- Sermon - Mickey Anders

"A Brain, A Heart, A Home, The Nerve"

By Dr. Mickey Anders

First Christian Church

Pikeville, Kentucky

June 4, 2006

One of the disadvantages of growing up in a very religious home like I did was that you never knew the end of Sunday night TV movies. When the annual showing of The Wizard Oz came on television every year, I sat through the tornado, saw the house that smashed the wicked witch of the East, and heard the munchkins sing about the yellow brick road. But then just as it got to the exciting parts, my parents announced that it was time for Training Union and Sunday night worship. In spite of all my protests, my parents packed me off to church. I didn't get to see the wizard or learn how Dorothy managed to get back home until I was an adult!

One of my favorite songs in that delightful musical is the one where the scarecrow, the tin man and the lion take turns singing, "If I Only Had…" It's a game that many of us still play today. "If I Only Had…" In the movie, each character had a different need. The scarecrow wanted a brain; the tin man wanted a heart; the lion wanted courage. And through it all Dorothy was looking for a home.

Like us, they were not complete persons. Each one needed something to balance out their personality or their lives. Like us, they seemed to emphasize one part of the personality to the exclusion of another. But it is only when a person develops wholeness that they truly find themselves. Only in wholeness are we at home with ourselves and with God.

Our Scripture passage for today reminded me of the song from the Wizard of Oz. In the text, Jesus makes a reference to the various parts of us in a way very similar to the musical's division of brain, heart, home, and nerve. Jesus says it this way:

"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus has been baited with belligerent questions from the scribes and Pharisees throughout the gospel of Mark. Now one of the scribes approaches Jesus with a question that seems sincere. This scribe is different from the others because he appears to have a sense of respect for Jesus' opinion and insight. "Which commandment is the first of all?" he asks.

The first half of Jesus' reply is not that surprising. He quotes the prayer taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 which is recited every morning and evening by pious Jews. Called the "Shema," it, first, confesses that God is one and that God is in a special relationship with Israel - he is our God. Secondly, the shema demands a profound personal relationship with God. We are to love God with the totality of our being.

It is very instructive to see how Mark's version differs from the original text. In Deuteronomy, we are instructed to love God with all the "heart," "soul," and "might." Here in Mark, Jesus adds "mind" to the mix. Most scholars say that the Hebrews didn't have to mention "mind" because the heart was considered to be the source of emotions AND thought. The heart was both the thinking and feeling organ of the body. But I like the idea that Jesus pointed out specifically that we are to love God with our minds.

Like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, some Christians need to go to God in search of a brain. Some people are all emotion and no brain.

In the Wizard of Oz, the poor scarecrow has no brain, so he wants to meet the wizard and ask for one. As he longs for a brain, he sings:

I once heard a sermon that was well delivered but hardly made any sense at all. As I left that service, I remember thinking to myself the words from the scarecrow, "If he only had a brain." Maybe some folks say that about my sermons.

Some people have what we might call a "heart faith." They are all emotion and no brain. They are so caught up with experiencing God that they don't really think about what they are saying. Their commitment to emotion leaves no room for reason and intelligence.

Some people have a faith that is so filled with platitudes and pat answers that I wonder if they have ever given their faith an independent thought. One minister put it this way, "Christianity is not only for the intellectual elite; but neither is it only a set of pious platitudes for mindless morons" (Thomas R. McKibbens, Jr. Ministers Manual for 1984, p. 110).

I love the definition of theology as "faith seeking understanding." That's what we all need to do - to understand our faith. We need to use our minds.

There has to be some content to our faith. The Bible says, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV). I believe that means we are to give the very best of our minds to God. God doesn't want us to hang up our brains with our hat in the foyer when we enter church. God wants us use the brains that God has given us, and to use them for God's glory.

I have always had the conviction that all truth comes from God. If it is true, then it has to come from God. That means we never have to fear truth. We do not have to fear science or new understanding, because if it is true it comes from God.

Perhaps there are Christians today who need to join the scarecrow in search of a brain. But they need to go to God with their request, and they might rewrite the scarecrow's song like this:

Now at the opposite extreme, there are Christians whose faith is so abstract that they never admit an emotion. They are so afraid of emotion that they foster a religion devoid of heart.

They are just like the tin man, walking around with a body and a voice, but without a heart. They could join him when he sings:

These are the Christians who have so much "head faith" that they don't have any "heart faith." They believe only what can be proven scientifically. They build their theology like a bricklayer carefully stacking one logical postulate upon another so that no new ray of light could possibly break through the impregnable wall of their dogma. They have a reasonable faith, but it's a cold one.

I like the advertising campaign by another denomination that says "God is still speaking." I might add, "The Holy Spirit is still working." God is not static like a brick wall, but dynamic like the wind. We need to be always open to God's direction.

Other folks are so committed to ideas of the mind that they don't have any faith at all. They join philosophers like Nietzsche and Feuerbach, who claimed that religion was merely a crutch for those who lacked faith in pure reason. These people have fallen down before the gods of science and technology and leave no room at all for faith.

Yet there is something wrong, even something unhealthy, with head faith which excludes heart faith. Life is empty without emotion. Reason is useless without an experience of God. When God touches your heart, you become fully alive.

I remember being stunned the first time a friend said to me, "When I have big decisions to make, I lead with my heart." I had never done that. I am the kind of person to make a list of pros and cons and then mentally decide. But there is great wisdom in the advice, "Follow your heart. Be true to your heart."

The increasing popularity of the highly emotional churches like the Pentecostals tell us that our society craves a religion of the heart. Many Christians today need to ask God for a heart. Those Christians might to rewrite the tin man's song this way:

Some Christians have both the heart and the mind, but not the will to do what they know to do. They lack the courage, the nerve, or, as Jesus said, the strength to love God. The word for "might" or "strength" indicates more than muscles; it speaks of an inner source of fortitude. In fact, it is very close to the courage that the cowardly lion searches for when he sings:

Some Christians just need the strength, courage, will and nerve to do what their faith calls them to do. When we know the right things and feel the right things, then we need to do the right things.

One anonymous author put it like this. "I met the strangest man on the way to the church. He said he believed in the Bible, but he never reads it. He said he thought well of the church of which he is a member, but never attends it. He said a person should be honest with God in money matters, but he never tithes. He said the younger generation needs the Lord, but he isn't leading them in that direction. He said the church needs dedicated Christian members, but he isn't one. He said the church should do more in ministering to people, but he doesn't help. He is critical of some of the workers, but he never works. He is critical of the way the church is 'run,' but he never participates. He says the Lord is surely coming, but he lives as though the Lord will never return. He says prayer will change things, but he never prays. He was a strange man, indeed" ["Insincere religion," Dynamic Preaching 14 (4): 22 (Seven Worlds, 310F Simmons Road, Knoxville TN 37922) Oct. 1999. Quoted by Jerry Fuller, PRCL, 10/24/1999].

Such Christians need to ask God for strength, for courage, or, as the lion says, for nerve. They might rewrite the lion's song this way:

I was interested to note that Dorothy never sings a verse of the song about her search for her home. She joins in the song at the end to mention "home," but does not have her own verse.

The word "soul" is a bit of a mysterious term in the Bible. But I would suggest that it is not unfair to define soul as being at home in God, as experiencing the wholeness of life in God.

Our Scripture for today suggests that God is not satisfied with less than the whole of our being, the total sum of what we are. Loving God with our soul means combining the best of loving God with our mind, heart and strength.

If we were to ask for an example of one who combined all this about heart, mind, soul, and strength together, we need look no further than Jesus. In Jesus the thinking mind and the loving heart are combined in their most profound human form.

Jesus heart made him weep at the loss of his friend Lazarus. His loving heart made him care for the wounded people all around him, and he healed them. His heart, broken over the sinfulness of our world, took him to the cross.

But this same Jesus had a mind capable of disputing with the doctors in the temple. He had the strength, the nerve, to persevere in the face of hostility, indifference, and ridicule. Jesus represented the perfect combination of all parts into one magnificent whole.

When God calls us to holiness, we are called to whole-ness. God wants us to have a passionate commitment that unites the best of our heart, our mind, our strength. Only then will we really find our home in God.

In the Wizard of Oz, all four characters join in the song on the last verse and sing:

The whimsical journey of this delightful foursome still touches all of us some sixty years later because it reflects the yearning that each of us has to be complete, to be whole. Jesus summed up all the teaching and the law in wonderfully simple terms, "Love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."