My guess is that I’m not the only young person to have ever heard, “You’ve got to put your heart into it.” Whether swimming or homework or piano lessons or football – we’re never at our best until we put our hearts into it. But then again, that concept doesn’t change throughout life, does it? To truly excel at anything, to truly live up to our potential, to truly be all that we can be – it takes all that we have to give – including pouring our hearts into it. Going through the motions is just not enough. Even wanting to do well is not enough. Even working hard at it is not enough.

The same is true of our lives as Christians. Millions of Christians go through the motions and some do it extraordinarily well – they show up at church, they serve on committees, they put money in the collection plate, they are friendly at coffee hour. Outwardly they do all they’re supposed to do and all they’re expected to do. Millions of Christians want to do their best, want to serve Christ faithfully, want to be good people.

But when all is said and done, these good folks are not living up to their potential as Christians and these well-intentioned people are not becoming all that God has truly designed them to become – because they’ve given Christ their allegiance but they haven’t given Christ their hearts.

In a large sense, that’s what the reading from 1 Corinthians is all about. Paul is trying to explain to the Corinthians, who are accustomed to Roman culture and attracted by the permissiveness of Roman society that in the Christian life, you can’t say one thing and turn around and do another. You can’t give Christian life the nod on Sunday and then go out and do what you want on Monday.

By the way, to get an idea of what society was like at this point in Roman times, you don’t have to think far back or far away. Instead, think “Access Hollywood”, “Entertainment Tonight”, “The Bachelor”, or “The Bachelorette.” Roman culture became over the years a morally decadent culture, one in which to pursue one’s own pleasures was the highest good. Sound in any way familiar? But perhaps that’s another sermon altogether…

What Paul is trying to explain to the Christians in Corinth is that Christianity is a religion of the head AND the body AND the heart. What we profess to believe we must practice through our actions. The love we bear Christ we must bear to others as well. What we do on Sundays we need to carry into our Mondays. “Anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” Those are the words Paul uses in his argument. And Paul uses the image of our bodies as a temple of the Holy Spirit within us to remind us that Christ claims not just our minds, but our bodies and souls as well. Our Book of Common Prayer uses these poetic and powerful words to express it: “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee…”
I believe with all my heart that Christianity is first and foremost a religion of the heart. “What is the bottom line?” Jesus is asked at one point in his ministry. The rich young man asks Jesus: “What is the essence of all we need to know about God and ourselves?” And Jesus’ answer comes, not surprisingly, from scripture: the bottom line is that we are to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is the basis of our ethics - our framework of virtues and values – as they are to be practiced at home, at work, in our responsibilities and obligations as citizens and in our commitment to and membership in the community of St. Andrew’s. Those are the rules of life and of all relationships, as we are to practice them. Jesus tells us that what matters most is the giving of our hearts – to God and to each other.

I have some questions, then, for you today. Have you given your heart to Jesus? Are you putting your heart into the practice of your religion? Are you passionate about loving God and loving your neighbor? Are loving God and loving your neighbor the highest and most important values for you?

I can tell you that when you do those things, and even when you begin to contemplate these things, life changes. We find we can live with the faults and failings of others because, with Christ in our hearts, we have the capacity to forgive others their faults and failings. Life changes because we find we have a new understanding of what it means to be a member of the church. With Christ in our hearts, we have the capacity to desire the best for everyone and the best for our common future.

Life changes because we find we are challenged to do more for our church, give more to our church, and sacrifice more for our church. With Christ in our hearts, we have a passion for serving the common good of our church family.

You and I are members of the body of Christ. We hold up values and virtues and a system of ethics to the world that is different from what the world has on offer. Instead of living only to ourselves, as the world claims we should, we live for God and for each other. Instead of pursuing our own pleasures, we serve God by sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others. Instead of seeking what we’ve got coming to us, we love God by sharing what we’ve been given with others.

God desires all we have to give him – our hearts, our souls, our minds, our bodies. He calls us, just like he called the young boy Samuel. If we’re listening, we answer as Samuel answered: “Here am I.” He sees us, just like Jesus sees Philip and tells him: “Follow me.” I hope that in our prayers today, we are hearing God’s call to us. I hope that in our worship today, we are hearing Jesus urging us to follow him. I hope that in our communion with Christ today, we bring to him all that we are and all that we have – our selves, our souls, and bodies.

And I hope that in our worship today, we will once more hand over our hearts to Jesus, recognizing that loving him with all that we have and all that we are is the nearest and dearest desire of God’s own heart.