Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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"…so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, (and) what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints." The focus here is on hope, and on the inheritance. But, reading it this time, I was intrigued by the opening phrase, seemingly, a throw-away "…with the eyes of your heart enlightened."

Most of us were raised with the idea that sound science is based on sound observation, and (the unspoken assumption was) that if ten, or a hundred, reasonable men and women would observe the same object (and not let their emotions get in the way) they would all perceive exactly the same thing. Today we know it's not that simple. We bring to our seeing what we expect to see. We block out what we cannot allow ourselves to face. Reality is "out there" but it is also "in here." The eye is a dumb camera. It records meaningless colors and shapes. It sends signals (electrical impulses) to the brain, and the brain untangles those signals, and gives them meaning. Then, and only then, do we see. If we understand that, we can begin to understand what Paul means when he refers to the "eyes of the heart." This glorious inheritance available to us in Jesus Christ, he says (faith, hope, love), cannot be seen with the physical eye. It has to be perceived "with the eyes of the heart." And when it is, we see the riches of it, "the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…." There is another world here, a spiritual world, where ordinary perception (ordinary seeing, and hearing, and touching, and smelling) doesn't work It's the world Jesus called "The Kingdom of God." We access it differently. We get to it, not through our senses, but through our hearts. From the beginning, non-Christians have observed Christian behavior and scratched their heads: Why would someone die for his faith? You can't see faith, or touch it, or hear it. Why would someone give away what he owned? Why would someone waste time caring for those who can never get well? Because we see things differently. We are seeing things not through the eyes of the head but through heart eyes. Mother Theresa would remind visitors to her clinic in Calcutta that Jesus had said, "In as much as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." And then she would ask them to hold up their hands. She would say, "See, the Gospel is written on your fingers." You-Did-It-To-Me. That is a different world, isn't it? That's perceiving things in an altogether different way. We don't see the beggar. We don't see the hungry child. We don't see the dying woman. We see Jesus. And we treat them as we would treat him. We don't consider their merit. We consider his merit.

With the eyes of our hearts we perceive spiritual values, which all too often are at odds with the values of this world. People of the world, who view things through ordinary eyes, will advocate values which are self-serving: work hard, save your money, collect things, things make you happy. We live in a world where there is lots of money, but where people, with so many options open to them, seem to be choosing values that are sillier and sillier. The right tennis shoes. The right exercise machine. The latest game or gadget. Gadgets become status symbols. I have a cell phone, and I use it. But I was amused to read one writer who imagined two people on cell phones, walking down different streets, talking to each other, and wondered what would happen if, while they were talking, their would run into each other. Would they would stop and talk to each other face to face, or just keep on walking, more comfortable with a phone between them? People who see the world through heart eyes will adhere to different values: compassion, sacrifice, love (not Hollywood love - that's for the eyes of the head -- but sacrificial love, love that makes us vulnerable, love that costs, and sometimes costs dearly). Today is a wonderful and happy day in the life of Oak Chapel. Today we consecrate our new building, which is the culmination of a fifty-year dream. For decades we have worked towards this day. From the beginning, if we had looked at this project only through the eyes of our heads, we would never have started. Too many pitfalls. Too much risk. The eyes of our heads make us afraid. But, thank God, our people looked at it through the eyes of their hearts. They saw the need. They saw the expanded and updated ministries we could offer, in Jesus name, to this community. They saw the thousands of men and women and children who will by blessed by the presence of this facility. The eyes of the heart give us courage. And we put our hand into the hand of God, and stepped off. Or, as the old spiritual said, we put our hand to the plow and didn't look back.

Now we will need heart eyes to imagine new and different ministries (which are possible with the additional space). Seeing the world only through physical eyes, we say, "Let's not try new things. Let's stick to the tried and true." But, the eyes of our hearts see opportunities, possibilities. Not what is, but what might be. The same thing applies to our beloved mortgage, by the way. Physical eyes will see only the burden - the principle and the interest rate. But the eyes of the heart will see God at work, enabling us to pay off our debt ahead of schedule, and to move on to the next phase of our Master Plan.

When the eyes of our hearts are open, as Paul says in Ephesians, we can see the riches of our inheritance in Christ "and the immeasurable greatness of his power…" Spiritual eyes see spiritual things. But they also transform the physical things of this world into spiritual things, they consecrate the every-day. They make the ordinary holy. In a ship's anchor they see hope, in a little lamb the see the Lamb of God, in a river they see baptism, in a rooster's crowing they seem shame, in a flower they see God's beauty, in a cup of wine they see his blood, and in a loaf of bread his body. The eyes of the heart transform things. Through them we see a rich and wonderful world.