October 20, 2013 – Jeremiah 31:27-34
Jeremiah 31:27-34
The Writing on the Heart
22nd Day after Pentecost [Lectionary 29C] – October 20, 2013
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Complete and utter failures.
Broken. Hopeless. Isolated. Useless. Destroyed. Homeless.
Without a cent to their names. Losers.
That pretty much sums up where the people of Judah are at this morning.
Defeated in warfare, trundled off into exile in Babylon.
Jeremiah has been warning them of this and naming them this for about 30 chapters.
He was annoying.
No wonder the king had thrown him in jail for a good long spell:
who wanted to hear that?
But Jeremiah needed to tell the people the truth about themselves.
That they had broken the covenant they had entered into with God.
That they had been intended by God to bring blessing to their neighbours but instead
had schemed and schemed to find a way to bring blessing to themselves.
And so Jeremiah told them that truth relentlessly.
He had warned them: what happened to the people of Israel – the northern kingdom of the
10 northern tribes – could just as easily happen to them: complete and utter destruction.
Wiped, seemingly, from the face of the earth.
And now it was all coming true.
And you could forgive Jeremiah for gloating in an I-told-you-so-moment.
But then come words of astonishing hope from this prophet who is of all prophets most like
gloomy Eeyore, but not on this day. Hear his words of hope:
I will bring new life to both Israel and Judah again.
I will sow them with the seeds of humans and the seeds of animals.
They will work again and have children again and farm again.
I will raise them up.
I will make a new covenant with them.
The end is not the end. This is about death and resurrection.
Yes: God had made a covenant with them in the old days.
And the covenant said, “I will be your God; you will be my people.
You will know you are my people when you keep my commandments and
when you behave in ways that are becoming to being my people.”
But the people had really sucked at that.
They had failed at that.
They were broken. Hopeless. Isolated. Useless. Destroyed. And Homeless.
That’s what they feel they are.
But God looks at them and . . . amazingly God doesn’t see it that way.
That is not who they really are. Not really.
That is not the whole truth about who they really are.
I mean they did suck at being God’s people. That is true.
But they are also more than that.
God looks at them and names them something else besides “broken.”
God names them, “my people.”
God names them, “forgiven.”
God names them, “beloved.”
I will go one better than I did in the previous covenant, says God.
In this new relationship I will make with them,
it is no longer just their external circumstances that will define them.
They will not be defined by their failures, by their illnesses, by they brokenness any more.
When they look to the deepest part of themselves, they will no longer find only these things there.
When they look to their heart, their deepest part of their core identities,
they will see written there something I have written, and that thing is “beloved.”
That thing is “Chosen.” That thing is “Claimed.” That thing is “Set Free.”
They will know this – and they will know me – intimately.
My love for them will define them.
That they are beloved and that nothing can change that will define them.
That they are useful even in their brokenness will define them.
That they are beloved even in their sinfulness will define them.
That they are still useful and beloved even in illness will define them.
I will heal them so they can be my people once again even in their brokenness.
I will heal them so that they can join with me in my loving mission to love bless heal and set free
this whole world and every person in it.
I will heal them in this naming and in this writing on their hearts.
I will heal them and bless them so that they can be blessing again –
so they can be a blessing even to the enemies in whose land they dwell.
A couple of weeks ago I asked you what it was that discouraged you in faith and in faithfulness.
And you had the courage to name those things.
Physical illness. Depression. Anxiety. Exhaustion. The cruelty of others.
Loneliness. Addiction. Judgmentalism. Grief. The sheer busy-ness of work.
We often feel as if those things come to define us, right?
We come to believe they tell us the whole truth about ourselves.
And sometimes it’s easy to let those things define us, because they’re so familiar to us.
But the thing is:
if they come to define us, it’s pretty hard to be the people God is calling us to be.
But just as God came to the people of Judah to write something else on their hearts
– that deep deep part of themselves that tells them who they are –
so God comes to us this morning and
names us something besides those things that haunt us.
Names us something other than those things that keep us down.
We’re talking about nothing less this morning than death and resurrection.
Yes, faithlessness is part of the story of the people of Israel and Judah, as is failure and isolation.
But that is not the whole story of the people of Israel and Judah .
Yes, faithlessness and failure and isolation and illness and depression and anxiety and exhaustion
and loneliness and addiction and judgmentalism are, let’s face it, part of our story.
But they’re not the whole of our story.
Not by a long shot, because they don’t take account of the God of new life who is acting even
now through the death and resurrection of Jesus whose Spirit is present with us now.
There was healing and new life for the people of Judah on
that day long ago when Jeremiah announced it.
And there is healing and new life for you on this day.
All who feel they are named as something other than God’s beloved are
welcome to come to the healing stations today.
All who feel defined by failure or grief or illness or judgmentalism or cruelty or
loneliness or work or exhaustion or anything less than
the love of God in Christ are welcome to come to the healing stations today.
Come: have something else written on your heart, on that deepest deepest part of you.
All are welcome to come hear the words of new life: Spirit of the living God,
present with us now, enter you body mind and spirit and heal you of all that harms you.
It’s grace that finally names you, that tells you the whole truth about who you are.
Come and be healed.
Come to a new start.
Come: do not let failure define you, or any of the rest of it.
Come: do not let physical illness define you.
Come: hear a word of hope that one day all will finally be healed.
Come: have the love of God for you be written on your heart.
So together let us come, and together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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