A New Covenant
David C. Myers
March 29, 2009
Lent - 5
Baptism
Psalm 51:1 - 17 (as Psalter)
Jeremiah 31:31 - 34
Text: ". . . and I will write it on their hearts; . . ." . . . Jeremiah 31:33
The Disciple Bible Study Program is a wonderful way to read and understand the Bible. The first half of the 34 week study program is spent studying the Old Testament and the Covenant God made with the Hebrew people. It is filled with both wonderful stories of a one-sided remembrance of their history but also one filled with futile attempts to codify the covenant into the many rules of behavior - how to dress, how to eat, how to care for your body, how to interact with one another personally and in society. Overall, it is a great drama, a story described by Dr. Albert Outler "of covenant making and covenant keeping on God's part, and Covenant making and covenant breaking on people's part."
Any parent of children at least 8 years old and older understands this.
We love our kids, and we try to establish guidelines that will keep them safe and healthy. The kids see that as rules and restrictions and they perceive is as a lack of trust. It's hard for a spirit of love to break in when there are so many rules. And so they break the guidelines, we get upset at them, often even punish them because they disobeyed the rules. This is not unlike the Old Testament drama as recorded by the Hebrew people and how they perceived God's actions; but, like God loved the people God created, we still love our children - no matter how trying they may be.
A friend of mine tells the story of growing up. While his parents were away at work, he and his friend decided, at age 8 to redecorate the family's kitchen. They started with paint - many colors of paint. They had just about finished turning the once peaceful Texas kitchen into a kitchen decorated like Joseph's Technicolor dream coat when his mother walked in. She took one look, gasped, took a deeeeeep breath, and said. "Before I say anything else, I want you to know that I love and always will." Then she gave instruction on how to use turpentine.
"I want you to know that I love you and always will."
And so it was with the Hebrew people and their relationship with Yahweh.
God made a number of Covenants with them; saying in effect that God would be their God and they would be God's people. God made a covenant with Noah symbolized by the rainbow. God made one with Abraham. God promised Moses that the Israelites would be delivered out of slavery and into the promised land of milk and honey. And because the Israelites had to spend years wandering in the Sinai dessert before they got back to Israel, they got upset. When they finally get back to their land of milk and honey and have a few good generations and then the people don't pay attention to their values and they start breaking the "rules of the covenants", if you will, and Babylonia conquers them and the exile to Babylon begins.
God keeps the Covenant, people break it.
As we move to Jeremiah we find that Israel is faced with a major crisis. Jeremiah's country, Judah, is overrun by the Babylonians. Many of Judah's leaders are carried into exile. In the light of the covenantal thinking we have just identified, how could these events happen? And what would God do to keep the divine promises?
Jeremiah is very clear why. The community has violated the covenant God made with Moses (see Jer. 2:1-37). They have snuggled up to idols. They have made unholy alliances. They have neglected the poor. The priests have gone along with these practices, and have even pronounced the benediction over such activities. In short, they have broken the rules. . . . Of course, none of that occurs in our times.
But what is new about this covenant that Jeremiah promises? It is the mode of its implementation. The content of the covenant will be much the same as in the past. But it will be new in form. "Remember who you are." "I will be there in the morning." The new Covenant is written on our hearts.
The Psalmist and Great King David knew this. After he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then sent her husband Uriah - one of his commanders - into a battle where David thought Uriah would be killed, David discovered the depth of his sin. And he wrote Psalm 51, our Psalter reading this morning.
"Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love . . . blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." (vs. 1-2)
On Ash Wednesday, and every day since, we, too, need to pray, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity."
God does not give up. God keeps the covenant. God is faithful to us even as God is faithful to Abraham and Sarah, Israel, Jeremiah, Jesus, Paul and the saints. This theme may be very old, but when I am raw with the awareness of my failure as spouse, parent, colleague, teacher, minister, Christian, friend, it is fresh and new. And it touches me in the depths of my heart.
God hears our cry. God comes to restore us, just like any loving parent.
Bill Keane draws the "Family Circus" comic strip. In one of the cartoons the yard is filled with children playing as only children can play. They are yelling, singing, blowing horns, and crying. The dog is barking, a jet flies overhead, and two boys are tossing a baseball back and forth. Another boy is flying a kite, while two others are swinging on a rope from a tree branch.
Inside the house, the mother of one of the children says to her husband with alarm: "Listen! That's PJ crying!" Her ears were conditioned to listen for the sound of his voice, and she heard him above the din.
Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not mine." God speaks when we need to hear. As a people of the covenant, we can hear God's voice.
Sometimes though, we stray along way from the Covenant. You see, while we may think that the rules we make will help us keep the Covenant; they are not God's rules; rather they are our attempts to interpret what it means to fulfill God's rules. And what the Hebrews discovered was what sometimes parents discover. Rules beget rules; and they become very restrictive, and the more restricted we feel, the harder it is to remember the spirit that draws us together in the first place.
Whether intentional or semi-conscious, we stray from our relationship with God, like sheep too interested in grazing on the grass and don't bother to look up to see if they are still with the flock; they get lost. In one confession -based on the words of the prophet Isaiah - the words read, "We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts." It is then we forget God, and plunge into all sorts of trouble. And it gets worse and worse. We hit bottom. Then, like the so-called prodigal son, "we come to ourselves" and want to change our ways. And we call out to God.
John Trotti, longtime librarian of Union Seminary in Richmond, recalls an old mountain tale in which an old man is fishing the bank of a pond. A little boy suddenly jumps into the pond and panics. The little boy thrashes about in the water, crying out, "Help me! Help me!"
The old man continues to sit on the bank and watch his fishing line bob up and down, undisturbed.
The little boy continues to cry out, "Help me!"
Finally, the old man says, "Boy, put down your feet."
The pond is only two or three feet deep. The little boy does so, touches the bottom, and easily walks back to the shore.
Sometimes, when we hit bottom, when we sink down or walk through that dark valley of the shadow of death, that is precisely where we learn to fear no evil, where we discover, maybe for the first time in our lives, the grace of God in Christ.
In Bunyan's immortal Pilgrim's Progress, Pilgrim and Hopeful wade into the river of death in order to cross it. When Pilgrim gets into the water he begins to sink, and he is filled with terror at the prospect of going under the waters.
But Hopeful cries out to him, "Be of good cheer, my brother! My feet have touched the bottom, and it is good."
Today we give thanks to God for the Covenant God has made with us. It is never ending. God keeps the Covenant no matter how often we break it. And no matter how low the bottom is that we hit we can come to realize, "My feet have touched the bottom, and it is good." As David the Psalmist said, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death; I will fear no evil; . . . for Thou art with me."
This Covenant with God is renewed each day. And it is especially renewed this day as we celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism. Today we have some very young Christians coming before us. Their parents will be making some vows that they will bring up their children in the Covenants of God - that God is good; that God is grace and will forgive them; that God covenants with people that make up a safe place in which to grow called the church. And then we will affirm the same Covenants that we have made, reminding us all of God's unending love for us. And then those young persons will be baptized, and become Christians - the very sign that God is good and God's love and Covenant is a free gift that cannot be earned or deserved.
As we go through this ritual, "Remember your baptism, and be thankful!" It is a symbol that God's love for you is endless; and your covenant to faithfully follow God's teachings.