The theme I chose for Lent, this year, was “never expect that doing the right thing will come without consequences”. My grandparents grew up in a time of war, the depression, and widespread diseases, that seemed to come from nowhere, affecting anyone, and everyone, without warning. All of this contributed to a spirit of survival, of the unfairness, randomness, of life. Best to hold on to what you have, stay true to the one’s you know and love, be frugal, don’t expect too much, be loyal. The generation that came later, they saw all of this, but they never felt it. They saw scarcity, but with their education came opportunity, and with opportunity came higher standards of living, more things, more freedom. The “boomers” same to rely on the spirit of freedom, give people the freedom to choose, and with the right choices, good things would happen. For boomers, the greatest crisis were sudden tragic events; a diagnosis, a loss of relationship, a loss of job, when freedom and good choices did not equal a more fruitful life. Those of us who came later, we saw the limits of freedom, just because you had a good education, exercised your freedom “to pursue your dreams” and tried hard not to judge…the world did not necessarily work out as planned. A lot of my friends went to university, received a Bachelor of Something, struggled to find a meaningful job, a meaningful life, meaningful relationships.
Grandparents would tell us; “join a church”, “join a civic organization like Masons, or a Lodge”, “get a job, any job”, “get married”. Our parents would tell us, “you can do anything, you are special, you are amazing, you are great”. But…none of these institutions, none of these platitudes or promises, did much to change our reality.
The reasons I became a Christian, or rather, the reason I reconnected to the faith I was given in Baptism, offered as a witness by my mother, was purpose. In a university course I took from the late philosopher George Grant, I was asked to read one of the four Gospels and write an essay on what it said and how it might speak to me. I chose Luke, and what I discovered was something very different that what I had heard in church previously. Yes, there was piety, story of miracles and faith and belief. But Jesus always seemed to be in the midst of pain, loss, and despair, and what he offered was “Good News”, a message that did not seem to mesh with reality. He saw people as a blessing who others saw as damaged, he saw life where others saw death, he saw community where others saw contamination. Jesus was a light in the darkness, a healing agent in bodies of illness, a spirit of justice in places of demonic possession.
I appreciate survival, I truly do. My generation has never suffered as those of my forebearers. We have a lot to learn about living in exile. I appreciate freedom, optimism. Our generation needs a dose of this, we can become lost and resigned when we compare ourselves on social media with people who seem to “have it all”. But there is something about a prophet, who calls us out, who calls us to repent, who calls us to follow our hearts’ wisdom, to remind us of a divine and everlasting covenant, given to our forebearers, that deeply resonates. Jeremiah is such a prophet. Our reading, this Fifth Sunday of Lent, is such a tonic for our aching souls.
Jeremiah is by and large not a “happy” book. There is a reason why he is called the “weeping prophet.” Jeremiah looks forward here to the coming day of hope. “The days are surely coming,” he says. The unfortunate flipside to such a claim from Jeremiah is that the days are not here yet. Nevertheless, in this time God will make a new covenant with the people. In this text (31:31-34) Jeremiah has God promise both a new day and a new covenant for the exiled houses of Judah and Israel. The day that he refers to was the “Day of the Lord,” a concept rooted in the Year and the Jubilee Year. Most scholars agree that the powers never allowed the radical Jubilee to be enacted. Instead, it went underground and emerged as a vision and a dream when God’s will, God’s realm, would finally be present or made manifest on earth. And though the actual word “Jubilee” was never used after it occurred in Leviticus (perhaps out of fear of reprisals by wealthy landowners and Royalty) it emerged time and again in coded language such as the “day” or “age” or “year” of the Lord. In its earliest usage, the “day of Lord” evidently carried hopeful Jubilee themes of the time when debts would be canceled, slaves freed, stolen land was returned, and all of Creation would revert back to its original owner (and ultimately to God).
The new covenant that Jeremiah offers refers back to that which was forged between God and the Hebrew people in their liberation from bondage, “when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.” But the issue of the day was that they broke that covenant, resulting in their new bondage in Babylonia, and now God is promising to try it again, this time placing it within them and writing it on their hearts. Most commentators point out the “rot” of the Hebrews’ understanding of their privilege stemmed from a loss of connection to the Covenant. In short, when you think you are the reason for your own “success” and abundance, you easily make it “all about you” and neglect the connection to God, to others.
“Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; for this reason, I lay this command upon you today” (Deuteronomy 15:15). Their redemption from slavery was the theological backbone for ethical conduct with the weak and the marginalized: “You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore, I command you too do this” (Deuteronomy 24:17-18). “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore, I am commanding you to do this” (Deuteronomy 24:22).
However, as numerous prophetic voices point out, the Hebrew people repeatedly broke their end of the covenant, following after other gods and oppressing their neighbours. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. Shall I not punish them for these things? says the LORD? (Jeremiah 5:27-28) They sell the innocent for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals---they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way. (Amos 2:6-7)
In his famous “Temple Sermon,” Jeremiah speaks, “If you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.” (Jeremiah 7:5-7)
The heart, for Jeremiah, is the seat of the will. When the heart was evil, one turned from God and did evil. When the heart was good, one turned to God and did good. But according to Jeremiah the hearts of the people of Israel had become evil. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). In a prophesy calling upon the people of Jerusalem to repent, he appeals to them to “wash your heart clean of wickedness so that you may be saved” (Jeremiah 4:14).
The central ethical principle of the Hebrew Scriptures and echoed in the Christian scriptures is that God has liberated (saved, redeemed) us and now we should liberate and redeem others. What it means to be a faith-filled person is to liberate slaves. And that means slaves of psychic demons. But God, in spite of our perpetual inclination to break the covenant, comes to us in these words of Jeremiah and offers us a second (and third and fourth) chance. “Renew the covenant, and have it written on your hearts, where it will emanate out from you rather than being imposed from outside onto you.” God is always calling us back to the basics of worship and justice. God is always offering us a chance to come home from Babylon. It is up to us to make the decision to make the journey.
According to Jeremiah, for those who respond to this new covenant written on the heart, two radical things will occur. First, they will no longer need to learn of God from others, for they will now “know the Lord” from the inside, “from the least of them to the greatest” (31:34). An important point to make here is that for Jeremiah, to know the LORD, is not a mere act of religious education. It isn’t a list of facts that one can memorize for confirmation class. For Jeremiah to know God is to do acts of justice. Another way to put that is to say, to know God is to participate in the covenant, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbour as yourself…” (Matthew 22).
To know your purpose, as a fragile, flawed and blessed creature of God, is to participate in the dance of life, to love and be loved, to heal and be healed, to invite others into community, be invited to community, to laugh and make others laugh, to cry and be there for those who weep, to share the truth and be open to others who share the truth with you. The covenant is indeed written on our hearts. But it takes relationship to reveal this covenant, to help the heart to beat with the pulse of life, to connect with others as God intended, as God delights. Jeremiah’s words linger, convict, inspire. I am grateful for words of life and love, words of redemption and reconciliation, words of eternal love and everlasting justice.
“Never expect that doing the right thing will come without consequence” because doing the right thing will have consequences, the world can be hard on justice seekers. But another consequence, finding that purpose we call crave, seek, hunger for. In those hard moments of “doing the right thing” we leave Babylon, we find our home. Amen.