Parse, Proclaim and Praise
In Marilynne Robinson’s latest novel, “Home” daughter Glory remembers her father standing tall in the pulpit, “Parsing the heart of man; praising the heart of Christ.”
That little quote struck me as I listened to audio version on my way back from Pinckneyville this week. Parsing the heart of man is the first job of the preacher when he ponders, prepares and finally steps into the pulpit to preach. In Lutheran parlance that is preaching the law. Actually, I find it easier to parse the heart than to parse a sentence; though recently I have discovered that I will need at least another forty two years to plumb the depths of the human heart. I gave up parsing sentences a long time ago.
Father Tim Kavanagh, now age 70, in Jan Karon’s novel, “Home to Holly Springs” is reflecting on his life and faith as he visits his family plot in the cemetery.
“He had struggled for years to get it right-struggled to experience the joy, the peace, the sense of oneness with the One who was born for him, gave himself for him, and in so doing, offered Timothy Kavanagh the supernatural gift of eternal life.
He genuinely believed in this One, had even been ordained as a priest (Episcopal) in his service, and yet, in all the long years of his faith since childhood, he had never deeply, viscerally known the warmth and protection of the divinely unconditional, even tender love about which he had heard and read so much. He had trembled to think he was a fraud.”
I wonder how many of us would also confess just such a struggle. That’s why I think we need to add something between parsing the heart of man and praising the heart of Christ. Week after week, better yet; day after day we need the proclamation of Christ’s forgiveness and salvation. Luther has it right, “not by my own reason or strength…but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel.”
Psalm 136 often grows repetitious with its refrain, “for his steadfast love endures forever.” However, God’s steadfast love in Christ is the reason we are able to move on from parsing the heart of man to praising the heart of Christ. For those times when we can’t know the warmth and protection of Christ’s unconditional love; that unconditional love is still present for us.
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