April 2, 2006

Jeremiah 1:31-34

       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. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: 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.

Sermon  

Waiting For Our New Hearts

     A clean heart, a new and right spirit, knowing God in the depths of my heart because God's law is written there.   These are things that the scripture lessons of the day tell us about; and these are the things that I think, when we really, really examine ourselves, we long for deep down inside.  We may have disguised this longing, even from ourselves, we may have laid over it several different layers of wants and desires, but deep down inside I think that we want clean hearts, new and bright spirits; I think we want to have this intimacy with God in our innermost being.  I know I do.  I know that I pray regularly and fervently for a clean heart, a new spirit, a deep and intimate relationship with God. And I desire this to be happening now; and I desire it one day to be complete and fulfilled.

     And yet I desire so many other things.  The voice in me that wants a clean heart, the voice in me that prays fervently for a new and right spirit, for God's covenant to be written there is alas, one of only many voices. I want so many things.  Many of the things I want are ordinary, nothing to be ashamed of: food, clothing, shelter.  I also want a chance to do the things I like to do.  I want a chance to realize some of my dreams and ambitions and hopes.  I want security.  I want all the elements of my life to fit together well.  I want predictability.  All sorts of common, human experiences that it's legitimate to want. But also things that we can't always have at our beck and call; we can't always demand these things or expect these things.  Because life throws us all kinds of other experiences.  So our wanting of these things can become sort of a petulant demand; as if we're laying a list of non-negotiable demands on the table in front of God and saying I must have these things or I'm not going to be content with my life, I'm not going to be happy with my life. 

     At least that's the way I find myself thinking sometimes.  If you give me a little bit too much work, or if you cause my basketball team to lose a game, or if you cause me to have my glasses break in my hands the night before church so that I have to go back to the glasses I had when I was fifteen years old, if you cause any little thing like this to enter into my daily schedule, my daily routine and lead me away from what I had planned to accomplish in that day, what I'd planned for that day to consist of, then I feel as if I've got a grievance.   I feel as if I'm not getting what I deserve.  I feel as if there's some reason why I need to make a complaint to God.  And all these other voices that express this feeling clamor up loudly and drown out the voice that's asking for the clean heart and the new and right spirit.

     That's why I was telling the kids earlier that I think it's a life long project: seeking a relationship with God in your heart.  Sometimes we talk about becoming a Christian as an experience that happens at a particular moment in our lives, a moment when we are touched by God and we respond by accepting him into our hearts, accepting Christ as our Savior.  We think about that as a one-time event.  And yes, it can be a unique and important event in our lives the moment that happens.  And yet it's the kind of event that in order to be meaningful, has to keep on happening.  Not in the same way, but in a way that renews the original event.  That needs to keep on being brought to life every day, day in and day out, for it to go on, it's a life long project.

     And, when the Bible talks about the new covenant it sounds as if it's talking about something we should be doing right now; we should have that covenant with God.  We should be cleaning our hearts and making a new and right spirit within ourselves.  And it also, in the same breath, talks about this covenant as something that cannot conceivably happen until we have entered into the life everlasting, a life beyond the difficulties and challenges and limitations of this world.  It seems that the Bible wants us to think of both at the same time.  The new covenant begins now, but it doesn't' achieve its fullness until the mysterious beyond, when we see God face to face and we know God in the same degree that God knows us.  Then the true intimacy is found and felt and tasted.  But here and now we're already having a first sip of what's in that glass.  Right now we're having the first taste of it.

     I think we need to keep both the now and the not yet held together in our minds as we go through this life long quest for an intimate relationship with God.  And I think we need to expect a renewal of that intimate relationship with God not through having an equally exciting experience as that one primary experience that you look back on as the day you became a Christian.   Instead, I think we need to seek renewal through the regular duties that the Bible and our faith teach us about the Christian life: worship, prayer, study, reflection and self-examination, (two things that are very important that I put on the back burner much too much of the time), all sorts of every day methodical tasks that are part of living a life of integrity.  You don't have to be a Christian to think that reflection and self-examination, for example, are good things to do; knowing yourself is a universal kind of value that anybody can have.  And because you don't have to be a Christian to have them, you might think that they don't seem special enough to keep that relationship with God going; but they are a part of it.  And another part of it, I believe, is walking through the church year; through the two big events that humanity has experienced with God relating to us through Jesus Christ. 

     So in Advent we prepare for Christmas, we prepare to receive in our hearts once more the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.  God himself coming into the world, taking on human nature from his mother Mary, bringing and uniting divine nature into the same person, when Jesus comes into the world.  That's the first big event.  And then the second big event is the one that's beginning in the church's celebration this coming week; the event in which we acknowledge the journey Jesus made into Jerusalem.  The journey in which he rode in a kingly fashion into the city; and then he was treated in a way that was the opposite of a kingly way.  As we walk through the Passion of Christ, I believe, we're doing the exact kind of thing that mysteriously renews our hearts.  At least I know it does mine, because if it doesn't then I'm pretty hopeless; I don't have anything else to fall back on.  That renewal of the Passion of Christ in my heart every year is crucial, I think, to my living in the now, moving on toward the not yet and working toward that clean heart, that new spirit, that covenant with God in which we know each other, God and I, intimately. 

     I first realized this, I think, sometime either before or after I had a conversion experience.  I don't remember exactly when, so it seems like it's been most of my life, maybe all of my life, since I first realized that there's just something about remembering and looking at and thinking about and visualizing the suffering of Christ.  There's just something mysterious about that - his rejection, the torments he received, his crown of thorns, the stripes on his back, the taunting, the spitting, the ridicule and the nailing to the cross and the carrying of that cross to the place of crucifixion; and there to die, virtually alone.  All of that has, for me, always seemed significant in a way that I couldn't spell out in simple sentences, but in a way that because it was complex and deep, was feeding me without my knowing how.  It's important to me to keep on doing that; and so I want to move us into Holy Week with at least my having borne witness to you that for me this week is the one that says it all; this week is the one that brings that spark of renewal in which my own desires for goodness connect with God's working toward my goodness.  This is the week where that all comes together and for one more year the renewal does take place.  We're waiting for our new hearts, we have them and yet we're still waiting for them.  Worshipping together in these upcoming weeks, next Sunday and then in glorious reversal the Sunday after that, worshipping together is what we do while we wait for our new hearts.  Amen.

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