In the first reading, God says he will be in our hearts. He will not be external. He will not be pages in a book. He will not be rules to memorize. He will be an integral part of us. He will be our hearts. God as an external force is like a business negotiation, with both sides trying to get the better deal at the expense of the other, and the possibility of broken contracts. God says in the past negotiations have broken down, when God was an external force. But now God is an internal force. When God is our hearts, we can ‘think’ like God. We will not have to learn how to know God or have to teach others. We will know God because he is in our hearts. In the Gospel, when God is in his heart, Peter recognizes Jesus’ divinity. But later, he is thinking like a man, not like God. He very humanly wishes that Jesus not suffer and die. He does not want his friend to go through that. He does not want to lose his friend. He is thinking like a human of our earthly limits, rather than thinking like God of the eternal bigger picture. When we see religion as an external construct, we get caught up in earthly logic, and enigmatic puzzles, and dilemmas. When we accept that God is in our hearts, it gets easier. If we let God in our hearts, we can think like God, and we can’t go wrong. |