“On Our Hearts”
Jeremiah 31:27-34
First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
27The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of
Let’s play a little game called Know Your Religious Texts. You have the quiz—and I bet you’ve already gone through it and peeked at the answers, haven’t you?
1. Which holy book stipulates that a girl who does not bleed on her wedding night is to be put to death?
a. Koran
b. Old Testament
c. (Hindu) Upanishads
2. Which holy text declares: “Let there be no compulsion in religion”?
a. Koran
b. Gospel of Matthew
c. Letter of Paul to the Romans
3. The terrorists who pioneered the suicide vest in modern times, and the use of women in terror attacks, were affiliated with which major religion?
a. Islam
b. Christianity
c. Hinduism
4. "Every child is touched by the devil as soon as he is born and this contact makes him cry. Excepted are Mary and her Son.” This verse is from:
a. Letters of Paul to the Corinthians
b. The Book of Revelation
c. An Islamic hadith, or religious tale.
5. Which holy text is sympathetic to slavery?
a. Old Testament
b. New Testament
c. Koran
6. In the New Testament, Jesus’ views of homosexuality are:
a. strongly condemnatory
b. forgiving
c. never mentioned
7. Which holy text urges responding to evil with kindness, saying: “repel the evil deed with one which is better.”
a. Gospel of Luke
b. Book of Isaiah
c. Koran
8. Which religious figure preaches tolerance by suggesting that God looks after all peoples and leads them all to their promised lands?
a. Muhammad
b. Amos
c. Jesus
9. Which of these religious leaders was a polygamist?
a. Jacob
b. King David
c. Muhammad
10. What characterizes Muhammad’s behavior toward the Jews of his time?
a. He killed them.
b. He married one.
c. He praised them as a chosen people.
11. Which holy scripture urges that the "little ones" of the enemy be dashed against the stones?
a. Book of Psalms
b. Koran
c. Leviticus
12. Which holy scripture suggests beating wives who misbehave?
a. Koran
b. Letters of Paul to the Corinthians
c. Book of Judges
13. Which religious leader is quoted as commanding women to be silent during services?
a. The first Dalai Lama
b.
c. Muhammad
Answers:
1. b. Deuteronomy 22:21.
2. a. Koran, 2:256. But other sections of the Koran do describe coercion.
3. c. Most early suicide bombings were by Tamil Hindus (some secular) in
4. c. Hadith. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet to be revered.
5. All of the above.
6. c. Other parts of the New and Old Testaments object to homosexuality, but there’s no indication of Jesus’ views.
7. c. Koran, 41:34. Jesus says much the same thing in different words.
8. b. Amos 9:7
9. all of them
10. all of these. Muhammad’s Jewish wife was seized in battle, which undermines the spirit of the gesture. By some accounts he had a second Jewish wife as well.
11. a. Psalm 137
12. a. Koran 4:34
13. b.
How many of learned something about the Q’uran? How many of you learned something about the Old Testament? The New Testament?
Not all these things are flattering about our faith, are they? I once heard a Christian say, “I learned all I needed to know about the Jewish faith from the Old Testament.” Really? But Judaism is a living faith, with many divisions or denominations. It is diverse and modern—in many ways post-modern. And even fundamentalist Jews don’t advocate killing non-virgins on their wedding night, or smashing the heads of their enemies’ children. You can’t completely understand a people of faith by reading their sacred texts. 56yh
So why is that? Am I saying that someone couldn’t find a New Testament and learn all they needed to know by reading it? You could certainly learn something about the ideas of our faith, but would you really understand our faith itself? Would you come to know the church? And could you come to know Christ just from reading the text?
This is a subject that ministers and denominations argue about, but my own thinking on this subject is no. You can’t know the church just by reading the texts, because the church is the living, breathing body of Christ. Jesus did not leave us a text. Jesus left a community, in which our Christian scriptures came to be.
The ancient Hebrew community had the texts. God had delivered the Law to Moses (as the tradition tells it) and it was written down and studied and the worship rituals were observed. And yet, God tells Jeremiah that his beloved, chosen people are like a wife who has been unfaithful to her husband. By not living according to the covenant God had made with them, the people had turned their backs to the Lord, resulting in a kind of adulterous ugliness.
Covenant is another word for a relationship--a formalized relationship. God has made a covenant with us. We have made a covenant with God. That is the heart of Jeremiah. And the people know all about the covenants that they made along their history--with Noah, with Abraham, the covenant on Sinai with Moses. They know they are a covenant people.
"I will be your God," says Yahweh,
But, the process breaks down in just what it means to be in covenant. The people assumed it was about privilege. God loves us—and nobody else. David Steele compares the people with a spoiled rich kid roaring down the street in his father’s Mercedes at 90 miles an hour, figuring the world better get out of his way. It’s all right. If something goes wrong, Daddy will write a check and fix it. If we have a covenant with God, we can do as we please and God will take care of us.
But, Jeremiah knows that God did not choose the nation of
Nearly all of the book of Jeremiah is filled with Jeremiah pleading for the people to live out the covenant that God has called them into.
And then, Jeremiah begins to tell the people who, though in relationship with God, essentially rejected him, that God is doing something new. God does not reject his people, but rather, a new covenant—not sealed with a rainbow as with Noah, or with circumcision as with Abraham, or with the Law as with Moses will be made.
No, this New Covenant will touch the heart of people. God's law, God's ideas, God's intentions will somehow get inside of people. This new relationship will be more simple, more natural. And in that New Covenant God will not seem so distant. Folk will not feel God is watching them from heaven or a lofty mountain. No, somehow folk are going to realize
That God is right there with them. "God with us, God beside us, God within us."
"They shall all know me," the Lord says, "From the least of them to the greatest."
For Christians, we pick up the story with our own. A baby is born in a stable and lives a humble life. And despite that humility, he is called Emmanuel—God with us. He becomes the great teacher and preacher.
And he dies, but yet he lives. He shares a final meal with his friends,
Pours out wine for them and says "This is the new covenant in my blood." And from that new covenant, sealed not with a text, but with the very blood of Christ, a people arise who understand themselves as people of the new covenant—the church. And hearts are opened and changed. God is no longer off there someplace, God is right here—in our hearts. And every Sunday we recall that by breaking bread and pouring the out the wine again.
Now, I would like to end that story we started in Jeremiah by saying that everything is great and perfect, and justice rules the earth. Because the new covenant is written on our hearts in blood—the blood of Christ. Even so, the promise of that heart-borne covenant hasn’t come to be—at least not yet!
Because, we are frail and faulty humans, and the things our forebears did in pushing themselves away from God—we still do.
We let greed and fear and hatred and jealousy rule in our hearts. Did I mention fear? Our nation right now is one big cottage industry of fear. (I’ll be glad when the campaign season is over!)
And that, my beloved, is why we haven’t thrown the texts away. Because we must continually go back to these stories and remind ourselves that we are God’s people. That God has told us—even if we walkthrough the darkest valley, we have nothing to fear—God is with us.
We read the stories that Jesus told to remember that loving our neighbor means even loving the Samaritans (rotten louts that they are).
And the story of Elijah, whose prayers fed a woman who had enough for one last meal before dying—and yet, the food never seemed to be exhausted. We need to hear that story again and again to remind ourselves as God’s people, we live in overflowing abundance, and not in scarcity—especially in these uncertain times. Especially as we plan our giving for the coming year.
And we go back to these texts to remind us of what it means to be in relationship with God. But we don’t do it in a vacuum. We don’t do it all alone. God’s covenant people gather together, and read these stories right out loud. Because the scriptures without the community are empty. Even when we study and read them at home—we’re not alone. We still read them in community.
And we relive the story at the table and seal that covenant one more time—in blood--before we go out into the world to share the good news that God wants everyone to belong.
At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. Tell me what you think of what we have here in our corner of God’s covenant people. Is this relationship that we have with God and with each other worth sharing? Then let’s get to it! What do you think?
