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| 5 Lent 2 April, 2006 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
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This morning, quite appropriately, our lessons bring together themes that we’ve
been looking at through this Lenten Season. And we start with one of the great
lessons in all of scripture – but this is more than just a personal favorite. One writer,
for example, has called these few verses from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah the
“high-water mark of the Old Testament,” and while that’s probably a bit overblown,
this lesson is certainly ONE of the very high points! But to understand it, we have to
remember that our faith is grounded, as no other, in HISTORY! History matters!
We discussed Jeremiah, who was one of the great prophets of the Lord, a couple of
weeks ago. He lived in the Kingdom of Judah at the end of the 7th Century and the
beginning of the 6th Century B.C.E., and began to prophesy in the year 627 B.C.E., in
the City of Jerusalem, continuing right up to his death sometime after 580 – probably
in Egypt.
He was the great prophet of the fall of Jerusalem, and a witness to, at the time, the
worst tragedy ever to befall the descendents of Abraham. But to understand the
tragedy, and Jeremiah’s message, one has to understand more about something I
talked about two weeks ago: the idea of “covenant,” a term basic to understanding
the Bible, and God’s whole relationship with his people!
I’ve told you this, before, but it bears repeating: a “covenant” is a special kind of
contract – a solemn promise made binding by an oath, which can be either a verbal
formula or a symbolic action. The history of God’s dealing with his people, as it’s
presented in the Scriptures that have come down to us, is very much a HISTORY of
covenants!
The first covenant described in the Old Testament view of history is the agreement
God makes with Noah, after the flood, when he promises never again to destroy all
life, and when he sets the rainbow in the sky as the sign of his oath. This first
covenant, again, as I told you when we talked about covenants, is an agreement
between God and ALL the people of the world.
The second covenant God enters into with the patriarch, Abraham, who I spoke about
last week. Something, around – what? four thousand years ago in the narrative? –
God called Abraham and his descendents to serve the Lord, and the Lord, only,
turning their backs on the gods of Abraham’s family and ancestors, and serving only
this NEW Lord who had called him. In return, God promises to make Abraham the
father of a great nation. He requires faithfulness, always, and as the sign of this new
covenant, he makes Abraham and his wife, Sarah, parents in their old age.
But the descendents of Abraham are not always as faithful as they might be, and they
wind up living for a couple of hundred years in Egypt, building pyramids, as
punishment for straying.
But if they’d forgotten the covenant, God had not, and he sends them a savior. With
Moses leading the people out of Egypt, God makes a new covenant. If the people will
be faithful, and follow God’s laws, he will give them the land he had promised to
Abraham, and so – after a generation of wandering – he does, settling them in to that
promised land. The Covenant is between God and the descendents of Abraham – the
Hebrew people – sealed on one side by the new land God gives them, and on the
other by the Law he places over them – the “Ten Words” we discussed two weeks
ago.
But, again, like their ancestors, they don’t do a great job in keeping their part –
rebellious from the beginning! And one of the things they insist on in their rebellion
is a king to protect, guide and lead them. God wants no king but himself, but he
relents, eventually, and gives them, first, Saul, and then David to be their king.
With David he makes a new covenant. This one is not so much a covenant with the
people as it is with David, himself. If David and his descendents will be faithful
servants of God, He will maintain them as king over the people forever!
Looking at David and his descendants, one begins to get the idea that God isn’t very
good at picking the people he wants to covenant with! But, actually, it’s just people –
all people – that are the problem. PEOPLE have trouble keeping their agreements.
PEOPLE go astray.
And so it is with David and his descendents. It’s a struggle with David. It’s even more
of a struggle with David’s son, Solomon. But after Solomon, it all falls apart as the
people reject Solomon’s Son, and the kingdom of David splits after only two kings.
Now there is a northern kingdom, which comes to be called Israel – and later, Samaria
– and a southern kingdom, called Judah, or Judea – whence we eventually get the
word, “Jew.”
For a couple of centuries the two kingdoms exist, uneasily, side by side, never really
getting along; sometimes fighting each other. Two small fish in the large pond of the
Middle East, each sapping the others strength, each at risk to the power politics of
the big boys in the neighborhood.
And onto this stage step the prophets. The prophets were men who felt they were
sent by God to call God’s people back to faithfulness – back to the covenants. They
were unique in all of religious history—there’s never been a phenomenon like them.
They came to both kingdoms, NOT to foretell the future – they were not seers or
magicians or astrologers -- but to announce the necessary, foreseeable
consequences of people’s actions. “The way you are headed,” they said, “lies doom.
You must change your ways, change your direction. You must repent – turn again –
and follow the Lord. You must keep the covenant. You must obey the Law. But if you
don’t – trouble’s coming!”
Of course, nobody’s listening, and, of course, the Prophets were right. The Northern
kingdom, Israel, falls to the Kingdom of Assyria in 721, and exits the stage of history
for ever.
The Southern Kingdom, Judah, makes it another 120 years, but eventually it goes,
too. Conquered by Babylon in 597 – with all its leaders and most of its population
deported – and again in 587, with its remaining leaders killed, the rest of the people
deported, and the city of Jerusalem destroyed!
And it was into this last stage mess that Jeremiah came, calling the people to repent,
trying to avert the tragedy.
Again, it didn’t work. Jeremiah saved himself from the Babylonian captivity – but he
spent his last years in a different exile, in Egypt. But before he died, something
changed. Something changed in HIM; in his understanding.
We don’t know exactly when the verses that comprise today’s lessons were written.
All we really know is they’re different. Different from the usual prophetic utterance.
And we know they promise something new: a NEW covenant!
And remember, now, what we’ve been saying about St. Paul, and reading in his
writings. How he came proclaiming that the Lord Christ, in fulfilling the law, freed us
from the law of the covenant. Freed us from the written law that hangs over our
heads and condemns us. And now see where Jeremiah had told us the same thing!
“Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a NEW COVENANT with
the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their
fathers when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt, my
covenant which they broke, says the Lord.” This will be a new covenant that is NOT
one of rules and regulations, and laws written in stone.
“But this is the covenant which 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 upon their hearts; and I
will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
No longer do we look at the old covenants – the covenants of Noah or Abraham,
Moses or David. No longer do we look at a Book – or at a set of stone tablets – to
learn how to act or what to do. Because the Lord God has written his law within us –
in our hearts – and it’s within our own hearts we need to look. It’s a simple law – the
law of love; the law that tells us we must love the lord our God with all of our heart,
mind and soul, and that we must love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Inscribed
in our hearts, written in the very depths of our being. We are made to be lovers;
called to be lovers; destined to be lovers. Our being, our call and our destiny, written
in our hearts.
You know, we’ve got it easy, as Christians. We’re not called to leave our homes and
travel to a far country to live. We’re not called to wander for years in the desert, to
invade an occupied land and take it over (Iraq, notwithstanding), to serve a king and
to make of ourselves a great nation dedicated to observing the covenant, to return
to our ancestral home and rebuild it with our bare hands. Those were the
requirements of the Old Covenant.
But we are children, not of the OLD Covenant, but of the New – the New Covenant in
Jesus Christ. All WE’RE called to do is to look in our own hearts and find the law God
has written there; look in our own hearts and find the love God has put there. And,
then, to live the love we find there. It’s just as simple as that. And just as hard.
In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
been looking at through this Lenten Season. And we start with one of the great
lessons in all of scripture – but this is more than just a personal favorite. One writer,
for example, has called these few verses from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah the
“high-water mark of the Old Testament,” and while that’s probably a bit overblown,
this lesson is certainly ONE of the very high points! But to understand it, we have to
remember that our faith is grounded, as no other, in HISTORY! History matters!
We discussed Jeremiah, who was one of the great prophets of the Lord, a couple of
weeks ago. He lived in the Kingdom of Judah at the end of the 7th Century and the
beginning of the 6th Century B.C.E., and began to prophesy in the year 627 B.C.E., in
the City of Jerusalem, continuing right up to his death sometime after 580 – probably
in Egypt.
He was the great prophet of the fall of Jerusalem, and a witness to, at the time, the
worst tragedy ever to befall the descendents of Abraham. But to understand the
tragedy, and Jeremiah’s message, one has to understand more about something I
talked about two weeks ago: the idea of “covenant,” a term basic to understanding
the Bible, and God’s whole relationship with his people!
I’ve told you this, before, but it bears repeating: a “covenant” is a special kind of
contract – a solemn promise made binding by an oath, which can be either a verbal
formula or a symbolic action. The history of God’s dealing with his people, as it’s
presented in the Scriptures that have come down to us, is very much a HISTORY of
covenants!
The first covenant described in the Old Testament view of history is the agreement
God makes with Noah, after the flood, when he promises never again to destroy all
life, and when he sets the rainbow in the sky as the sign of his oath. This first
covenant, again, as I told you when we talked about covenants, is an agreement
between God and ALL the people of the world.
The second covenant God enters into with the patriarch, Abraham, who I spoke about
last week. Something, around – what? four thousand years ago in the narrative? –
God called Abraham and his descendents to serve the Lord, and the Lord, only,
turning their backs on the gods of Abraham’s family and ancestors, and serving only
this NEW Lord who had called him. In return, God promises to make Abraham the
father of a great nation. He requires faithfulness, always, and as the sign of this new
covenant, he makes Abraham and his wife, Sarah, parents in their old age.
But the descendents of Abraham are not always as faithful as they might be, and they
wind up living for a couple of hundred years in Egypt, building pyramids, as
punishment for straying.
But if they’d forgotten the covenant, God had not, and he sends them a savior. With
Moses leading the people out of Egypt, God makes a new covenant. If the people will
be faithful, and follow God’s laws, he will give them the land he had promised to
Abraham, and so – after a generation of wandering – he does, settling them in to that
promised land. The Covenant is between God and the descendents of Abraham – the
Hebrew people – sealed on one side by the new land God gives them, and on the
other by the Law he places over them – the “Ten Words” we discussed two weeks
ago.
But, again, like their ancestors, they don’t do a great job in keeping their part –
rebellious from the beginning! And one of the things they insist on in their rebellion
is a king to protect, guide and lead them. God wants no king but himself, but he
relents, eventually, and gives them, first, Saul, and then David to be their king.
With David he makes a new covenant. This one is not so much a covenant with the
people as it is with David, himself. If David and his descendents will be faithful
servants of God, He will maintain them as king over the people forever!
Looking at David and his descendants, one begins to get the idea that God isn’t very
good at picking the people he wants to covenant with! But, actually, it’s just people –
all people – that are the problem. PEOPLE have trouble keeping their agreements.
PEOPLE go astray.
And so it is with David and his descendents. It’s a struggle with David. It’s even more
of a struggle with David’s son, Solomon. But after Solomon, it all falls apart as the
people reject Solomon’s Son, and the kingdom of David splits after only two kings.
Now there is a northern kingdom, which comes to be called Israel – and later, Samaria
– and a southern kingdom, called Judah, or Judea – whence we eventually get the
word, “Jew.”
For a couple of centuries the two kingdoms exist, uneasily, side by side, never really
getting along; sometimes fighting each other. Two small fish in the large pond of the
Middle East, each sapping the others strength, each at risk to the power politics of
the big boys in the neighborhood.
And onto this stage step the prophets. The prophets were men who felt they were
sent by God to call God’s people back to faithfulness – back to the covenants. They
were unique in all of religious history—there’s never been a phenomenon like them.
They came to both kingdoms, NOT to foretell the future – they were not seers or
magicians or astrologers -- but to announce the necessary, foreseeable
consequences of people’s actions. “The way you are headed,” they said, “lies doom.
You must change your ways, change your direction. You must repent – turn again –
and follow the Lord. You must keep the covenant. You must obey the Law. But if you
don’t – trouble’s coming!”
Of course, nobody’s listening, and, of course, the Prophets were right. The Northern
kingdom, Israel, falls to the Kingdom of Assyria in 721, and exits the stage of history
for ever.
The Southern Kingdom, Judah, makes it another 120 years, but eventually it goes,
too. Conquered by Babylon in 597 – with all its leaders and most of its population
deported – and again in 587, with its remaining leaders killed, the rest of the people
deported, and the city of Jerusalem destroyed!
And it was into this last stage mess that Jeremiah came, calling the people to repent,
trying to avert the tragedy.
Again, it didn’t work. Jeremiah saved himself from the Babylonian captivity – but he
spent his last years in a different exile, in Egypt. But before he died, something
changed. Something changed in HIM; in his understanding.
We don’t know exactly when the verses that comprise today’s lessons were written.
All we really know is they’re different. Different from the usual prophetic utterance.
And we know they promise something new: a NEW covenant!
And remember, now, what we’ve been saying about St. Paul, and reading in his
writings. How he came proclaiming that the Lord Christ, in fulfilling the law, freed us
from the law of the covenant. Freed us from the written law that hangs over our
heads and condemns us. And now see where Jeremiah had told us the same thing!
“Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a NEW COVENANT with
the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their
fathers when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt, my
covenant which they broke, says the Lord.” This will be a new covenant that is NOT
one of rules and regulations, and laws written in stone.
“But this is the covenant which 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 upon their hearts; and I
will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
No longer do we look at the old covenants – the covenants of Noah or Abraham,
Moses or David. No longer do we look at a Book – or at a set of stone tablets – to
learn how to act or what to do. Because the Lord God has written his law within us –
in our hearts – and it’s within our own hearts we need to look. It’s a simple law – the
law of love; the law that tells us we must love the lord our God with all of our heart,
mind and soul, and that we must love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Inscribed
in our hearts, written in the very depths of our being. We are made to be lovers;
called to be lovers; destined to be lovers. Our being, our call and our destiny, written
in our hearts.
You know, we’ve got it easy, as Christians. We’re not called to leave our homes and
travel to a far country to live. We’re not called to wander for years in the desert, to
invade an occupied land and take it over (Iraq, notwithstanding), to serve a king and
to make of ourselves a great nation dedicated to observing the covenant, to return
to our ancestral home and rebuild it with our bare hands. Those were the
requirements of the Old Covenant.
But we are children, not of the OLD Covenant, but of the New – the New Covenant in
Jesus Christ. All WE’RE called to do is to look in our own hearts and find the law God
has written there; look in our own hearts and find the love God has put there. And,
then, to live the love we find there. It’s just as simple as that. And just as hard.
In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
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| Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale |
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