hard hearts

Today's daily lectionary has some interesting coincidences. In the reading from Exodus, Moses and Aaron are having their first meeting with the original Mr. Hard Hearted, the Pharoah. No matter what they do (as God tells them to) Pharoah just gets his magicians to do the same and his heart stays hard.

In the reading from Mark, the Pharisees are the ones with the hard hearts. They are testing Jesus by asking about divorce, and Jesus points out that it's because of their own hard hearts that Moses wrote laws about divorce. Nevermind what Jesus is doing, their hearts are hard.

What strikes me as the same in these two passages is that both Pharoah and the Pharisees don't want to change things. Their hearts are hard because they are set in their ways and their attitudes. Pharoah because he's got slaves - makes his life easier, softer, more money and power for him. Pharisees because they don't have to care about what happens to the women they divorce. It's not an easy business to be married, and in those days it was beyond easy to divorce and leave the woman without anything - women at that time were considered property and without the protection of family or spouse a woman often only had slavery or prostitution to turn to for a living.

Change isn't easy. I move quite often - that kind of change is easier than heart change. I know - God is always working on me and my attitudes. Heart change! Our heart shows our attitudes. It's far easier to pack and unpack a box than it is to change attitudes.

So what is scripture saying to us today? As humans, it's our tendency to be hard hearted - cynical, selfish, resistant to change, argumentative, and defensive about our actions and attitudes. God calls us to live beyond our tendencies and into our possibilities.

It is through the Spirit that God works in us to change our hard hearts. In Ezekiel, God actually says this twice - that God will take our hearts of stone and replace them with a heart of flesh, an undivided heart that seeks after God and God's ways, which is seen in our actions in worship and in how we treat others.

We're nearing Holy Week - and all through Lent, God has been working on my hard heart and my selfish attitudes. It's not an easy journey through Lent, but with the Spirit's help, my attitudes and my heart just might make it to Easter yet.