We Belong in God's Heart - The 5th Sunday in Lent
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
March 17, 2024
One
of the rituals of going away to camp is marking all your things. Back in the
day, Mom sewed cute labels into all my clothes so people would know they were
mine. By the time our girls went to camp, a Sharpie took care of that. We would
write onto whatever it was- clothes, shoes- so no matter where our girls went,
someone could tell what belonged to them. Sometimes it took awhile before
things that were lost were returned, and they might look a little worse for
wear, but at the end of the day, they were returned because they were ours.
Marked with that permanent marker- no matter what, our name was never really
gone. You would think that they would have gotten better at keeping track of
their things even when they promised. But have you ever had to look for your
car keys?
In
these weeks of Lent, our Old Testament lessons are the covenants (promises) God
makes with the people. They’re here to help us understand who God is for us,
both in God’s feelings of love and of loss over us. We see why those promises
were made, how they were broken and what God chooses. When creation seems to
have become so distorted God is angered, after the flood, God brings a promise
of new creation. God chooses to make Abraham the father of a people with new
life. Even when Abraham takes matters into his own hands with horrible
consequences, God provides. God gives people who are enslaved, deliverance, a
new land and guidance for living with freedom. And they exclaim, “Everything
the Lord has spoken we will do!” The words barely fade in the air before
promises are broken again. When wilderness wandering leads them to snap at each
other, God sends snakes to slow them down, but they miss the lesson that
poisonous snakes do not bite without being provoked. So God brings healing and
a new faith. Today we catch up with Jeremiah, a prophet to a once United nation now
divided into two kingdoms.
God
called Jeremiah at thirteen to speak what God’s heart desired and he made his
hometown so mad that he had to move an hour away! Warning about dangerous alliances,
not fighting certain wars, and not just going through the motions of calling
yourselves “religious.” Called the “Weeping Prophet” he probably wasn’t popular
at parties. He ticked off the king, religious leaders, pretty much everyone. Always
calling people to turn back-remember they were God’s people called to live as
those whose whole life was shaped by this relationship. But
their lack of perspective would be their undoing. They end up in ruin and in
lament. And yet this will not be the last word.
There
will be another covenant and this time Scripture calls it “new.” But it’s not
really new in any way other than that people have broken a relationship with
God and each other again, and God must renew and continue this relationship.
God continues to make new ways when we break our promises. We are the same
people we encounter in the Bible.
1 How we act may look different,
but what we do and why are the same. The
good news is that God is the same God. The God who could ask us what we have
done for this relationship, calls us back- a new covenant with the same old
people.
Why?
Just before our lesson, God declares, “I will be the God of all …and they will
be my people…” The people who survived the sword find grace in the wilderness.
“I
have loved you with a love that lasts forever. And so with unfailing love, I
have drawn you to myself. Again, I will build you up, and you will be
rebuilt... Again, you will play your tambourines and dance with joy.
“I will
gather them from the ends of the earth…With tears of joy they will come; while
they pray, I will bring them back. I will lead them by quiet streams and on
smooth paths so they don’t stumble…”
“Isn’t
this my much-loved child? Don’t I utterly adore him? Even when I scold him, I
still hold him dear. I yearn for him and love him deeply…I will strengthen the
weary and renew those who are weak.”
“Just
as I watched over them to dig up and pull down, to overthrow, destroy, and
bring harm, so I will watch over them to build and plant," declares the
LORD. Then God’s heart proclaims the
promised words of restoration, of reuniting. No more fighting and lamenting and
division:They broke that covenant with me even though I was their beloved, but
this is the covenant that I will make with them after that time…I will put my
Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”
Jeremiah
has named the failings of the people but also proclaims God’s heart for them:
What is in our hearts is that WE BELONG IN GOD’S HEART
And
it’s written permanently.
While
this prophecy was for the people of the day, the telling of God’s heart for God’s
people is timeless. And we are still living in the hope of all knowing the
Lord.
And
in the meantime, like all great relationships it shouldn’t be one-sided. God
wants to talk about belonging in our hearts, not just our heads.
In
our heads, God’s just an idea we can think about without a whole lot of belief
that this is deep, or long lasting, much less permanent.
But
our hearts are another story.
Our
heart is the place of deep things, that are at the very heart of us- our
identity, our reason for living. Love, trust, hope, forgiveness are heart
things
And
after everything, God’s heart longs that we never forget what it means to live
heart to heart permanently.
God
hopes we never forget. And God responds with the full opposite when it comes to
our sins:
“To
not remember.”
These
are the words from the God who is slow to anger to the people who are slow to
grasp it. The clean heart and renewed spirit.
Not
only did the people of Jeremiah’s day not fully internalize that, this side of
the cross we struggle too. And yet each week in communion we hear of the new
covenant in Christ’s blood for “you and for all people for the forgiveness of
sins.” I remember when I first memorized those words. I can say them by heart
from my heart each time as a sign that our God cares enough to help us all to
see our sin, yet give the transformation of our hearts for the new life God
desires for us and that we need so that
building and planting and joy and dancing are possible. Hopefully when we can
be restored to them, we will see and remember the loving God who made it so.
In
the ultimate new covenant-Christ’s work of the cross for us, we remember the
cross made upon us that calls us to die to those things that separate us and
rise to new life.
Like
people in Jeremiah’s day and others in Scripture, maybe we can’t always imagine
God would really take care of us so deeply. We sometimes go through the motions
and go our own way. God wants to be our God and to guide us and all people to
restoration. No matter where we wandered, or how we got there, calling us back to
the light.
God
knows there are plenty of other attractions out there that are really out for
themselves and not us. We need to remember what’s written on our hearts.
Christ
hopes that we will keep helping each other see that the only one who will love
us deeply with everything, and whose love is permanent, is our Lord. It’s why
the mark of the cross on our heads matches the writing on our hearts as we hear
God’s call to the promise again each time we come to the table and hear, “This
is for you.”
1 Beth
L. Tanner, Working Preacher commentary for March 17, 2024
Sermon
Text: Jeremiah
31:31-34
31The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when
I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It 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. 33But 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. 34No 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.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights reserved.
May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
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