I am sure that many of you have referred to people as being cold hearted or even at some point maybe stone hearted or similar derogatory phrases. In referring to people like this it is more often the case than not that the person being so referred to has an attitude that is selfish. In other words the person has only a concern for themselves. In the New Testament, Christ refers to such a person as being lost (John 20:25) rather than safe and in comfort. The feeling of lostness seems to indicate here a bereftness of community and out on their own in a wilderness or desert. It is a feeling of coldness and hardness brought about by the circumstances of their lives and perhaps more to the point the decisions that they have made with the resulting consequences.
In some ways when we become cold-hearted it is as much about what we are taught as about anything else. Often people are taught by those around them as to how to act and how to behave. This can perhaps be seen most clearly in the recent highlighting of sexual abuse within the workplace and the ongoing consequences of such abuse in all of our lives. In a recent article this attitudinal teaching was highlighted as to how we perceive ourselves and others particularly when it revolves around the question of sex. What is interesting about this article is that it highlights to a certain extent our own attitudes towards life not just sex. We, to a certain extent, play with life in general. Our growing up and attitudes to our children come round the corner and bite us in later years. Our play or lack thereof or improperly setting boundaries at an early stage and in an appropriate manner often lead to later issues with regards respect of community or the other. In many ways we play out our childhood life through adulthood and into the senility of old age, especially if such childhood has enabled the denigration of others without appropriate parental and community guidance.
So, in a manner of speaking we need a heart transplant. Something that removes the toxic hearts that we have inherited over the years as a result of tolerating the degeneration of cultural norms towards selfishness rather than community. In Jeremiah (31:11-34) tells precisely this story towards a new heart within the community. Perhaps what it takes is not as easy as it seems for this day and age. I say this because we can see the lack of sympathy and repentance that is generated in our leadership, not only recently in politics but also over the years in the Church Universal. It takes the concerted effort of returning and turning towards God's love to generate an understanding of our own unwillingness to allow ourselves to drop our ingrained prejudices against the other, no matter who they maybe. It is in the Lenten journey that we see the fullness of our unwitting foolishness and seek the covenant of God's love which comes through the events of the cross.
In love God creates the transplant that we are awaiting in our hearts. We begin again by turning away from our selves and softening the hardness that has rejected the other within the community or communities to which we belong. God asks the appropriate question "How long will you waiver, my wayward child?" (Jer 31:22). Indeed, perhaps shockingly for some, God goes on to commend the woman to do what the world struggles with, through the manifestation of its patriarchal call, to "play the man's part" (Jer. 31:22). God created in partnership and yet we have devolved into thinking that we can undertake our promises to God by going it alone without God and without the other. God's covenant is to make our hearts the container within which God's laws are written. In placing the law within our hearts God creates a binding that is greater than a simple commandment. The covenant that we have in place is the one that Christ follows which is a vessel of love not of coldness. We need to let our cold hearts die so that the warmth of God's love can live. A warmth that honours all and welcomes the other as part of ourselves.
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