I would have loved to start this off
with singing “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” and was prepared to do it but then I
went back and listened to the lyrics; so, that’s not happening this
evening/morning.
While I won’t sing that song, I do
think it is important to know who Jeremiah was. He was one of the prophets. As
I told the Sunday school kids last week, many of the prophets have the same
story. When God first calls them, they say “no”. The typical response is “Who,
Me? Not me, you must mean someone else!” Then God calls them again and says “it
is you that I want.”
Many times, we can attribute this NO
because it is about what God wants these prophets to say. God is going to give
them tough words to tell people; and these people may not be ready to hear what
the prophet is about to say. The key to that is that the prophet does not
always, in fact rarely, has Good News to share. Jeremiah is an exception,
because most of the prophets are adults and know that they could be in for a
rough road. Jeremiah is only a boy and God calls him to deliver some bad news
to the leaders of the day. But, like all prophets, Jeremiah says yes to God’s
call.
This land that Jeremiah was born in
was in turmoil for a very long time. It was the land of Judah. At any given
time, there was Egyptian rule, then Babylon took over and here is this young
boy he is telling of God’s wrath and punishment for Judah because of their lack
of faith and their breaking of God’s law. We know the law that is being talked
about in the book of Jeremiah; it is those stone tablets that Moses went up to
the mountain to receive…the Ten Commandments…God’s law has been broken and so
the people are being punished and, eventually, exiled out of their homeland.
All this can be pretty devastating
for a young boy to set out proclaiming what God tells him to say. This Good and
faithful servant does not let God down. HE does what he is called to do; and
his ministry as a prophet lasts for 40+ years.
Why is all this information
necessary? It is necessary because throughout Jeremiah’s prophecy, there is one
thing, one resounding theme that brings us through to today’s reading.
Throughout Jeremiah’s work and calling, we hear God crying out to the people
whose ancestors have made a mess of things by not listening to God. Through
Jeremiah, God calls to all the people who were exiled because of unfaithfulness
and offers a chance to fix the relationship.
God gave the Ten Commandments to
Moses and he took them down the hill to give to the people as they were being
led out of captivity. We know what happened. The people got impatient and built
idols before Moses could deliver the Ten Commandments. God was ready to destroy
them but Moses reminded God of God’s promise not to destroy; and so they got
the commandments and taught these laws to one another.
But something got sidetracked. As we
humans, typically do, the people went off in another direction; sometimes
hearing the law, learning it, and then figuring it only applies if I do this or
that OR saying “I’m not really coveting or stealing,”…you know finding
loopholes. SO things go off the rails and the people stray. When it comes to
being in such a hotly contested region and conquerors being overthrown every
couple of years, they may have done what they had to to get along with whoever
was conquering them; and that is part of the problem. They weren’t asking God what
to do. They were just trying to get along with their captors. It is a tough
spot to be in and I don’t think we could imagine what they were going through.
So some of the people get exiled to
Babylon. It is a long journey and they are moved out of the Promised Land to
this other place. A place where they did not know anyone, there was no
familiarity with the place and, worst of all, it is not the place where God
called them to be. I am sure there was some anger, frustration, anxiety, and
maybe even some depression about whether or not they would even have a future.
Once again, here comes Jeremiah with
God’s proclamation. God is now using Jeremiah to talk about something “new.”
Through Jeremiah, God is saying that there will be a “new covenant with the house
of Israel!” I would hope that among all those negative feelings about being
kicked out of their land, there would be some ears perking up at the sound of
something new. God says that this is not like the old promise when he took the
people out of Egypt. Nope, this one is all new. Maybe some of those negative
feelings begin to change into positive feelings because something new and big
is about to happen!
In our reading of Jeremiah today,
something new and exciting is happening. This something new is the fact that
God is not abandoning them. In fact, God has never left them. Some of these
people turned away from God but God has not left them. God is asking them to
come back to a relationship with God and God is willing to make a New Covenant
with the people of Israel.
God is promising to give them the
law in a new way. The old way was to give it on stones and to teach. We all
know that when it is taught, sound travels to and into the ear for the brain to
process. The new thing is that God promises to put God’s law into their hearts.
God is going to instill in them God’s law in a place where it cannot escape. In
the one place that is very sacred to the lives of the disciples; to the one
place that is deep within them so that it cannot get out or be loop-holed…the
heart.
God is not stopping there either. By
putting God’s law in their hearts, everyone will know the Lord and God promises
to forgive their iniquities and “remember their sin no more.” That is a pretty
amazing promise! To have a God that will forgive for sins or things that they
have done that might have turned them from God. That just might make the want
to turn back toward God. There is not even a word about what the Israelites
have to do. This whole scripture reading is about what God will do to seek a
relationship with the Israelites! There is no “if you do, I’ll do!” God is
saying “I am making you a new promise…”
That is something that we can
imagine. We can imagine it because we have experienced it. We have seen God’s
promise of putting God’s law in our hearts and witnessing God’s promise to
forgive iniquities and remember “our” sin no more. Through the birth and the
ministry of Jesus we are witness to God’s law being put into our hearts through
Jesus’ relationship with us and our relationship with Jesus. When we do things
that turn us away from God, we too can hear the Word of God through the actions
of Jesus Christ reminding us of the New Covenant that God made so that we turn
back toward God.
Through the death and resurrection
of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ we are witnesses to the never ending mercy and
forgiveness of God. To know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, went to the
cross and suffered for our sake…for you and me is part of God’s promise in the
hopes that we do not turn away from God but give praise and thanks to God, The
creator of all the universe, for thinking that we, you and me, are so special
that we are worth that sacrifice. It does not mean that we go looking for
loopholes. It means that we will make mistakes but God will not and does not
abandon us in light of those mistakes.
It also means that God calls us to
share the mercy and forgiveness that we have been shown and that the death and
resurrection was not just for us here in this room but that it was for all. God
promised the people of Israel that they would be delivered out of captivity and
God kept that promise. This did not happen overnight. It took a long time for
God’s promises to be kept. God does not make the promise that “even though you
are forgiven” that the road is going to be easy; BUT God will keep the promise
of not abandoning us. God walks with us day and night…God is right here for the
asking: AMEN!
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