LISTENING TO THE HEART

LISTENING TO THE HEART

Two major deals in one week! Surely that’s good news? Not everyone is happy but the agreements over the Iran nuclear issue and the Greek debt show that months, and even years, of talks can eventually lead to solutions of difficult problems. If, before the end of the year, there are two more major agreements – on the Colombian civil war and climate change – 2015 will have to be hailed as a good year.

What keeps people negotiating week after week deep into the night? There are mixed motives but there is an underlying attraction to “do what is right.” We can dress it up in political words about living in security and peace. That is true too. But this attraction to the good is like the pull of gravity which always exerts itself. The servant songs in Isaiah are about “leading the truth to victory.”

Human beings are drawn this way despite the evil forces that exert counter attractions. I met a group of people this week who are focused on a wonderful project but they are continually harassed by contrary influences. We are told in the gospel of Mark that Jesus wanted a break and invited his disciples to come away for a while to a lonely place where they could be on their own. But people guessed where they were going and hurried there so that when Jesus arrived at his holiday resort he found crowds of people waiting for him. Why? They were so drawn to him, so attracted to him, that they could not do otherwise than seek him out.

I think we have to allow this “attraction” to surface in us. It is like water always finding its level or a cork always floating to the surface. What these negotiators have done, in the face of many counter arguments, is to let the dynamic of achieving the common good emerge. They rose above partisan arguments; they broke down the barriers between divided people, and went for something higher which, in their heart of hearts, they knew was the right thing.

We need an atmosphere for this – a space where people of different opinions genuinely search for common ground. This space does not exist in Zimbabwe. There is no desire to listen to the deep urgings of the human heart in other people. Or if there is a twinge of this there is no will to let that desire surface. So we stay where we are. Those who could start talks for a common way forward are not interested. They are absorbed by their own agenda. Other people don’t matter.     

But God does not “put out the smouldering fire.” If those who make the decisions in our society were to set about poking the embers of that fire they would find a groundswell of good will to greet them.

19 July 2015                                       Sunday 16 B

Jeremiah 23:1-6                                  Ephesians 2:13-18                  Mark 6;30-34