March 29, 2009 - Lent 5 (RCL)
When I was a kid,
small enough that I could still trip over my mother’s dresses when I played
dressing up
and had to sit on two telephone books
to see over the edge of the dinner table
I thought everyone
went to church.
They didn't all go to my church - I knew that, because I had been to church
with my best friend, and going to their church was like sitting in a box
with
the lid closed,
where as ours was more like an circus tent - it was kind of octagonal, with
lots of windows letting in bright white light.
But we all went to church,
That was just what we did, part of growing up
in our town.
As I got older, of course, it didn't take me long to discover that not
everyone went to church,
and not everyone believed in God the way my family did.
But we still thought of ourselves as living a Christian country,
and assumed that being a good Christian
was at least part of what it meant
to be a good citizen. There wasn't a whole lot of difference
between the values that I heard being talked about at school
and the values I heard at home and church.
The Ten Commandments, the golden rule,
Family values, ethical conduct,
responsibility, independence, generosity and service.
As a member of society
there were certain things I was expected to do,
and certain rewards I would get,
and as a member of the church
a similar things were pretty much the same.
It was all one
economy.
*****
The Old Testament reading for today, from Jeremiah 31,
originally came from a situation with a similar economy.
The same rules governed pretty much all relationships,
whether it was relationships between governments
or relationships between families,
or business relationships.
Bargaining, earnings, making a deal and receiving benefits,
were the way most people thought.
Covenants,
formal ritual contracts,
structured society,
and were mirrored in the way people went about things informally as well.
And so
when it came to thinking about God
people assumed
that the same rules applied.
There was a religious economy
with obligations and benefits at the core,
a deal struck
between God and the people.
And so its not surprising
to find the relationship between God and the people
being described
as a covenant.
Of course God being the powerful one, it was assumed
that God
got most of the benefits - the powerful side always gets to set the terms
so that they benefit them -
and the people
most of the obligations.
But this covenant
the new covenant which Jeremiah talks about
turns this whole way of thinking
upside down.
Because in this covenant
all the obligation
is on one side - God's side.
God says,
"I will be their God, and they shall be my people" - not because of
anything
which the people do, but because of what God does. God chooses,
unilaterally
to forgive the people, God chooses, unilaterally
to be known to the people without intermediaries,
by writing it on their hearts, God chooses, unilaterally
to make this a covenant, a relationship about love,
a relationship in the very core of their being
which shapes everything
they do
and say.
Now I have to tell you
that this was not entirely new.
If you remember back in Genesis,
when God makes the original covenant with Abraham,
there too
God takes the whole burden
of the covenant,
God
binds God's very self
in obligation
to the people.
But of course
things got distorted, as they so often do,
and the people took the law
which had been intended as a gift,
the people took the law
and read it as their side of the covenant, their obligations
to God, and lost sight
of the incredibly generous self-giving
of God.
Because you know how it is:
it’s often easier
to turn things over
to the way we expect them to be,
than to stand on our heads
and see what they really look like.
And so there is a new covenant,
a new covenant
to show us the way things have always been
a new covenant
where God
has all the obligation
and we
have all the benefits.
And the new covenant,
the new testament
as we often call it,
is what happens
when Christ arrives on the scene.
With Jesus, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead
come to life .
The new covenant, the gospel,
turns the world
upside
down.
so that clinging to life
might just mean losing it
and giving it up
might just mean saving it.
And as Christ is lifted up from the earth,
as Christ
is hoisted onto the cross,
in that very act
judgement has happened,
it has been and gone,
and we no longer need to live
in fear of God,
we no longer need to live
in fear of ourselves.
And that means
we are freed
to live a whole
other way.
Not a way that obsesses
with keeping accounts,
with tracking the debts of our successes and failures,
because the greatest account
has been written off. Instead
living in a way
that demonstrates
the radical upside-downness
of God's relationship with us,
that shows
that we belong
in the best sense of that word,
to God,
and are therefore free
to live out
the love and justice and generosity
of our God.
Because the economy
has moved from an economy of obligation
to an economy
of love.
God’s done everything.
We get to choose
how to respond.
And it's kind of scary.
Because what it means,
is that living as a citizen under God’s covenant,
living as a Christian
is a different kind of citizenship
from the citizenship we have in this country.
It’s not so much about mutual obligation,
the government saying
“you follow these laws and pay these taxes and in return you’ll get this protection and these services,”
it’s not so much about that
as about mutual love,
God saying
“I love you.”
And inviting us
to respond.
In other words, being Christian
isn’t about what we’re obliged to do,
so much as what we’re invited to do.
But, and it’s a big but,
the invitation
is not simply to go on living
the way we have always done
but to enter into a new way of living,
a way of living
that is in many ways
at odds with the way our society tells us to live.
Because it’s not just a matter of taking
only those parts of the Christian gospel
which we agree with, which fit well
with our comfortable lifestyles.
What God is calling us to
is a new way of living,
a way that is guided by love
and generosity
and forgiveness.
It’s the way Jesus points to
when he tells his disciples to love
not only those who love them,
but to love their enemies
those who seek to do them harm.
And remember, they live under Roman occupation.
So this is about loving
not just personal enemies, but the people who occupy their country.
So who might Jesus
be calling us to love?
And it’s the way Jesus points to
when he calls his disciples
to give to everyone who begs from them
or tries to borrow something.
In a country with no unemployment benefits or medicare,
where anyone without family
had to depend on the generosity of the community
it meant being generous,
whether you thought the person deserved it or not, whether you had money to spare or not.
So, in this time of economic struggle, who might Jesus be calling us to give to?
And it’s the way Jesus points to
when he calls his disciples to forgive, to forgive not juts seven times, but seventy times seven,
and if they happen to remember
on their way to worship
that there is someone who they need to reconcile with
to stop in their tracks
and go be reconciled.
Who might Jesus
be calling us to forgive?
God has given us a new covenant
and invites us to a new life.
Not because its going to win for us
gold stars
in heaven,
but because God has called us and God loves us
in a way that pays no attention
to what we have earned
or what we deserve
or what we can drive a bargain for
but offers us love
and a relationship free of all “shoulds”
to enjoy for ever.
This is the new covenant.
It’s radical,
and it may,
it should
turn our lives
upside down.
Remember it,
as this morning
we drink
that sign of the new covenant,
the wine
of which Jesus said,
"This is my blood of the new covenant, shed for you and for many. Drink it,
in remembrance of me."
Amen.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009