Jeremiah 31 Lent 5
That's either the score to a boring football game or the text for a sermon.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. . . . 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.
I see two options for preaching this text in a Christian church. The first is to preach about heaven that awaits us at the eschaton when God will be all in all and we will sin no more. The second is to preach the in-breaking of God's Reign -- that Jesus is the new covenant already written on our hearts so that God no longer remembers our sin. This is the truth behind the Lutheran dictum: we are simultaneously saints and sinners. Our sin is real; it doesn't go away. But God remembers our sin no more; seeing instead Jesus within us. Thus God knows God within us.
If you haven't guessed, I plan on taking the second approach in my sermon. I plan to proclaim the gospel of God's Reign so that it shapes our life together. We are in the (neverending) process of transforming our community from one based on a consumer/service-provider model to one that anticipates the fullness of God's Reign.
In my role as Discipleship Coach, this means that I am to equip parents to be the primary apostles and bishops to their children. Faith is formed foremost in the family. No longer will we send our children to "church" so others can teach them about God. Now Christ dwells within our hearts to drive us beyond our selves into God's heart. We see the fruits of his work when our families form our children into followers of Jesus.
The key, I think, for understanding Jeremiah 31 as a proclamation of God's present Reign is to keep in mind Deuteronomy 6. Here Moses presents the commandments to God's people and says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one." This is a strange sentence (the Shemah): God is one. But not so for an exiled people. Their God must have been defeated by the Babylonian god. Otherwise the God of Israel would have protected them. Instead, they hear good news. The Lord your God is one. Your God is not defeated by another. In fact, there is no God but yours. Your God is not confined to some far off place, but rules the entire cosmos even now. Therefore, Deuteronomy 6 goes on to say, "Recite these words to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise" (vv 7-8).
The good news for us is that God rules here and now through Jesus. God is not confined to some far off place, neither heaven nor the church's building or its clergy. It is no accident that the descent of Holy Spirit giving birth to Christ's church on Pentecost occured on the Festival of Shavuoth, the feast celebrating (among other things) the handing down of the law. For Holy Spirit writes Christ's letter of recommendation for the living God on our hearts (2 Cor. 3:1-3). This gift is the law of life in Christ that sets us free (Rom. 8:2).
We are free to see the world as our ruling God sees it: love overcoming hate; peace overcoming war; forgiveness overcoming sin; healing overcoming disease and pain; harmony overcoming divisions. This is not a picture of the world we see apart from Christ dwelling within our hearts. That is why we follow Jesus by forming the daily routines of our household around our awareness of God's Reign. (Many Jews to this day recite the Shemah twice daily.) We talk about God's Reign transforming the world when we eat breakfast, when we drive to school and work, when we bless our dinners, when we bathe our children, when we play together, when we argue, and in all that we do. Every moment is an opportunity to form followers of Jesus. No longer do we teach one another how to follow Jesus when we're old enough to be confirmed. We simply do it.
2 comments:
I highly recommend reading the article in the Christian Century with Bono and Bush on the cover written by Rowan Williams. Here's an excerpt:
The claim of Christian belief...is that by standing in the place of Christ it is possible to live in such intimacy with God that no fear or failure can ever break God's commitment to us, and to live in such a degree of mutual gift and understanding that no human conflict or division need bring us to uncontrollable violence and mutual damage. From here, you can see what you need to see to be at peace with God and with God's creation; and also what you need to be at peace with yourself, acknowledging your need of mercy and re-creation.
yes, yes. Perhaps you caught me in a moment of hyperbole. But can you blame me? If we're guilty of an extreme, we are guilty of parents relying too much on church professionals and volunteers to teach our children about God. Of course, the balance needed is an active partnership between home and church. But the point is not to have such a sharp distinction between "home" and "church". Home is church and church is home. Disciples of Jesus CAN be formed by dropping off your kids at the church's building and picking them up in 90 minutes. I've seen it happen that some kids come alive with passion for Jesus sans parental involvment. But that is the exception to the rule. What I'm trying to do as Discipleship Coach is raise awareness in parents of their vocations as bishops and apostles; equip and train them for their calling. I don't expect them to teach the catechism necesarrily, though Luther did. I don't expect them to teach the theology of communion or doctrine of the Trinity. What I hope is that parents will see the importance of daily rituals, prayer, and conversation in the home -- but especially the importance of mentorring through their own actions. To support parents this way in a society in which meals are eaten in minivans while listening to iPods -- well, I'd say that is a communal endeavor.
Post a Comment