Sermon
A few weeks ago, our Lenten study discussed the concept of a covenant. One of the things we discussed was how you and I define the word covenant, what covenant meant for God's people in the times of Moses and David, and what it means to live life in covenant for modern day Christians. One of the definitions that came to us was this: “Covenants are the primary way in which God establishes relationships with creature and creation – with us and with the world.” We discussed several covenants from the Bible. There was the covenant with Noah, from Genesis, when God said that God would never again destroy the creation by flood. Also in Genesis, was the covenant with Abraham, a promise that said that Abraham would be the father of generations. The covenant of Moses regarding the law and land – even after the Israelites disregarded the law given to Moses on tablets of stone, God still promised release from captivity and deliverance from the wilderness, into the promised land. And finally, the Davidic covenant, whereby the house of David would become the savior of the world. These covenants were transactional, between God and creation, God's promise to generations, God's promise of a place to live, and God's promise to the lineage of David.
In today's text from Jeremiah, who was a Judean prophet writing about 600 years before the birth of Christ, we have the first mention of a new covenant. With this covenant, promises Jeremiah, the law will not be written on stone tablets to be told and taught, the law will be within them, and will be written on people's hearts.
People must have wondered what Jeremiah meant. And they must have wondered when all of this would happen. Combining both of today's text in our lectionary may answer some of those questions.
The setting for the beginning of today's portion of the gospel of John comes after Jesus has already arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover Festival. Many people from surrounding areas came to the festival so it would not have been unusual for Greeks to have been in Jerusalem. While many pilgrims would go to the temple to be purified before going to the festival, the Greeks came looking for Jesus. Some of those who had been with Jesus at the raising of Lazarus were there with Jesus and they came to tell Jesus that some were looking for them. This sets the scene for the beginning of Jesus' last public discourse.
The heart of our scripture this morning is the words that begin to answer the question of “how” this new covenant will come to be.
Each gospel writer covers this material a little differently. Three of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptics because they share mostly the same view of the gospel stories. But John comes at things a little differently.
First, Jesus comes right to the point by talking about death and after death right away. In order to produce, a seed must die. Secondly, also quickly, Jesus equates losing life with life eternal. John writes in quick, strong sentences, and does not always include the same language as the other gospel writers – mainly because those gospel writers used much of the same source material. The gospel of Mark, probably written first, was used for much of Matthew and Luke so much of the language is the same.
The stories we have about Jesus' baptism, and the Transfiguration for example each include a voice from a cloud, or from heaven. At Jesus' baptism the voice from above says, “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased,” The voice at the transfiguration says “This is my Son. Listen to him.” But the story of the Transfiguration does not exist in John's gospel, and the voice from heaven is not in John's version of Jesus' baptism. In today's text then Jesus knows who he is, knows his relationship to God, and knows why he has come, and doesn't need the confirmation from that voice. But the crowd does. In John's gospel Jesus does not say “Take this cup from me” or “Thy will, not mine.” John's Jesus is strong in the knowledge of why he has come. Jesus says, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” The voice from heaven answers Jesus' statement by saying “I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.”
Past tense. And future.
This is important to notice. Those that followed Jesus had the hardest time with this concept that John's gospel especially emphasizes. The disciples might just be beginning to understand the Jesus is from God, and Jesus' life glorifies God, and living the life of discipleship is what we do to glorify God. But the call to discipleship includes the future tense as well. And in the future, God will glorify God's name again – at the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus said “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.” Not the kind of death as in how horrible it would be – although that too. “Kind of death” refers to the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension as one. Jesus is the seed, the fruits will be bringing all people to him. The seed does not just need to die. There is life after the seed dies that leads to the fruit. The things that happen under the soil, below sight, are vital to producing the fruit.
During lent, we contemplate the things that bring us closer to God, the things that help us be disciples of Christ so we typically think of what more can I do? What can I do differently? How can I add God to my life, or take away a barrier between ourselves and God.
But what if lent is about looking at what needs to completely die and never exist again?
What if some things will not change for the better – will not be resurrected and ascend to something better – unless they are crucified first?
A global pandemic, forced isolation from loved ones, from communities that lift us and sustain us, from activities that give us life, has been a laboratory for this question. A colleague of mine, Rev. Rodger Nishioka, pastor in Prairie Village, Kansas wrote about lessons learned about faith formation in the midst of a pandemic. Two of the lessons were, “Engagement is the foundation for hope,” and “Imagination is a superpower.”1 The pandemic uncovered parts of our lives inside and outside of the church that have little to do with being diagnosed with COVID-19 itself, but are related to the circumstances of people's lives.
We have been witness to so much hate and vitriol and violence seeping from under every rock that has unveiled the racism that this country was built on and has turned to again and again, with Japanese internment camps, the Chinese Exclusion Act, immigrant family separations – racism that is still alive in us and is still causing deaths of so many, from poverty and violence and lack of access. Breonna Taylor one year ago, George Floyd in June, the rise of white nationalism present in the rise in hate crimes against Asian and Pacific Islanders, most recently in Atlanta, and of course the insurrection of January 6th. We “Say their names!” so that we remember that racism, white nationalism, fear of the “other” self preservation, maintaining the status quo, all lead to distrust and dissolution of civil society.
We have been forced to ask ourselves What makes me happy? What makes me fulfilled? What does my family need? What can I share? Why does that person not have all that they need? Why do some people have more choices than others? Why does what works for one not work for all?
These are just some of the questions that are complex and deep because the answers have to do with societal choices over centuries that have power over as the goal, not power for. Equality maybe but not equity. We have chosen laws that restrict instead of laws that empower. We trust in individuals only instead of communities also. We have decided that all of our decisions have to be either or instead of creative collaborations. We may think that the term “binary” only has to do with our LGBTQI siblings, when really, thinking of our lives in binary terms can be so limiting to our imaginations.
I watched a live-streamed wedding on facebook live yesterday. The two women each wrote their own vows that were honest, hopeful and truthful. One woman included “I vow that I will be human, and I will make mistakes but I vow that I will always try to be better next time.”
We are all so human.
If there is something in us, near us, something keeping us from God that needs to die, I pray that we have the strength to truly let go; to let something die. Because of our humanness we know that we make mistakes, we have poor judgment, and at the same time, it is precisely because of our humanness that we are God's and we have all of God's love and God's grace.
We are a part of God's New Covenant.
Thanks be to God.
1 Nishioka, Rodger, “Six Lessons Learned About Faith Formation in the Midst of a Pandemic” in Presbyterian Outlook, Vol. 203, No. 4, Mar. 15, 2021