"A New Covenant" (given 3/22/15)

            I  learned a new word while I was preparing this sermon. I thought I pretty well knew my way around the English language, but this is a new one on me--"Jeremiad".   Jere- ah- my- add

            Have you ever heard it? It means a doleful or thunderous denunciation. If you've ever read the book of the Prophet Jeremiah, the origin of the word is crystal clear. If you've never read Jeremiah, then perhaps you saw the cartoon that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, portraying a latter day prophet carrying a sign which read:

            Repent! (If you have already repented, please disregard this notice.)

            That’s Jeremiah! The role of a-prophet is to denounce sin and wrong-doing. There was literally nothing in Judah or in Israel that needed denouncing, that the Prophet Jeremiah didn't denounce. 

            He denounced the clergy for being phonies. He denounced the people for following them. He denounced the rich for exploiting the poor. He denounced the poor for deserving no better. He denounced extra-marital affairs and marriages without love. He denounced the political alliances and machinations of the king. He denounced Israel and he denounced Judah. He denounced the way the people would go traipsing off after every new fertility cult that came down the pike.

            Right on the steps of Solomon's Temple, Jeremiah denounced the empty and automatic way that people made sacrifices to God--all show and no respect. When some of the faithless people took to indulging in human sacrifice, Jeremiah had the courage to show up at one of their secret ceremonies with a clay pot, which he smashed to show them what the Holy God of Israel had in mind for them in repayment for this terrible sin. 

            Jeremiah even went so far as to denounce God for saddling him with such a pack of idiots and degenerate hyenas to preach to.

            You have deceived me!" He screamed shaking his fist at the heavens.

But it was okay. God took it. God will after all, always take our anger.

            Jeremiah's problems began when people got to the point where they wouldn't take it anymore.  When Jeremiah told them that the Babylonians were about to invade their land and destroy the nation for its sins, a mob worked him over and tossed him in jail.  

            Sure enough, the Babylonians did show up in 587 BCE. And the invaders did in fact, destroy the Temple and carry off all the golden ornaments and furnishings. At that point, Jeremiah had the sheer chutzpah to denounce the people once again! He told them that since the invasion was God's judgment, the wisest thing they could do was to meekly submit to the conqueror.

            Nobody likes the kind of prophet who crows, "I told you so." So this time the mob tossed Jeremiah down the nearest cistern. Lucky for him it was dry. But he sank into the muck up to his armpits and remained there until a passing Ethiopian threw down a rope and hauled Jeremiah up out of the well.

            The sad truth is that’s pretty much always the way we human beings treat our prophets—from Jeremiah in the pit to Dr. King in Birmingham Jail. The really crazy thing about Jeremiah though, was that somehow or other, he would always bounce back. At his lowest point, he went beyond poor old Job, and cursed the day of his birth. But Jeremiah never ultimately abandoned hope. After he was fished out of that muddy well, he preached that the people should not abandon the land, but should remain there, waiting for God to return the captives and restore the nation.

            In the depths of his rejection, sitting in jail waiting for the invading Babylonian army, he purchased some real estate as a sign of his faith in the future.  In that prison cell, he composed a series of prophecies of hope and faith in God's restoration that have come to be known as the little book of comfort--chapters 30 through 32 of the Book of Jeremiah.

            This morning's First Reading comes from that book of comfort. Among the things that the Babylonians carried off in their invasion was the original Ark of the Covenant. Many in Israel believed that the Ark still housed the actual stone tablets on which God had carved the Ten Commandments, carried down the side of Mt. Sinai by Moses.

            The people despaired. If the land was lost and Temple of Solomon destroyed, wasn't it a sure sign that God had abandoned Israel for her sins? If the actual, physical, carved-in- stone commandments were lost, wasn't it a sign that the Covenant between God, and God's people was to be no more?

            Perhaps anticipating this, Jeremiah points in his prophecy, to a time to come when the laws of God should no longer be carved in stone, but rather, lived out in the lives of the people, the will of the nation. Jeremiah points to a new covenant, which will not have to be taught. Jeremiah points to a time to come when no one will have to police anyone or urge anyone else to obey the law—a time when no one person needs to stand as an intermediary between human beings and their Maker.

            Jeremiah points to a new covenant-- not only between God and Israel, not only between God and priests, or ministers on behalf of the people. Jeremiah points to a new and eternal covenant between God and all men and women.

            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 one another 'Know the Holy One' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says our God. For I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.

            Centuries later, the early Christian who authored the Letter to the Hebrews read those words and realized that old thundering Jeremiah was not only pointing to the restoration of the Temple and of Israel that would come some seventy years later. Neither was Jeremiah only pointing to some future apocalyptic or utopian theocracy that would come into being in the last days.

            The author of the Letter to the Hebrews realized that in this prophecy of a new covenant, Jeremiah had been pointing to a specific moment, a once and forever final act of mediation for the sins of the world. God had already intervened in history through the life and ministry of a specific man-- Jesus Christ.  Through His sacrifice for the world on the cross, the new covenant has now been written upon the hearts of men and women.

            "..and having been made perfect, (Jesus) became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him, having been designated by God a high priest."

            Christians  down through the ages have read these words and known that both Jeremiah and the author of Hebrews are pointing to the Living Covenant of Jesus Christ, the only mediator, the only high priest between God and humanity.  Christians understand Him to be the living covenant of love between God and all of humankind.  This reading is an unqualified announcement of universal salvation.  It is the only explicit reference in the Old Testament to the New Testament, which of course is the record of that New Covenant.

            At the center of every human life is the place where we make our decisions, direct our living and being in the world. There reside our deepest emotions, our noblest thoughts and highest ideals, our feelings, our drives, our loves, our loyalties, our commitments. At this innermost place in each one of us, all of the traits and roles and experiences—both positive and negative-- that go to make us each into who we uniquely are-- connect. At this center, we organize and direct our lives. Within this center, seeds of change and growth are planted and grow and blossom. The Bible sometimes locates this command and control center, in he bowels, or gut. But most of the time, the Bible refers to this center of who we are as the heart.

            The human heart is where the new covenant that Jeremiah pointed to has been written. In the deepest hearts of the people of God.  This new covenant doesn’t reside on stone tablets, nor in the holy of holies in the Temple. But here-- at each one’s personal holy of holies-- the very core of our being. 

            The newness was-- and is a special gift.  The people Israel understood the human heart to be much more than just the organ that pumps blood. For them, the heart is the seat of the will, the center of the individual human life. So the gift from God to us is a will with the ability to remain faithful.

            We may talk about letting our conscience be our guide, or trusting our guts, or following our intuition, or living the life of the mind. But the truth is, it is the will that decides and the human heart that rules the will. In order for you and me to live abundantly, fully, happily--we need that balancing, organizing, guiding center.  Otherwise all those competing forces with our lives would literally tear us apart.  Like the sun surrounded by planets, all the other parts of our life must orbit that directing center we call the heart.

            But if the heart directs the will, who directs the heart? How shall the heart decide? Each heart, each individual human life was created to be a distinct and unique self, as well as a self in relationship. The human heart was created for communion with its own kind, and for communion with God. Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in thee." wrote Augustine some 1600 years ago.

            I will put my covenant within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

            In this new covenant, once you and I have given ourselves to our Maker, we can act in communion with God without having to lose the struggle with our old sinful natures. The struggles will still be there—but the power we so desperately need to conquer them will be available through God’s own Holy Spirit.  When the Spriit of the Living God is truly known in our hearts, that relationship affects and transforms everything else about us. When our hearts are made new, there is a natural and spontaneous obedience to our Maker's will. 

            The message of hope that Jeremiah brings to us is that there can be a transformed world, when everyday men and women can come at last to know and respond to their God through transformed hearts. Helen Keller wrote that         "...the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."

            What are the laws then, that our Maker has written upon our hearts? What is the nature of the covenant it that you and I can feel only with our hearts? All of the commentaries and laws of Moses?  Just the Ten Commandments? The Gospels?  The answer is all of them, and none.  Just these words suffice. "I am yours, and you are mine." That is the language of love and faithfulness. That is what God’s Spirit will carve within our hearts.

            The heart is the center of our life—our very being. At the center of each heart, there is a place for God and for God alone--who loves us and cherishes us and cares for us--more than we can love one another, or ourselves, or even imagine. Sisters and brothers, our God is calling each of us to open our lives and our innmost hearts to that new covenant of love. We need only ask.

            Let us pray.

            Write your law of love upon our hearts, Creator. We pray that all we do and all we are, might be reflections of the love we have received through our great High Priest Jesus, and of the gifts with which you have graced us.  Amen.