What is written in Your Heart?

Recently we have neen made very aware in various ways and through all types of media about the devastation caused in Vanuatu by Cyclone Pam. We have also been made aware of the resilience of the niVanuatu peple and the joy they exhibit in living. I was taken back to the sights that greeted me when I  visited the Solomon Islands after cyclone Namu in 1986. I learnt then, as I am reminded now of the question asked by God as to where our treasure might be and really what is written on our hearts. It really is a question we need to constantly ask ourselves. Matthew reminds us that, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (6: 21). God speaks an amazing word of intimacy and new relationship through the prophet Jeremiah. No longer is the covenant between God and God’s people one of mere Law— rules and regulations grounded in fear and intimidation. The relationship is no longer carved in stone, written on parchment, hidden in the Holy of Holies— the new covenant is organic, dynamic, and living. The story related throughout Hebrew Scripture is one of covenants made and broken.

 Repeatedly, God reaches out offering to the people of Israel to “be their God, and they shall be my people.” An offer that is there for us today. God makes it; we humans break it— again and again and again. Since the beginning of the Christian era, the covenant rests in Jesus, but the question rises— are we any different to the people of Israel in our response to our God? Even with the grace and reconciliation of the Christ, human beings are still human beings: testing limits, crossing boundaries, taking for granted, and, ultimately, failing to keep covenant. How often do we forget the basics? How regularly are we less than loving, less than kind, less than respectful, and less than generous? How often do we ignore compassion, mercy, sacrifice, and justice in favour of personal comfort, security, enjoyment, and entitlement?

I know at many points in my life I have fallen short of what God calls me to be. And it is at times like this as I hear of what has happened to the niVanuatu I feel the call not to fall short. Remember we are called to have our hearts open for all God’s creation not just in times of crisis. Our written gospel resides most commonly in books—print or digital— not in the muscle of the human heart. Our “good news” is too often external. God’s challenge to us is not that we believe in a book or that we follow a set of teachings. God’s challenge is that we become the very body of Christ— the living embodiment of God’s grace and love. While the heart resides at the core, what is written there is evident for the whole world to see. What is written in your heart?

Certainly, the humanity of Jesus is a significant aspect of our shared faith. We can’t always make Jesus into Superman when he must surmount a difficult obstacle, calling on some sort of magical power not available to the rest of us. What God had Jesus do was hard. Jesus was to be human, to live fully as one of us which meant going through suffering, acknowledging its existence and he must have found himself somewhat reluctant, at times, to carry it forward. Jesus would have known the consequences of living the human life to its fullest and being what God created humanity to be. He would have known that doing this would have bought him into conflict with those exercising a way which was not of God. And, yet, the Saviour is willing to play the part of the kernel of wheat falling to the ground— there is new life yet to come even in the midst of an impending burial.