have allowed their minds to be transformed over the generations. There was a point in our American history where many Christians interpreted the Bible in ways that supported slavery. Their opinions were so fixed that they willingly went to war to maintain their perspective. Late in the 18th century, however, American Methodists began to hear God’s voice whispering a different message. This led them to question the pro-slavery stance of the church, and Methodists became some of the driving Christian voices in human rights and abolition. Are we 21st century Christians allowing God to transform our prejudices and assumptions so that we begin to look like Jesus who ate with sinners and touched outcasts whoever they are?
The God of Jesus Christ is big. Just when I think I know what I am to do, who I am to be, where I am to go, who I am to associate with, I receive a new revelation from God. When I mention mind-changing maturity, I am not suggesting that all perspectives are equally valid or healthy. Paul tells us that the mark of a divinely-led open-minded thought is one that builds up the body, does not cause division or confusion. The church of the open mind invites people to discern the will of God again and again and again for the sake of unity. Both as individuals and as a whole congregation we are called to let God’s voice speak into our lives, we are to let Christ’s mind inform our mind. In October, I will be leading the ministry teams of our church in some strategic thinking. I will be inviting people from every area of our church – missions, education, men’s ministry, UMW, caring ministry – to come out on either the 7th or the 10th to begin the work of listening for the voice of God for this church. The process I propose is expected to help us put our own opinions and agendas on hold for a bit and to allow the Bigger Voice of God, the mind of Christ to shape our minds. Instead of quickly jumping to answers, the Church of the Open Mind sits with the questions for a bit: “What if we…?” “What would God have us do?”
I appreciate the following story from Max Lucado’s book A Gentle Thunder: Hearing God Through the Storm.
Once there was a man who dared God to speak.
"Burn the bush like you did for Moses, God and I will follow.
Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua, God and I will fight.
Still the waves like you did on Galilee, God and I will listen."
And so the man went and sat by a bush, near a wall close to the sea and waited for God to speak.
And God heard the man , So God answered.
He sent fire, not for the bush, but for a church.
He brought down a wall, not of brick, but of sin.
He stilled a storm, not of the sea, but of a soul.
And God waited for the man to respond.
And he waited ...
And waited ...
And waited...
But because the man was looking at bushes, not hearts; bricks, not lives; seas and not souls, he decided that God had done nothing.
Finally he looked at God and asked, "Have you lost your power?"
And God looked at him and said, "Have you lost your hearing?"

I know that people in this church can have good hearing and good sight, and an open mind to discern the will of God. We must stop, look, and listen. And as we come together in a few moments to take communion, I invite you to use this time to listen and to ponder God’s work in your life, God’s work in this church. Is God asking you to put down your wall of defenses and to confess a sin? Is God opening your mind to rethink some great prejudice you have been holding? Is God asking this church to re-think church – to imagine a community of radical forgiveness and grace for all God’s people? Is God asking us to quit simply going through the church motions, but to grow deep roots, thirsty for learning, yearning for knowledge of Scripture?
At the very end of your sermon notes, you have the chance to finish this message for yourself. Where is God nudging you? Where is your mind being cracked open a bit? What prejudice is being challenged? What long-held conviction is being questioned?
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
May God’s will be your destiny. May God’s will be our goal.