A NEW COVENANT JEREMIAH 31:31-34 OCTOBER 21, 2001 ***** Jeremiah awoke with a start.  Where was he?  It took a few moments for him to remember that he was in prison.  The sleeping mat on the floor, the tiny window up high, the locked door all served to confirm it.  Jeremiah was in prison, convicted of high treason.  Two months earlier he’d been arrested for prophesying God’s judgment on the city for its failure to abide in the covenant and advocating that people of Jerusalem desert and give themselves up to the Babylonians. Of course, he’d been in nearly continuous trouble for his prophecies. In fact, Jeremiah had been in and out of prison for years, but this time it was more serious... This time they were going to kill him... King Zedekiah’s patience had worn out... He’d had finally had enough of Jeremiah’s shenanigans... and had thrown him to the wolves. Jeremiah trusted God, he really did... but you know, sometimes it made you wonder. What was his sin? He had only told the truth. The real failure was that of  Israel... God’s people... Jeremiah’s people... Those whom God had rescued and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand Bringing the plagues upon the Egyptians... Rolling back the sea so that the Israelites could escape... Bringing them through the wilderness into the "promised land" Their sin was their failure to live up to the first covenant that they had agreed to. Jeremiah recalled that agreement... It called for the people to abide by ten commandments Ten simple commandments in exchange for a special relationship with God. They’d made the covenant... agreed to it. But as Jeremiah had been preaching for the past several years... In fact ever since his call as a young man... They had not lived up to the contract... They had broken their promises... repeatedly Over and over again. The worst was of course, was the first commandment to have no other Gods but Yahweh. This one they had failed repeatedly and completely. Beginning with the golden calf and continuing with their worship of  Baal... That was the worst one... but the other nine followed close behind. These people, God’s chosen ones, had failed to follow the commandments, and their punishment was sure and certain. Their sentence... the one that Jeremiah had been telling them.. was that they were going to be carried off into captivity in Babylon. ***** How like these people we have been. We too were offered a covenant. And in our baptisms we accepted it... or our parents accepted for us. In any case we call ourselves Christians... we are part of a promise. We have signed off on the agreement in exchange for a portion in God’s Kingdom. What were we called to do?  To live as Christ did... To love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But we’ve failed to live up to it. Take the first part for example. How many of us can say we truly live by this: To love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength?? Which of us, if the truth be known, calling God our Lord actually act as though he were Lord of our lives? In fact many of us who call him "Lord" don’t mean it. Its sort of like one of those children’s games where you agreed to something but crossed your fingers behind your back. You come to church on Sunday... you pay homage to God... but through the week live as though you were a civilian. You let your anger destroy your relationships with your spouse and children... You cheat on your taxes... You make your pledge to church not based upon what God has given you but on what you can comfortably afford to give after payments on the boat or motorcycle. Face it folks... few of us can honestly call God our LORD... can we??? And as for loving our neighbor as ourselves??? Only if we have a very low sense of our own self worth. Oh and by the way... lets not forget  that for Jesus, the concept of neighbor extends to our enemies too. It isn’t just the people that you like and are like you. I don’t know about you, but I’m having a real hard time thinking of those terrorists as my neighbors... and while I’m thinking about it... there’s a pretty good list of people I’d rather not include here. So you see, we are no different from the people Jeremiah was talking to... Those people who were due God’s judgment... We’ve earned the same punishment that they did. ***** But lets go back to Jeremiah. Why had he awakened so suddenly?  It was one of those dreams again. Those dreams in which God commanded him to prophesy to the city... Those dreams condemning the city and people of Jerusalem... Those dreams which usually ended up with Jeremiah in hot water... or jail. But this dream was different.  This dream was full of hope! In this one, Jeremiah heard the voice of God saying to him "I’m going to make a new covenant with the house of Judah and the house of Israel." A new covenant, which would be not like the old one on tablets of stone... This one would be written on the hearts of the people. And in this new covenant God was going to forgive the people and remember their sin no more. This new covenant will be so much a part of them that they won’t even have to teach it to each other. And beyond this, the covenant is not conditional. They don’t have to earn it by being good... by following a set of laws. You see, that first covenant called for them to sign off on it. God will be their God, and all they have to do is to live by ten commandments. Well some of them tried pretty hard to do it. And you know... they pretty much failed. In fact for many of them, the more they tried the more likely they were to fail. Indeed, after their return from captivity in Babylon, some of them really tried... REALLY!!! They made the point of trying to live according to every dot and tittle of the law. They crossed every "T" and dotted every "i" In fact they lived by it so fiercely that they literally killed people for failing to follow even one little part. Those Taliban regulations that we are hearing about are probably not far from what it was like to live under Pharisaic laws. And that’s why Jesus had to come. Jesus had to change a way of human thinking that threatened to literally destroy the entire community if not the world. That was the promise inherent in this new covenant that Jeremiah now foretold. Of course first the people had their punishment to deal with... 40 years in captivity... and then they had to wait another 500 years for Jesus to come... Sometimes waiting for God to act can seem like an eternity... But then when eternity is what you’ve got... what’s a measly 500 years? ***** So anyway, what’s all this mean to us? As the old Wendy’s commercial went, "Where’s the beef?" Well the good news is that even though we have repeatedly failed to live up to the standards that Jesus set for us... That new covenant which said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself..." there is still the truth that God is a loving God who is not only willing but wants to forgive us of our sins. Because of Jesus, God has a certain senility concerning our sins. God forgets them.  He remembers them no more. I think that there is a sense in which God finally realized that we are flawed in our very nature. God always hoped the best for us, but beginning with Adam and Eve began to understand that we aren’t perfect. Its sort of like the parent who thinks that little Johnny walks on water until Johnny squirts him with one of those big soaker water guns. After enough of these we finally begin to realize the humanity of our children. Now for some of us... this doesn’t take all that long! But God was more persistent. The truth is that God loved us enough to give us freedom to make choices. And in that freedom, there is also a truth that we won’t always do as our parent likes. Thus, when the road of life splits, we are going to frequently opt for the one that looks more pleasing to us... Even though there are signs aplenty that advise us concerning the best way. The right road to follow. The great good news from this old testament passage is that even when we choose the wrong road, when we look down that road... there’s God again... out in front... beckoning to us... "Come on Tom! Follow me!" The hand of God is right there, right in front of me... reaching out to me... and all I have to do is to grasp that hand... one more time... and say, "God forgive me.  I want to be like Jesus." And don’t you know, he’ll take me in... again... one more time. That’s what the NEW COVENANT is all about. And that is what real true love is all about too, isn’t it? AMEN.