Y’all…..Those of you who know me well, or have just hung around with me for more than a hot minute, know that I’m easily confused and not always the sharpest knife in the drawer….  And here lately, I’ve become more befuddled, baffled, and bewildered than I think I ever have.

Ya see, June is the month the catholic (yes, little “c” coz there are more catholic churches than the Roman one)  churches of the world dedicate to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  In fact, 27 June is the Feast Day thereof.  (That’s today, y’all.)  The feast of the Sacred Heart is a day of devotion that especially emphasizes the unmitigated love, compassion, and long-suffering of the heart of Christ towards humanity.  In other words, it’s a day when we recognize, be thankful for, emulate, and show the world what Jesus and His love is all about.  And y’all know how often I preach and teach and rant about those of us who proport to be Christians who are supposed to be showing love….and this confuses me.

Now, I know y’all have seen those pictures of Jesus with his heart hanging out of his chest, complete with arteries and blood and stuff.  Or the ones where his heart is kinda glowing like some super religious valentine.  The bloody yucky ones always creeped me out as a kid, but anyway…………

Fun fact:  Did you know the phrase “bleeding heart” stems directly from this feast?  Atlas Obscura teaches us that before the 20th century, the phrase “bleeding heart” was popular in the religious-tinged oratory of 19th century America. Throughout the 1860s, it comes up often in poetry, essays, and political speeches, as an expression of empathy and emotion. “I come to you with a bleeding heart, honest and sincere motives, desiring to give you some plain thoughts,” said one politician in an 1862 speech. The phrase comes from the religious image of Christ’s wounded heart, which symbolizes his compassion and love.

Today, according to the dictionary, a person who is a “bleeding heart” is a person considered to be dangerously softhearted, typically someone considered too liberal in political beliefs. (Woke, anyone?)  In the 1930s a dude named Westbrook Pegler (Google him) was the first to use the term “bleeding heart” in reference to folks who were protesting lynching…coz he felt there was certainly nothing wrong with hanging random black folks.  Then in the 50s, Joe McCarthy hopped on the “bleeding heart liberal” name calling bandwagon and that’s kinda when the phrase came into common use as a way to crack on, denigrate, and make fun of folks WHO ACTUALLY TRY TO FOLLOW JESUS’S COMMANDMENTS TO LOVE.

And that’s the whole entire reason for my befuddlement.  We hear and read all these “good Christian folks” talking about the evils of immigrants, not helping the homeless, demanding the rights to discriminate against anyone they don’t particularly agree with, outlawing medical care for women and trans folk.  These “good Christian folk” think breaking the law is a good thing as long as it gets them what they want, and they whoop and holler, and celebrate when one of their good Christian politicians say something diametrically opposed to what Jesus stands for.  And then, they use the Bible as a basis for whatever-it-is that they believe, using any scripture they can find EXCEPT the words of Jesus to prove their point.  This makes them even more “Christian.” 

Now, I, personally, don’t believe any of that.  I believe that the words of Jesus (y’all remember those “red letter bibles?) supersedes any other words in da Bible.  I believe that anyone who wrote anything before or after Jesus, no matter what the circumstance, has to be read through the lens of what Jesus taught and did and if it doesn’t follow what Christ taught and did, then it doesn’t count.  And according to those good Christians, things like the Beatitudes no longer apply in the world today coz only “bleeding heart liberals” believe what Jesus said.  I believe that if we are truly followers of Jesus, then we must, most certainly, believe and live and breathe his commandments to love, love, and when yer finished loving, love some more, even if it’s hard, even if we don’t want to, even if it’s not popular, even if it’s dangerous (I mean, Jesus was crucified by the religious people of the day coz they didn’t agree with what he taught.  So there’s that.)

SO…..does this mean that I, and others who believe like me, aren’t Christian?  In its most basic definition, a Christian is someone who is a follower of Jesus Christ.  Now, I know better than most that words and phrases and language itself changes and evolves.  (It was drummed into my head in elementary school that the word “too” is ALWAYS offset with a comma before it.  Today not so much, but that’s a whole ‘nother rant…sorry.)  So, if “Christian” no longer means what it meant when it meant that a Christian follows what Jesus taught, then what the heck am I posta be called regarding my faith?  Is there some new label ain’t nobody told me about? 

Today, I believe more than any other time in recent history, we all of us need to focus on what it means to be truly Christian, to follow that Sacred, Bleeding Heart of Jesus.  Amen.