Hearing God's Heart Sounds

(Icon photo from OrthodoxPhotos.com)

John 13:23:

"One of his disciples--the one whom Jesus loved--was reclining next to him."

Now, for whatever reason, many pieces of religious art--like this icon--tend to portray the beloved disciple with his head on Jesus' chest, although the verse specifically does not allude to it. We got to briefly discussing that in my EfM class tonight. Someone had mentioned liking the image of "hearing God's heartbeat."

My mind immediately took me back to my training days, when we medical students would strain to learn new heart murmurs. Learning these was nowhere near as high-tech as today's medical students get, with all sorts of simulators available. We had a few poor quality audio tapes and live patients, and that was about it. Woe betide the poor patient who showed up with a discernible murmur--it was a sure bet 15 or 20 medical students would line up to listen to it. Mercifully, most patients were pretty good sports about it, and some even liked the attention--to be a part of a young doctor's learning.

So without a doubt, pictures like the one above make me think of the art of listening to heart sounds.

I knew from the beginning that I was not destined for cardiology, because my ability to hear subtle heart murmurs was not exactly one of my strong suits. Yet I remember the process of trying to actually hear them. So many times, I had to close my eyes to hear them. Intuitively, that made no sense. You don't have to see someone's chest to hear through a stethoscope. Yet it seemed removing all distractions and hearing them in the dark space behind my eyelids helped more than all the practice tapes ever did. It's so easy to be distracted when trying to listen to God's heartbeat, isn't it?

Then the next thought that crossed my mind was that all those sounds I listened for in patients were pathologic sounds--the sounds of disease. What would it be like to hear a heartbeat so clean, so pure, it was perfection itself? Would we be in awe of its perfection, or would be only notice the "absence of disease?" What is the distinctive sound of the heart of God, beating in our ears?

Then I thought about those patients that enjoyed letting me hear their heart murmurs. I realize part of it was that they simply enjoyed being noticed, and being touched. They liked knowing that someone would walk out of the room, wiser for the session, and would go out and recognize it again in another patient, perhaps an undiagnosed one. How did Jesus feel, knowing he was contributing to the education of his disciple? How did he feel, knowing to some degree what lay ahead for him? Perhaps he was no different than those patients--it simply felt good to have hands laid upon him and feel the nearness of the disciples head to him. Perhaps he mused a nearly impossible question--how does a head understand a heart?

Finally, what changed for the beloved disciple after he heard God's heart in his ears? What changes for us when we hear God's heartbeat?

Oh, beloved disciple--if only we could hear what you got to hear!

Thomas, no doubter is he!

(Andrea del Verrocchio's Christ and St. Thomas (1464-1483) at the Orsanmichele of Florence, Italy, Photo taken by Samuel Maddox, Canon PowerShot S330, via Wikipedia)

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

It's that time of the year again...the time of the year I lean back in my pew and see how Thomas is going to be portrayed in the homily. It has been a minority number of years that, in my opinion, he gets a break. I don't deny I have a "thing" about how Thomas gets portrayed in the "easy" way out, just as I have a "thing" about how Peter too frequently gets portrayed as a dim-witted oaf. Most of my life, so much of what I hear and read about this passage, at the very least, makes him a doubter, and at worst, makes him a near-disbeliever. Thomas gets a bad rap.

I read and hear the passage, and invariably think to himself, "Well, of COURSE I would stick my hand in there, too, you betcha!" After all, I AM a pathologist. I'd be pushing Thomas out of the way and going, "You had your turn, it's MY turn now!"

History has left "who Thomas was," in terms of his occupation other than "Apostle," a mystery. I like to think he must have had some kind of job where it was important for him to do "hands on" work--maybe a ceramics worker, or a carpenter, or a farmer/rancher. I always wonder if before he started hanging out with Jesus, he made a living with his hands and his job required sensory feedback to do the job right.

On the contrary, Thomas had to be a man of great faith, in my mind, for one simple reason. Dead bodies are ritually unclean. To touch a dead body equals "unclean x 7 days." Those days after the crucifixion and during the Resurrection had to be a time when what anyone close to Jesus needed most of all was the touch of each other. No one in Jesus' inner circle would have wanted to put him or herself into a ritually unclean state willingly. So for Thomas to do what he did in the story, it actually shows the strength of his belief, not his disbelief. It means his inner being knew Jesus was alive.

Actually, I think the story is in John to illustrate something that is very deep and basic in all of us--our desire to touch God in some way that is not just "in our head" and not just "in our heart," but "in our hands." It's no different than when we go forward for the Sacrament on the days we just want to feel the bread in our hand, and hold the cup, and eat and drink the substance of Christ. Not one bit. It's no different than when those of us who like to serve on the altar feel when we realize we LIKE holding the cross aloft, or hold the Gospel book for the priest, or take up the offering, or bring the bread and wine forward. It's no different than when we like to make repairs on the church building, or serve in a soup kitchen, or hold the hand of someone in prayer. We are wanting to feel the touch of Jesus' self on our hands, and we are hoping, that if somehow it is in us at the moment, that others can feel it through our hands. Many of us love to "touch the holy stuff," and truthfully, we like it when the holy stuff touches us back.

Sometimes, when I meditate on this passage, I start with "I wonder what Thomas felt in there, when he shoved his hand in Christ's wound." At first I sort of laugh to myself, "Maybe he really got to feel a spleen." (Inside medical joke: One of the hardest things to actually palpate on the abdominal physical exam is a spleen. Only about 10% of healthy people have a palpable spleen, so if you're feeling a spleen on the abdominal exam, odds on that person is ill from something or another.)

But once I can get past my own inside joke, my thoughts turn to the thought, "What does Jesus feel like, if you shove your hand up to the wrist in him?"I imagine Thomas' hand, not so much feeling a "thing" per se, but feeling a light and a warmth. Or, horror of horrors, what if something grabbed on to his hand in there? He might have yanked his hand out in a hurry there, eh? Well...truth is we kind of do that, when we actually do feel Christ's touch upon us. It sort of scares us. It may freak us out a bit. We might get those old "I'm unworthy," thoughts. We get touched by something so pure and clean, we jump back and declare ourselves unclean.

That's when we have to realize God touched US. It was HIS choice. He doesn't care about your self-declared uncleanliness. He wanted to do it. We didn't get grabby and profane God somehow. We didn't do anything wrong. You reached in, and he actively took hold of our hand. All we have to do is hold still, and feel it.

Truthfully, I think Jesus wants us to stick our hands into his wounds. After all, he invited Thomas to do it. Just don't pull back if you happen to feel something in there!

The fig tree gets another chance My Tattoo My love

 Luke My Tattoo My love

Luke 13:1-9

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ²He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? ³No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. ⁴Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

⁶Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

The synoptic Gospels all have a "fig tree" story. Matthew and Mark have Jesus cursing the fig tree, and essentially the ultimate result being it withering. (Fig trees just can't handle the Jesus Glare.) But Luke's story becomes a parable about a gardener rather than a story about a rather capricious act performed by Jesus. Chances are, the Matthew/Mark versions have some degree of allegory in them anyway. Several scholars have pointed out that these stories occur in the week before Passover, as part of the prelude to the Passion, and that figs are not ripe that time of year in that region of the world anyway. In that light, Jesus wanting figs from a tree that is not in the season that bears them makes no sense. It is very likely that the fig tree symbolizes a larger entity--perhaps the temple, perhaps Israel, perhaps the priests who are in cahoots with Rome.


But the Luke story is unique in that the fig tree gets another chance. It gets a year of manure. Oh, how easy life would be if a little dung cured everything, right? That would make some parts of our lives a literal plant nursery!


My mind went to an odd place with this text this morning. I sometimes cringe at the trite bits of (mostly fundamental) Christianity on some people's status updates. Don't get me wrong--I like "faith based status updates" of all religious ilks--but I like the ones that challenge me, make me think. I try to do that myself. It's the ones that look like a Hallmark Card that bug me, or the ones that reduce God down to "The Cosmic Coke Machine" where you put your prayer quarters in, punch the button that says "Coke," and out comes a Coke, that irk me.


The one that gave me the urps today was when someone had alluded to something rough going on in their life, and one of their Facebook friends reminded them that "God doesn't give us what we can't handle."


Ugh. I just really want to slap the computer when people trot that one out.


God, I believe, does not have a need to entertain Himself by testing us with difficulty to "see how we'll do." I just don't buy it. In my mind, the crap that happens to all of us is simply part of original sin. My concept of original sin is that it is simply the knowledge of good and evil, and our awareness and pain that we know what suffering is, or what an "impossible choice" is, or what feeling what being separated from God somehow is like. Only a capricious, cruel, masochistic God would do such things. The pain of the world is simply "just there." It is what makes up the stuff of the world. Our relationship with God is not as a "no pain, no gain" fitness coach.

Luke My Tattoo My love

But back to how this fits into the fig tree. What happens to the fig tree, when it looks a little puny? The gardener and the owner give it one more chance. Something is put around it, that most of the time, we do not consider a desired substance--manure. Dung. Waste. What's left after we used up all the nutritional stuff in food. I've never met a single farm person that stepped in a cow pie and said, "Woo Hoo! I'm sure glad I stepped in THAT!"



Dung is basically not a good thing when we are talking about humans. It, at best, is a nuisance (as anyone with a plugged up toilet will tell you), and at worst, spreads pestilence and disease if you have too much of it piled up around you. But for plants, a little dung is a good thing. Plants thrive with a little manure spread around them. In the case of the fig tree, the manure is a form of hope. A revived fig tree will make figs, and figs ARE good for us. So in that sense, something bad for us, in another context, can eventually work to our good. But the "bad" has to break down a while. In the case of the manure, a fresh cow pie, sheep pellet, or donkey briquette is not useful at all, but dried up ones are. The waste has to age and morph a little.


This is the crux of, in my mind, how bad things work towards good. Yes, at the time they are happening to us, they are devastating, demoralizing, and frankly, hurt like hell. But time changes them. When they have been changed by time and the elements they become less toxic, and even if they don't directly contribute to our growth, have the potential to contribute to SOME kind of growth, and the result of that growth can touch me. I believe LOTS of things can be handed to me that "I can't handle." But I do not believe they are handed to me by God. They are handed to me by the simple brokenness of the world. I do believe, however, that given time and awareness, God can show me where the nutrients are in them.

Luke My Tattoo My love