Chris Campbell

“Harden not your hearts, as your forebears did in the wilderness”

Beloved in the body of Christ,

I found today’s readings are ones which strike at one of the greatest and most dangerous aspects of mankind: our ego. This part of us hides our true selves from others and our own minds. It is the ego of which the psalmist speaks when he says: “I had almost tripped and fallen; Because I envied the proud and saw the prosperity of the wicked”. For the ego is the part of us bound to this world. It is from the ego that our pride and envy sprout into the thorny vines which encase and harden our hearts, separating us from love.

I often find it difficult not to listen to my ego, to see those who I deem unworthy of good things receive them all while feeling that “In vain have I kept my heart clean, and washed my hands in innocence.” But it is here that I know I have strayed from the way by looking for pleasures of the flesh. For as the psalmist reveals “Surely, you set them in slippery places; you cast them down in ruin.” For it is in earthly things that our ego is concerned, and it is in the longing of those things that our egos work to harden our hearts.

As such, it is not on earth that we must look for solace, not because there is none to be found here, but because the joy on earth is, by its nature, fleeting. It is only in God that true eternity rests, and so to find an everlasting and fulfilled happiness we must direct our attention fully towards God. Then, as the psalmist says “having you I desire nothing upon earth. Though my flesh and my heart should waste away, God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

This act of turning our attention towards God requires, as Paul describes in his letter to the Romans, the circumcision of our hearts, to bear open our hearts to God and to ourselves. For, hidden beneath the thorny vines bread from our egos lies our true self—that for which God loves us and that for which we should both love each other and ourselves. Further, in this act, we cannot look to this world for validation, for as Paul states “Such a person receives praise not from others but from God.” And we should understand that to search for any such validation is an act that will feed the ego, that wayward seed in our hearts which leads us not to God but to oblivion. “‘This people are wayward in their hearts; they do not know my ways.’ So I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter into my rest.’"

So now, as we near what seems the end of a long and lonely affliction, I ask you to join me in attempting not to look forward towards the pleasures that come from earthly communion and gathering, but instead let us gather ourselves and find communion with God within us. For affliction is given not as punishment, just as plenty is not given as reward, both are trials from which we must grow. So let us use this time of isolation to meditate and pray, turn inward and circumcise our hearts, so that when we return to the world we do so stripped of ego, without pride or envy, only our true selves with God.

May you live in Truth, Peace, and Love,
Chris Campbell