Begin with the Heart.

Where, then, shall we begin? Begin with the heart.  Any effort to grow that by-passes the heart is in danger of losing its way.  To try to circumnavigate the heart is not the way of incarnation.  To search for God apart from the   centre of human emotion is to seriously misunderstand what little we know of the Christian mystery.  To place God’s  heart over against the human heart is to get it wrong from the beginning.  There is a story about God’s desire to play hide-and- seek with human beings.  Having discussed all the possible hiding places with his angels – in the caverns of the depths of the ocean, behind the glaciers in the mists of the distant mountains, in a deep crater, he cried, ‘I will hide in the human heart.  No one will think of looking for me there.’ Few have.

In our efforts to grow holy and wholesome, it is not difficult to get confused.  Our impetuous hearts so quickly find trouble. Discerning the truth of what allures us is no easy option.  Counterfeit beauty beckons on all sides. But of this I’m sure – any simplistic decision based on a preference for the ‘spiritual’ over the   ‘material’ is fatally flawed. The mystery of incarnation signalled the end to such dualism.  The human is now the gateway to the divine.  The life of the heart is the life of the soul. ‘It is on the flesh,’ wrote Tertullian, ‘that salvation hinges.’

And so, this morning, I ponder.  Is there a way in which what appears to be a distraction from God becomes a way to God’s very heart? What I  mean is this.  We often see the love of others as a counter-attraction to God.  We struggle with this dilemma – is this or that person coming in the way of my relationship with God? As usual, I have a choice here.  A dualistic understanding of incarnation would lead me to see each love, human and divine, as separate and ‘over against’ each other. This is a deep-seated attitude that many church people never lose. But when I see the love of those who hold me close, as God’s incarnate love blessing me with enriching, tangible life, how simple it all becomes.  The mystery of salvation becomes more wonderful, not because of its complications but because of its profound simplicity.  We let God be God in us, not by cutting off our connections with creation and creatures but by recognising the divine source and substance of created love.

Somewhere here lies the uniqueness of Christian revelation.  It is a dramatic paradigm shift.  What we once perceived as one thing, shifts into another form.  Have you ever walked along a country road on a misty night-fall, your footsteps cushioned by the fog? Ahead of you is the silent dim figure of a stooped old man standing by the fog. As you slowly approach, your anxiety evaporates at the revelation that the shape is really that of a leaning bush, hunched in stillness. Can you recall the precise moment of changed perception, the timeless instant of recognition, the disclosure of reality? So it was for me this morning.  The hearts I anxiously perceived in the fog of ambiguous and contrasting allurements as threats to my growing, I now rejoice over as lovely, touching incarnations of divine infatuation.

I began to see more clearly now that my prayer would not be about moving away from human relationships to find the divine. I would try, instead, to be fully involved in all dimensions of this exciting human condition with its network of relationships, but to do it in such a way as to recognise the potential for fallenness in our flawed humanity and not to deny its need for purification. There is a cynical dualism lurking in all our hearts which refuses to accept the obvious implication of the incarnation for finding the way to God. Because the vibrant humanness of Jesus led him to drink deeply of his incarnate condition, burning with a passion for the possible until this passion inexorably drew him through the darkness of a certain Friday into freedom, so too with us.  It is in the whole-hearted grasping of our humanity, not in its denial, that the way through God is revealed.  ‘O God of human hearts, forgive me for not learning your first lesson taught to us in the mystery of the sacred, human heart of Jesus.’

  Passion for the Possible.