Trinity 10

There is a famous novel with the title, “The Heart of the Matter”. It has been made into films and deals with love and the deceit of self and others. – A story all too familiar, as it is an eternal theme.

Somewhere the line, “The heart of the matter is the heart,” appears – whether in the novel or about the novel, I don’t know, but that epigram speaks to the way we conduct our lives. Something is at the heart, at the very core, which guides us or induces us to certain ends. The heart of the matter is the very present in which we find ourselves with all of our hopes and fears. I think the heart infuses all our activity.

The psychologist, Viktor Frankl, lived through life in concentration camps in Europe during WWII, and found that there is a heart which can help us solve the problem of life, the universe and everything. He said that there was something profound which was guiding each person in the camps just for survival. That survival instinct drove people to some wicked acts on the one hand and some sublimely good acts on the other.

There at the heart of the matter was the principle of life, what Jesus calls life in all its fullness. That core value when grasped with purity, e.g. when it is not degraded by selfishness, leads to humanity plain and simple. Our being human is at our heart.

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ Did they hear him? Peter asks to wall to Jesus, and begins on his way. However, he was distracted from that call to take heart, he heard the wind howling. Peter became afraid, and he began to sink.

All of a sudden he took heart and called upon Jesus, ‘Lord, save me.’ He caught hold of his very self and was taken up by the hand of Jesus. At the same time Jesus castigated poor Peter. ‘Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ Peter had lost heart, hadn’t he? – Jesus was telling him that he doubted his own heart.

What a condemnation! This is a much more serious failing than what happened later, when Peter heard the cock crow the third time. However, it is of a piece with this story. Peter is not centred in himself, focussed on the necessary of his life, his human being.

I think we have all been in the same position – perhaps even every day. Don’t we recognise our failure to “Take heart!”? We are always falling into fear, and that fear can take many different guises in the course of our lives. As children, we are afraid of the dark. As teenagers, we are afraid of being left out of the crowd which has hogged all our attention. As young professionals, we are afraid of not accomplishing those goals that are placed ahead of us in our working lives. As middle-age approaches we are afraid that we will lose all that status we believe we have built up in the course of our lives.

But have we? As an old man, I am terrified that I have lost my heart. I have been so busy chasing the goals others have presented me that I am attenuated to one dimension as the philosopher described, and as Frankl feared for his fellow inmates in the concentration camp.

So many have grasped other things and let fear determine the heart of their lives. They have forgotten themselves in listening to all the voices screaming in the wind as they try to walk on the water of their very fragile lives. I think that is why Peter failed. He was distracted by something other than his heart, something other than his very real self which calls in a still, small voice at the heart of our lives.

Jesus called to Peter, “Take heart! It is I – do not be afraid.” I would like to believe the voice of Jesus is our very real self revealing itself to us. Instead of listening to the disparate, desperate voices of other people, we should be hearkening to ourselves, to that very core which is the heart of the matter – our own hearts. If we did listen to that heart, would we be deceitful in our dealings with others, or, more importantly, would we delude ourselves about what is really important and necessary in our lives? Would we be afraid at all?

We have all been in storms and been buffeted by winds we cannot track. It is too easy to roll with those punches, isn’t it? But is it right? Do we really want to give up our lives to things which are not at the heart of our lives?

This disjunction of self and others, this fundamental dichotomy, is what drives us. We know what we are fundamentally, but we are with others in such a profound way that we may not see that those others are setting the scenes of our lives. We are being manipulated as if they matter, and only they matter, those chattering voices on the howling wind. But the wind never sounds in the stillness of our hearts.

That is what we must recover. That is what Jesus is telling us when he asks us to “Take heart!” He is presenting us to ourselves when he says, “It is I!” Nothing else matters in that moment when we see Jesus there on the water and we have the heart to stride out toward him, because that is our true destiny. We want to stand on the water, on the edge of the abyss, on the cliff above a raging sea, to cling on to our heart and never be afraid – never to let go …

Unless, of course, we lose heart and any sense of self, or perhaps we might have grabbed hold of a false self presented by one of those voices in our ears, distracting us from that voice of calm which confirms itself in the turmoil of life in spite of everything. I think many have lost heart. Many listen to the fear which rises around them, as everyone has done throughout our lives. We may not have committed wickedness, but our hands are not a lily-white as they were when we were born, when there was silence and infinite possibility reigned, when the courses of our lives did not seem to be fixed.

Now we have done things of which we should heartily be ashamed. We need to confess – to God, but especially to ourselves – that we are sinners, and in that realm of conscience we should take heart. We should not be afraid of anything except it be the I which Jesus reveals.

“It is I!” Jesus declares as he calls to us in the midst of the raging sea. We are being called to ourselves, our hearts are being revived and revealed. We are to take up out heart, aren’t we? We are not to be afraid of anything or anyone except failing to be our very selves. I think the only fear we should have is that of losing the confidence of walking on the water of life toward Jesus in the midst of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We are destined to walk on water, if only we “Take Heart!”

Amen