Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Something Old, Something New …"

Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34

Well, in just one week our Old Testament readings

have leaped forward over four hundred years,

and as you might guess,

the scene has changed just a bit.

Two weeks ago we heard God

give the Ten Commandments to Moses,

assuming, of course, that he would pass them along to the rest.

Last week we heard that wonderful, weird story

about snakes biting people in the wilderness

and a bronze serpent on a pole

that would keep you from dying of snakebite.

Wouldn’t keep you from getting bit,

just from dying of it …

All of that was somewhere around 1000 B.C.

The Hebrew people were wandering the wilderness,

sort of a loose gathering of families and tribes.

No homes, just tents.

No agriculture, no flocks or herds,

just manna and quails,

courtesy of God.

But now, well,

by the time Jeremiah and his prophesying days come around,

it’s quite a different world.

The Hebrew people have had a succession of covenants,

or agreements, with God …

starting before Moses,

going through the laws given through him,

through a covenant with David as king.

The wandering people have settled down and become a nation;

many of them cultivate the land,

others live in cities.

The people have gone from having no leadership,

to having tribal leaders called judges,

to having kings, to having bad kings.

A huge and elegant Temple has been built;

the king has a magnificent palace.

And then as the result of a kingly quarrel,

they have split into two nations.

The northern one, Israel, has already been overrun by the Assyrians,

more than 120 years before Jeremiah’s time.

And the southern kingdom, Judah, is in trouble.

When Jeremiah begins his ministry,

the southern kingdom is in danger

of overthrow by the Babylonians.

And he is a prophet of doom,

threatening the people on God’s behalf with all kinds of dire consequences

if they don’t clean up their act.

By the time we get to chapter 31, which we heard a few minutes ago,

it’s all over.

The people are in exile.

Their king and other key leaders are dead.

And now Jeremiah must speak a different message.

Now the reason for the exile

had everything to do with the covenant,

or more specifically, with covenant-breaking.

And you could argue about whether God

engineered the whole thing,

or simply permitted it to happen . . .

But either way, the prophets clearly believed,

and the people came to understand it as well,

that they had lost their promised land

because they had neglected their covenant with God.

God had been faithful, but they had not.

They had tried to hedge their bets

by worshipping other gods.

They had ignored the needs of the poor

and the strangers in their midst.

They had put their trust in kings and alliances

and military might,

and not in the promises of God.

So, the exile.

A time of pain, uprootedness, homelessness.

And in the midst of that terrible trauma,

Jeremiah’s message changes.

You might say it modulates

from a minor to a major key.

The time for castigation and threats is over;

now it is time to talk about a new beginning.

"Behold," God tells Jeremiah to say,

"behold, the days are coming

when I will make a new covenant with Israel and Judah."

It won’t be like that old covenant;

they’ve proven that they can’t live by that.

There won’t be any more stone tablets

or meticulously-copied scrolls of laws.

Instead, my law will be within them,

written on their hearts.

Then they truly can be my people.

just as I am really their God.

You may remember that when we have talked about "covenant" in the past,

we learned that in the Hebrew language

you don’t "make" a covenant;

you "cut" a covenant?

With Jeremiah’s words here,

it sounds like God is saying,

instead of cutting my covenant into stone,

I will engrave it on my people’s hearts.

A marvelous image.

No longer will the covenant be something outside ourselves,

an external yardstick or checklist

to measure ourselves against.

The covenant will be within us,

second-nature, habit,

however you want to think about it.

Try this analogy on for size:

When you were first learning to drive a car,

didn’t it seem rather complicated?

Where do my hands go,

where do my feet go,

what order do I do things in,

aak! It’s raining! Where are the wipers?

But once you’ve learned, it’s so automatic

that, now, if you had to teach someone else,

you’d really have to stop and think.

This crosses my mind occasionally

switching back and forth between my usual car and my antique,

because after 25 years of driving a stick shift,

I’m no longer automatic with an automatic transmission!

With the Mazda, I just get in and go.

When I get behind the wheel of the Bucik,

I really have to stop and think for a minute:

what do I do first, what do I do next;

no, left foot, do not move!

For me, driving the classic car

is like the covenant with Moses, last week.

There are certain rules, certain ways to do things,

and I know them, but they’re not routine.

I have to think through the process, and how to do it.

With my daily drive,

it’s like the new covenant Jeremiah is describing.

I don’t have to think about it.

It’s habit; it’s engraved on my brain,

heart, autonomic nervous system.

It’s just . . . natural.

Easy.

Which is how God wants the covenant to be for us.

Think about that.

We tend to believe that God makes things really tough,

easy for us to fail or fall short.

Somewhere, many of us got the idea

that God wants to see us mess up,

and deliberately makes things too hard for us to do.

But in looking at the covenant,

and the history of our relationship with God,

we continue to find just the opposite.

That every time God has revised, or restated,

or otherwise tinkered with the covenant,

it has been for our benefit.

To make it easier to understand,

by spelling things out more clearly;

or easier to live,

like what Jeremiah is suggesting.

After all, the covenant is for our benefit;

we need God more than God needs us!

Time and again through the Old Testament,

from Noah to Abraham to Moses to now,

we see God being very creative – and patient –

in building a relationship with us.

And that’s a reminder we need,

especially in times when we become

too self-condemning.

On the other hand,

while we ought not condemn ourselves,

we do need always to examine ourselves.

Traditionally, Lent is the season of the church year

in which we most focus on that.

And it seem to me that this image from Jeremiah

gives us a helpful way to do it.

We are, after all,

the people of the new covenant.

Christ has come, and died,

and been raised for us.

But perhaps we need to ask, every now and then,

how close am I

to living the new covenant?

Is God’s word engraved on my heart?

Do I do the right things,

not because someone said I had to,

but because that’s just the way I am?

Do I avoid doing things that are harmful or wrong,

not because there’s a rule somewhere that says "Thou shalt not,"

but because it wouldn’t even occur to me to do that thing?

Do I often have to stop and think hard:

what would God want me to do?

or does it seem to come pretty naturally?

Of course, for all of us

there are days and there are other days . . . !

But –

does it seem easier now than a few years ago, at least?

Does doing God’s will seem more like a habit

than it once did?

Do you feel you know God

better than you have in the past?

If so, you’re on the right path!

The promise is sure –

Jeremiah spoke it first,

Jesus has sealed it.

We are God’s people,

now and always.

God’s covenant is written, engraved in our hearts,

if we will just uncover it

and let it direct us.

God never lets us go.

Not back then,

not now,

not ever.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

© 2006 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)