it's just like riding a bike

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, June 23, 2013 – Born With a Heart of Flesh

Texts: Psalm 90; Ezekiel 36:22-38; Matthew 18:1-5

Eric Massanari

“it's just like riding a bike”

It's just like riding a bike.

We say this to describe those skills and actions

which, once learned, are never forgotten.

We've practiced them so much

that they've become part of us,

imbedded in the memory of mind and muscle.

These are things that we simply know how to do

without giving them much thought.

For the carpenter, it's the hammering of a nail.

For the guitarist, it's the placement of fingers for a G-major chord.

For the accountant, it's hitting the right buttons on the ten key.

For a surgeon, it's pulling just the right tension on a suture.

It's just like riding a bike...

When you learn to ride a bike you learn

to balance your body on two wheels,

allowing gravity, and centrifugal forces

and the power train of your bone and muscle

to propel you forward.

You do this enough times and then

you simply know how to do it.

You throw a leg over the frame,

sit on the saddle, and go.

It's just like riding a bike...

Sometimes we say this and forget

all it took to learn how to ride a bike!

For most of us, learning to ride a bike

required a lot of practice,

some bumps, bruises and tears,

and a whole lot of courage.

I remember my red Schwinn cruiser bike

with the training wheels I couldn't wait to lose.

I saw my parents and the big kids

speeding around on two wheels

and I couldn't wait to join them.

I remember feeling frustrated

with the time, effort and concentration it took

to figure out how to actually do it.

I remember the thrill of that first trip

down the sidewalk all alone,

after my dad had finally let go of the seat

and stopped running along beside me.

And now, many years later, I get on a bike,

and I just know how to do it—I've got it figured out.

And because it's second nature, I sometimes forget

just what a gift and joy it is to ride a bike!

How easy it is to take such things for granted,

to forget what it took to learn them

and what it was like to be a beginner.

Sometimes it takes losing such an ability

before we realize what a precious gift it was.

It is good and healthy to have something in our lives

that invites us to be a beginner.

Especially in a society that so highly prizes

proficiency, competency, achievement and status,

Being a beginner means laying aside

the inner evaluator and judge

and relearning what it means

to risk, to learn, to be vulnerable, to wonder.

Being a beginner is usually a good lesson in humility.

Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

It is a question of status and expertise.

Who has arrived?

Who has reached the pinnacle

of spiritual realization?

Who is the cream of the crop in God's eyes?

It's a question of judgment, too,

because if there's a greatest

then there must be a lesser,

and then, of course, a least.

So, who's the greatest? 

C'mon, someone's got to be greatest, right?

Jesus invites a nearby child to stand

in the middle of his disciples,

not unlike what we will do today 

as we offer a special dedication and blessing

for children and their parents here in the church.

Jesus draws their attention to the child and says,

“Unless you change and become like children,

you will not even enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Children were of low status in that culture;

they were considered little more than property.

So, the suggestion that his friends

needed to change and grow more child-like

would have been shocking and disorienting.

The implication here is that the gospel

is simply not about status in the eyes of the world.

It has nothing to do with

who is greatest, who is best,

who is most skilled,

who is most handsome, 

who is more popular.

who's "got it goin' on" according to 

the ever-changing standards of status in our culture.

In fact, the gospel of Jesus consistently

frustrates such ways of thinking.

To be concerned with matters such as

who is the greatest, one must spend

energy comparing and judging.

It tends to lead to very me-centered thinking,

leading one to think things such as: 

“Well of course I am the greatest!"

or “I'm the least, I'm no good, I'm worth nothing.”

It means living by comparison,

living by judgment and reaction.

And typically guilt, shame and blame

are close companions to this way of thinking.

Such concern with status has a tendency

to shrink and narrow our worldview,

and it leads to hardened hearts,

because we are usually to be found

carefully protecting something.

The “hardened heart” is an image that

is often used in the Hebrew scriptures

to describe living in this narrow way

of fear, status-seeking, and judgment.

The proud and the self-righteous

characters of the Old Testament

are often described as having “hardened hearts.”

The image suggests that

these are people who have lost a capacity to feel.

They have neglected the love of God,

and they are unwilling to respond

to the pain of their neighbor

with compassionate care.

Ezekiel uses the term to describe

the whole people of Israel.

Speaking to the Israelites on behalf of God,

Ezekiel says:

A new heart I will give you,

and a new spirit I will put within you;

and I will remove from your body the heart of stone

and give you a heart of flesh.

It is a promise of restoration and rebirth.

Everyone is of course born with a heart of flesh.

There's that wonderful heart beating

right inside your chest at this moment,

and it keeps you alive without your 

even giving it a second thought.

In the ancient Hebrew understanding,

the "heart" was the deep center and ground of our being,

it is that place that bears the image of God's own self.

Those ancient ones understood what remains true today:

our hearts can expand and soften,

or they can grow small and harden as we live.

The path our hearts take depends a great deal

on the choices we make as we live this life.

Will our hearts soften and expand?

Will they grow hard and calloused?

Ezekiel's message suggests that it is possible

for a whole people's heart--the heart of a community--

to grow hard and calloused as well.

The call here is very similar to Jesus

calling the disciples to be converted,

and to return to that quality of childhood

that is free from the need to

compare, judge and protect certain images

we hold of ourselves and others.

To live with the humility of a child,

to live with a heart of flesh,

is to live free of illusions of self-grandeur

or illusions of ones worthlessness.

To live with the humility of a child,

to live with a heart of flesh,

is to know our need for God and neighbor.

It is to know that love requires a high

degree of openness to new learning,

and risking, and vulnerability.

One never arrives on the journey of love.

One never gets to be called the greatest, 

or the lesser, 

or the least.

Such terms are meaningless

in the realm of God's love.

Not long ago, I was buying some books

at Eighth Day Bookshop in Wichita.

As often happens, I wound up in a conversation

with the proprietor of the bookshop, Warren Farha.

We were discussing a variety of events in our lives,

and after a pause in the conversation,

Warren simply said, “It's a textured life.”

It's a textured life.

Indeed!

Such incredible textures of living and loving

to be explored and never exhausted in this life!

To follow Christ into this textured life

is to do so with the wonder of a child

who is exploring those textures for the first time.

It means a willingness to be a beginner

over and over again, and having our sense

of awe and wonder constantly renewed.

When we know we don't have it all figured out,

it is much easier for us to welcome

the wisdom and gifts of our sister and brother.

To follow Christ into this textured life

is to live with a heart of flesh,

a heart that is able to expand with greater

and greater inclusivity, rather than constrict with fear,

a heart that is softened by the joy and pain of loving,

rather than growing stony and cold,

a heart that becomes an open channel

in this world for the Love that is God.

Following Christ into this textured life

is like learning to ride a bike,

not just once,

but again and again and again...