\u00a0<\/p>\n
October 4, 2009<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Aldred Neufeldt <\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Jeremiah 31:31-40<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Core of the text<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n \u2018\u00a031<\/sup> “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. \u00a032<\/sup> It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to [<\/sup><\/span><\/em>d<\/span><\/sup><\/em><\/a>]<\/span><\/sup><\/em> them, [<\/sup><\/span><\/em>e<\/span><\/sup><\/em><\/a>]<\/span><\/sup><\/em> “declares the LORD.\u00a033<\/sup> “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.\u00a034<\/sup> No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” [Jer. 31:31-34 NIV].<\/span><\/em><\/font><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Introduction<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Today\u2019s sermon, in a way, begins where our sister Michelle left off last Sunday. To remind you, she spoke about the complicated ways we, along with the Psalmist in Psalm 89, think about God \u2013 and asked the question \u2018is it OK to complain to God?\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>She concludes that it is, but observes that a complaint, when we make it, as with an expression of trust or love, is only meaningful when there is a relationship between the parties involved.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n Today\u2019s sermon text is all about the relationship of God and humankind.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a topic I approach with some trepidation.\u00a0 <\/span>In our technologically sophisticated and educated world we tend to treat the question of our relationship with God somewhat superficially, if not avoid it altogether \u2013 yet, it\u2019s one that, as a people of faith, is important to address.<\/font><\/p>\n The context of Jeremiah\u2019s life, at its core, was not so different from ours.\u00a0 <\/span>Greedy and corrupt leaders of state, finance and entertainment set the example for citizens in the ways of tolerating immorality and in departing from that which was good and right.\u00a0 <\/span>Such attitudes seeped into the church through religious leaders. The sad story in our news media this past week of Bishop Lahey\u2019s fall from grace had its equivalents in the Jerusalem of Jeremiah\u2019s day.\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n In the first 30 chapters of his book Jeremiah laments how the people of Israel and Judah have failed to follow God\u2019s ways for generations. Despite his many appeals, they have refused to change. Nor have they listened to his advice to make their peace with Babylon \u2013 rightly predicting that Babylon will destroy Jerusalem, including the Temple, and scatter its people.\u00a0 <\/span>For his pains, Jeremiah is tossed in prison time and again. There is no comfort to anyone when his predictions come true.<\/font><\/p>\n So it is to a dejected people that Jeremiah speaks.\u00a0 <\/span>In the midst of despair, God audaciously sends a vision of hope for the future \u2013 a covenant \u2013 a solemn and binding agreement \u2013 not like the old one God made with the people of Israel based on the Ten Commandments and related laws \u2013 laws that were continuously broken \u2013 but a NEW covenant:<\/font><\/p>\n \u00a033<\/span><\/sup> “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. \u00a0<\/span>“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.<\/span><\/em><\/font><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/font><\/p>\n This verse, and the few before and after, represent<\/span> one of the high points of the Old Testament.\u00a0 <\/span>It is the only reference to a “New Covenant” in the Old Testament \u2013 not to arise again until Jesus uses this phrase when he breaks the bread and serves the wine to his disciples at the Last Supper (Matt. 26:27; Luke 22:20).\u00a0 <\/span>Christians have seen themselves as children of this new covenant from the very beginning \u2013 a covenant that cannot be broken except through faithlessness and disobedience.<\/font><\/p>\n The grandeur and hope reflected in this vision speaks not only to the people of Jeremiah\u2019s time, but also to us in ours, in a number of ways.<\/font><\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>The new covenant is about experiencing a relationship with God directly \u2013 not through laws or intercessors.\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n Laws don\u2019t really \u2018cut it\u2019 as a way of maintaining relationships.\u00a0 <\/span>Certainly the people of Israel seemed congenitally unable to keep the law, repeatedly breaking their relationship with God.\u00a0 <\/span>One is tempted to think of them as a weak people, but before coming to such a conclusion we do well to think of our own relationship to the law \u2013 think of the Ten Commandments.\u00a0 <\/span>All of us do pretty well on laws about the more egregious kinds of behaviour\u00a0 <\/span>– about not killing, or not stealing, or not bearing false witness; but what about the 10th<\/sup> on not coveting?\u00a0 <\/span>It would be a rare person who So it is that relationships with others based on legalities \u2013 on thou \u2018shall\u2019 or \u2018shall not\u2019 kinds of expectations \u2013 rarely are meaningful or satisfying.\u00a0 <\/span>They always feel forced.\u00a0 <\/span>The new covenant changes that \u2013 God seeks a relationship that begins on the \u2018inside\u2019 \u2013 in our minds and hearts. \u00a0<\/span>It is an internal identity that will be evidenced by external behavior. If we are open to it, we will live God\u2019s law not because we are obliged to but because we want to, because it\u2019s part of our DNA \u2013 because it is part of a deep, trusting relationship. \u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>The closest approximation I can think of illustrating the difference between the \u2018old\u2019 and the \u2018new\u2019 covenants is the covenant of marriage.\u00a0 <\/span>Marriage is, of course, a legal arrangement; but, when lived and experienced as it ought to be, the law is all but invisible. It is a relationship of mutual love and trust and deep commitment in which two individuals bind themselves together in mutual belonging. \u00a0<\/span>And that redefines everything. It redefines your understanding of your identity and existence. It shapes your life. It gives impulse to how you live and why you so live. You give yourself to the other not out of coercion or cold obligation, but because you want <\/em>to. <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n It is just such a relationship with God that is to be sought.\u00a0 <\/span>It won\u2019t be perfect, as marriages aren\u2019t perfect, but it is real and genuine and good and true through and through.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n \u00a02.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>The new covenant is not about improvement, it\u2019s about transformation in how we live \u2013 from an intellectual, distant sense of God \u2013 to a life open to the possibility of personal encounter \u2013 and, in the process, to shape us and indeed transform our very character.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n We all know people in our circles that we envy. They\u2019re industrious; they know how to get things done. They\u2019re disciplined. If they go on a diet they can stick with it. They seem to always know the right things to say and do. They seem to succeed at most everything they do. We envy these folks and may feel pressured by them, causing us to say to ourselves with a tinge of guilt, \u201cI really ought<\/u><\/em> to be more like that.\u201d<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n But there are a few others for whom we feel something more than mere envy or even respect \u2013 we truly admire them. These are people who have deep inner qualities of true character. They are generous, compassionate, and demonstrate in their life both goodness and moral integrity. They are real, genuine, and true through and through. Such people, in my experience, almost always are individuals demonstrating a capacity to commune with the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 <\/span>They seem to embody what <\/span>Richard Foster in his book Living Streams<\/em> refers to when he says “The goal of the Christian [life] is not simply to get us into heaven, but to get heaven into us!” <\/span>They are folk where I say to myself: \u00a0<\/span>Not<\/u> \u2018I<\/u> ought\u2019<\/u>, but, \u201cI want<\/u> <\/em>to be more like them.\u201d<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>The New covenant is not so much of individual piety, as of a community living in solidarity with its God<\/font><\/p>\n In the evangelical tradition in which I grew up, we spoke of “letting Jesus into our hearts.” He stood there patiently and knocked, waiting as long as it took, and when we were ready, we swung the door open and invited him in. \u00a0<\/span>Some may remember pictures of Jesus at a door.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n The God of Jeremiah will have none of that. This God has grown weary of people\u2019s inability to keep his law. No more will the covenant be written in stone, rather the covenant is put<\/em> in their head and written<\/em> on their heart – <\/em>The heart of the entire people will bear the covenant. This will be no privatized reformation of individual lives, no individual pietism \u2013 though we all have responsibility for our own relationship with God.\u00a0 <\/span>But, and this is important<\/u>, we\u2019re not to be alone in this.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>This emphasis on community is interesting \u2013 it\u2019s an emphasis that has been part of Christian life since its very beginning.\u00a0 <\/span>As much as we may be able to live pretty good, moral lives on our own, I believe it is impossible to fully live the Christian life without being connected to a community. I, by myself, cannot be the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is by definition, a community.\u00a0 <\/span>It is when we are engaged, truly engaged with our community \u2013 whether through study, or service, or small groups that seek to support authentic relationships with God \u2013 it is then that our spiritual life in God becomes more alive. It is then that we die to our own inner images of perfection, and learn from the experiences of others to live a more authentic life.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n 4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>The New covenant reorients us from a fear of condemnation for breaking God\u2019s laws, to the freedom of forgiveness.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n In the verse following that we\u2019ve concentrated on God says through Jeremiah: \u201cI will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more<\/em>\u201d (v. 34). <\/span>The covenant does not guarantee sinlessness, but it promises forgiveness.<\/font><\n\/p> <\/p>\n Forgiveness is one of the most powerful, healing acts any person can do.\u00a0 <\/span>It is also one of the most freeing.\u00a0 <\/span>You might remember the senseless attack on 10 Amish school girls in Nickle Mines, PA in October 2006.\u00a0 <\/span>Within a few hours their parents sent a note of forgiveness to the family of the killer.\u00a0 <\/span>So doing was a natural extension of their normal practice within their community of faith.\u00a0 <\/span>Think of the powerful effect that had on the world.\u00a0 <\/span>Our Amish sisters and brothers gave testimony to the truth of the new covenant \u2013 a manifestation of what it is to live in Christ \u2013 not mourning the death of their daughters less, but freeing themselves up to continue living without feelings of retribution.\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n When we are able in the grace of God to live in the freedom of God\u2019s forgiveness we are freed to forgive others, thereby freeing them\u2026 releasing them from our hold, and<\/span> restoring our relationship with them.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n This is the freedom to be real, genuine, authentic.\u00a0 <\/span>It is the kind of freedom that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, taught.\u00a0 <\/span>It is the kind of freedom that we celebrate when we participate with others in communion this World Communion Sunday.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n Amen.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 The New Covenant October 4, 2009 Aldred Neufeldt \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Jeremiah 31:31-40 \u00a0 Core of the text \u2018\u00a031 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. \u00a032 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n could truly say they\u2019ve never envied someone else for what they had. \u00a0<\/span>The lesser laws seem even more difficult to keep \u2013 for instance, those setting upper and lower limits of how fast we can drive our cars.\u00a0 <\/span>Judging by traffic on Highway 401 between Toronto and Kitchener or the 400 to Barrie, speed laws seem to be more honored by their breech than in the keeping \u2013 and, for the most part, the police don\u2019t seem too worried except when speed laws are grossly violated.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s as if most everyone feels that the spirit of these law are more important than their technical detail.<\/font><\/p>\n