“A New Covenant”
Dr. Matthew S. Brown
“Just as I have loved you,
you also should love one another.”
You know you didn’t do
it. You may publicly proclaim the purity
of your intentions, the diligence of your efforts, your commitment to the
cause, but when listening ears are absent, you must confess your neglect. You know you didn’t do it. You said that you would and may have later
said that you did, but you know you didn’t.
You did not wear your
galoshes. You did not wait thirty
minutes after eating to jump into the pool.
You did not look both ways before you crossed the street. You did not remove your hard soled shoes
before walking on the gym floor. You did
not come to a full stop at the stop sign.
You did not write your mother.
You did not recycle the soda bottle.
You did not flush... or lift the seat... or wash your hands. You did not slow down with the scissors in
your hand. You did not say please, thank
you, sir, ma’am, or excuse me. You did
not raise your hand before interrupting.
You did not swallow the nachos before speaking.
Any protestations of
innocence would be met with skepticism.
Tell me you “did” and borrowing the phrase of our household’s young
hip-hoppin’ arbiter of trendy lingo, I’d be tempted to retort, “O no you
di-unt!”
Somewhere along the way a
covenant was made with Mom or Dad or Aunt Claire to heed those basic rules made
for your own good and the welfare of all.
And somewhere along the way the clock, the deadline, the inconvenience,
the gnawing urge, the sudden cessation of brain activity led you to break those
rules and therefore that covenant. The
covenant was not broken with malice. You
would not deny that those rules were for your benefit, but benefit lost the war
with convenience, welfare lost the battle with impulse.
We come from a long line of
covenant breakers. History is littered
with good intentions unraveled and promises sundered. Ask the Native Americans or just ask your
momma.
A covenant is a relationship
between parties - wife and husband, ruler and ruled, parent and child, nation
and neighbor, Creator and created in which each party voluntarily agrees to
certain conditions of the relationship and offers his or her word to uphold
it.
Theologian Van Harvey tells
us that covenant provides the central analogy in the Old Testament for the bond
between Yahweh and
However, the Old Testament
avoids this, for the most part, by focusing on covenant as the gracious act of
a merciful God who chooses or “elects” Israel whether they deserved it or not,
whether they asked for it or not.
We are mistaken when we make
The law of the Covenant, its
most pure form found in the ten commandments was a gift - a gift for our
protection, a gift to guide us in the way of healthy relationship. Love God, love neighbor. Limit your worship to the one who made
you. Honor the one who birthed you. Don’t steal.
Don’t kill. Don’t look with envy
on your neighbors. If you truly step
back and look at them, you can understand the Lord’s encouragement in
Deut.. “Be careful to heed all these
words which I command you, that it may go well with you...”
The laws of the covenant
served as parameters within which we could find space to breathe.
Think about parking lots, not
those modern expanses equipped with signs, arrows, and strange speed limits
(speed limit - 13 miles an hour - What’s with that?). No, I’m talking about an old fashioned
parking lot. You’re driving across the
relatively unmarked lot and find yourself crossing the path of another car
headed in a different direction. You
both slow to a stop and sit there in sort of an anxious standoff, not knowing
the proper etiquette, not wanting to seem inconsiderate, not wanting a
sculpture made of your bumper. And yet,
a few moments later, if you manage to get out of the parking lot, you’re
cruising down the highway going sixty feeling no anxiety at all as you pass
within a few inches of a car driving sixty in the opposite direction.
And what is it that makes the
difference? Just a little striped
line. A law was passed, stripes were
painted, and your life on the road was made a little easier, a little less
anxious.
In the same way the law of
the covenant was given as a gift in order that life could go well for us. Worship and rest on the Sabbath - we need
that. Do not covet - it just creates
misery. The law of the covenant was a
gift, but so often the gift received comes to be regarded as more burden than
blessing, like the grapefruit your uncle sends you at Christmas, like the
sweater your aunt sent for your birthday.
I know grapefruit is good for
me. I know this special package of
Instead of seeing the law as
a parameter to protect we see it as the obligation that binds, the fence
against which we grate, those irritating rules we just can’t seem to keep.
It is to this situation that
Jeremiah, who has spoken so many hard, unflattering and despairing truths,
speaks a word of hope.
“The days are surely coming,
says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of
But this is the covenant I
will make... 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.”
What a word of hope for a
time of seeming hopelessness! At this
point in
“Yes, you messed up, but
good. And you are losing a great
deal. But my love will not, cannot let
you go. We’ll try it again and this time
I will write the gift that is the law on your hearts.”
Do you hear what Jeremiah is
saying? God will tattoo our hearts with
the capacity for love and faithfulness.
God himself will inspire in us the desire to love the Lord and love our
neighbor.
Reading this text with New
Testament eyes, we understand the promise to be fulfilled in the spirit of
Christ working faith in us. Jesus said,
“Just as I have loved you... love one another.”
Through Christ, with Christ
God creates the capacity and inspires the desire in us to love, to care, to
act, to refrain, to give and forgive.
When something in you spurs
you to offer of word of healing instead of insult, that is the heart claimed
and autographed by God that is prompting you.
When something in you leads
you to regard the needs of your neighbor before your own, that is the heart
claimed and autographed by God that is prompting you.
The seminary professor Donald
Mcleod once shared this poignant story with the congregants of Duke
Chapel. One day on a playground in
Boston some boys were teasing another boy who they knew attended Sunday School
and whose shoes were broken through at the toes and heels (You have to pay
extra for that now, but then it was a sign of poverty). And so the other boys taunted him. “If God really loves you, why doesn’t he take
care of you? Why doesn’t he tell someone
to buy you a pair of shoes?” And the
boy answered, “I suppose he does tell somebody, but they just aren’t
listening.” (Sermons from Duke Chapel)
When we finally start
listening, when something in you challenges you to pay closer attention to the
plight of the world’s poor and to commit to being a part of the solution
instead of being a carping, self-righteous part of the problem, that is the
heart claimed and autographed by God that is prompting you.
When something sparks in you
a love and a need for worship, for the scriptures, for learning, for spiritual
growth, that is the heart claimed and autographed by God that is prompting
you.
O, yes, covenants are still
broken and we still chafe against any and all rules promulgated for our own
good. The final fulfillment of God’s
kingdom in Christ is yet to come. But
here and there, now and then we surprise even ourselves with the desire and the
will to do the good. And when we do, be
not proud, but look up and look in, giving thanks that God has written himself
into you, onto your heart. Amen.
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