In the name of God, who creates, redeems, and
sustains. Amen.
Here
we are, at the homestretch of Lent 2015. Over the five Sundays of Lent, we’ve
been exploring the theme of covenant and how it impacts our lives and our
faith. The thing to remember is that though the covenant is presented in
different ways, there is still one God and one covenant. Each time the covenant
comes up in Scripture, it is being described by different people, at different
times, in different circumstances. So through the ages, the covenant is
reconsidered, reframed, repurposed, but it remains intact.
The
first covenant that we considered was the covenant that God made with Noah, promising
to never again destroy the earth out of vengeance. Next, God made a covenant
with Abraham and Sarah, promising to bless all the people of the earth through
them. The covenant then takes on the element of the Law which came to define
the people of Israel when it was reconstituted after the Exodus on Mount Sinai
with Moses. Last Sunday, we heard about the Davidic covenant, in which God
established a kingship through David’s line. Today, our focus turns to the idea
of the “new covenant” that is expressed in Jeremiah. It is important to explore
the meaning of this covenant on Jeremiah’s terms before we consider the
association of the covenant to the life and ministry of Jesus.
But
a valid question at this point in our five week exploration of covenant is “so
what?”. You might say, “the covenant is a nice theological concept, and I’ve
enjoyed learning more about it, but what difference does it make?”. You might
even want to go one step further in your questioning: if we believe that God’s
love will redeem all of Creation, then how does faith change anything? Most of
us probably don’t think that God will send people to Hell who have lived good
lives. And we’d also acknowledge that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, or even
atheists are all capable of being good, ethical, loving, generous people. So
why faith? Why bother with the idea of a covenantal relationship? Well, I’m
glad you asked. Let’s dive into the readings and find out.
The
prophet Jeremiah writes about events that took place in the 7th and
6th centuries BCE. You’ll recall that during this time, King Josiah
of Judah instituted many religious reforms that refocused devotion to God. But
his sons who followed him on the throne were not quite so pious. By the year
587, the Babylonian Empire has invaded Jerusalem, sacked the Temple, deported
the aristocracy, and the peasants that remained became foreigners in their own
land. This event is often called the Exile and was seen as divine punishment
for not honoring and following God. Not until King Cyrus of Persia defeats the
Babylonian Empire in 539 does their captivity end.
The
particular section of Jeremiah that we heard from today is referred to as the
Book of Consolation, which encompasses chapters 30-33. In this section of
Jeremiah, the tone of the book shifts from judgment and lament to the hope of
the restoration of Israel. It is the promise of the return of the Davidic kingship.
Consider some of these other passages from this section- “I will restore the
fortunes of my people and bring them back to the land that I gave their fathers”
and “They shall come with weeping, and with compassion I will guide them. I
will lead them to streams of water, by a level road where they will not stumble.”
One scholar has described
the Exile as “the loss of the known world.” The people were lost. Their
religion and faith was built around the Temple, which was nearly 1,000 miles
away and lay in ruins. Their identity as the Chosen People was tied to their
home in the Promised Land, but they didn’t live there anymore. The covenant
which had come to define them, seemed to be broken. The Exile was a crisis of
faith, a crisis of identity, a crisis of existence.
Imagine
that context- the loss of the known world. And then the words come “The days are
surely coming, says the Lord, when
I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” And
this is understood, not so much as a brand new covenant, but rather is about
the revitalization and renewing of the covenant that had guided their ancestors
for generations. And that is an even more hopeful message than a brand new sort
of covenant, it is a return to the steadfast love of God. Each time the
covenant is rearticulated in Scripture, there are deeper layers of meaning
added to it. We’ve seen this progression in the understanding of the covenant
from Noah up to this point. And what becomes new in this covenant is the means
by which it is enacted.
The
methodology has changed. In previous covenants, there were expectations placed
on the people. A few weeks ago when we read the Ten Commandments, I said that
they are more descriptive than they are prescriptive, but they are still meant
to be followed. But here there is a new dimension to the covenant, as the
Prophet conveys “It will not be like the covenant that I made with their
ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-
a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and
I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the
Lord,’ for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their
sin no more.” This covenant is different because God does all of the work. God
renews the covenant and puts the law not on tablets of stone, but within their hearts.
They are forgiven for their sins, and there will no longer be an accounting for
their disobedience. The covenant takes on an even great sense of grace.
And
a part of the grace of this covenant is that we do not earn it. This covenant
becomes unbreakable, as it is not up to us to keep, but rather is kept by the
steadfast love of God. This covenant is written on our hearts, not by our righteousness,
but by God’s grace. Later in Jeremiah, God says “If you could break my covenant
with the day and my covenant with the night, so that the day and night should
not come at their proper time, only then could my covenant with my servant
David be broken.” This is amazing grace. We don’t earn this by getting a
diploma, we don’t deserve it by our actions, it does not become ours through
hard work, or even by asking for it. It is given to us freely. And so this is
the first answer to the question “so what?”. When we pay attention to the
covenant, we come closer to finding the truth of this grace and forgiveness
that is written by God in our hearts.
God
says “I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sins no more.” If that
is true for God, shouldn’t it be true for us? You can let go of sin and guilt. Our
identity is no longer “sinful and broken” but rather “loved and redeemed.” You’ve
made mistakes, so have I. But God has forgiven them. Most of us are our own
harshest critics. We beat ourselves up over our mistakes and lose sleep over our
imperfections. But this grace is the invitation to stop and know that those
things don’t have any power over you, as forgiveness is written on your heart.
And this is also the opportunity to remember that this as true for others as it
is ourselves. We hang onto our resentments as if they were our most cherished
possessions. Who do you need to remember that God has forgiven? Through the
grace of the covenant, we can reset our relationships, just as God did with
Israel.
Of
course, any discussion about grace and covenant leads to the expression of the
covenant in Jesus’ blood. Now, before we get into this passage, I do need to
issue a warning. This passage has been misused and misunderstood for thousands
of years as justification for violence and discrimination against Jews.
Incorrectly, people will say “Jesus institutes a new covenant, meaning the Old
Testament is null, void, and worthless.” But again, “new” does not mean “unprecedented”
as much as it does “reinvigorated” and “recapitulated.” Jesus is a Jewish
Messiah who brings salvation through the Jewish covenant.
Each
week in our liturgy, we refer to a passage from 1 Corinthians: “In the same way Jesus took the cup also,
after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as
often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this
bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” This is
the further growth of the covenant that is written on our hearts. You might
even say that Jesus is the Incarnation of the covenant, so that we can most
fully see and know the love and grace of God on earth as it is in heaven. The phrase
that I want to focus on in this Eucharistic covenant is “in remembrance of me.”
In
the Jewish mindset, “remember” meant much more than “think back.” To remember
is to “make present again.” This is the mystery of the Eucharist: that when we
celebrate the Eucharist, it not just that it feels like Jesus is present, he
actually is present. Now, as Bill
Clinton will tell you, it’s important what the meaning of “is” is, and Eucharistic
theology is another sermon for another day, but the point remains, in the
covenant of Jesus' blood, God becomes present to us. It happened some 2,000
years ago in Palestine, and it continues today around altars all over the world
when we remember the covenant, when we make it new again.
Theologian Jürgen
Moltmann has a wonderful description of the Eucharist- “in the promises, the
hidden future already announces itself and exerts its influence on the present
through the hope it awakens.” That’s a dense sentence, but it speaks to the
idea of covenant as mingling between memory and hope. Jeremiah’s words gave
hope to the people of Israel who had not yet experienced the return from Exile because
they had already experienced this hope in the Exodus. We have not yet
experienced the perfection and end of Creation, but we can anticipate it
hopefully because, through the covenant and the Eucharist, we make present the
salvation of God in the past and get a foretaste of it as it will come again in
the future. And that is powerful, and is the second response to “so what?”. If
you hope for peace on earth, if you yearn for justice and reconciliation, then
the covenant is the way of making new the hope of ages past and anticipating
the hope that is to come.
Jeremiah records that God
says “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me.” In
today’s Gospel reading, some Greeks came to Phillip and said “we want to see
Jesus.” Scripture tells us and we proclaim that Jesus is known to us in the
breaking of the bread. But this is deeper than simply having knowledge. It’s
not that the people simply know about God or that in the Eucharist we get a
lesson about Jesus, it is that we have an intimate relationship our Creator,
Redeemer, and Sustainer.
In the language of the Bible,
to know someone is a very personal claim. In the Bible, Adam knew Eve, and she
conceived. So you might say that Adam got to “know” Eve quite well. And that’s
the thing about “knowing” each other in such an intimate way, it is powerful. The
Bible notes that in “knowing” each other, the two become one flesh. In an
intimate relationship, you can finish each other’s sentences, your love sustains
you in good times and bad. In fact, the phrase “I will be their God, and they
shall be my people” used by God in Jeremiah is the language of a marriage
declaration in ancient Israel. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the covenant
binds us to God, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and
in health. And this is the third response to “so what?”. There exists for each
of us, and for all of us together, an intimate and deep love that the heals us,
redeems us, and supports us. You can go through life as a good and happy
person, but in the covenant, you can attune yourself to the divine love song
that emanates from eternity and calls to you. You can be strengthened and
inspired by the covenant in ways not possible when we are left to our own
devices. Our culture is searching for something. We look for it in self-help
books, in pills, in bottles, in money, in jobs, in food, in hobbies, pleasures,
and possessions. But what you are looking for is found most truly and deeply in
the love in which you were created. And that love is expressed through the
covenant of God that is written on our hearts.
In this covenant, we are
freed from worrying about trying to earn our forgiveness and worth, as they are
given us to us, just waiting to be claimed. Remembering, or making present, the
covenant in the Eucharist allows us to draw on the hope of the past and glimpse
the hope that is yet to come. And the covenant allows us to intimately know the
Love which conquers all of our doubts and fears. In some churches, at this
point in the sermon, I would invite you forward if you want to accept Jesus
into your hearts. That’s not really how we do things in The Episcopal Church.
But we are going to have altar call. I will hold up the bread and the wine, the
body and blood of Christ, and say “the gifts of God for the people of God.”
That is our altar call. It is your invitation to be reaffirmed in the covenant-
to have the amazing grace of God’s love made present among us. So feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving. Amen.
