5 Lent B March 22, 2015
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Jeremiah 31: 31-34 + Hebrews 5: 5-10 + John 12: 20-33
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Here’s something I’ve noticed recently. For the life of me I cannot find my car keys on some days – Katy recently witnessed a rather frantic search of the office for them – but I can remember the words to the song our Middle School choir performed in sixth grade. Actually I can remember a lot of song lyrics from the seventies which serve no purpose other than not having to look at the words in karaoke. In addition to that song lyric skill set, I can also recite the words to the children’s books my kids enjoyed when they were little. Home for a bunny, a home of his own, under a rock, under a stone…where would a bunny find a home?
I suspect that the reason I remember the sorts of things I do, the reason we all remember them, is because we know them, not only in our logical minds, but we know them by heart. Those song lyrics of that sixth grade performance are from the first time I ever sang a solo. Not only do I recall the words to the song, but I remember the dress that I wore and the pale pink panty hose that made me feel oh, so grown up on a night when I really needed extra confidence. That experience is written on my heart. And the words to the songs of the seventies are my coming of age songs. And my children’s favorite stories take me back to those blissful days when I thought they would be young forever. Those days are written on my heart.
We all have them, these written on our heart memories. Songs or words or smells that take us to memorable times in our lives. Times that we will never forget. They may be wondrous times or times of great pain. They may be times we wish we could forget or times we pray we never will. And so, for just this next moment, I invite you to remember such a time in your own life. What is written on your heart? Can you feel it deep within? Can you hold it just for a moment, there?
I want to share one final example with you. When Taylor was a newborn I sang an old folk song to her as the lullaby that soothed her. It was called “Bring Me A Rose” and is a really wonderful song about bringing a rose when there are none around so that we don’t forget their beauty. Subsequent verses sing of bringing a friend to the lonely and love in the midst of hate. Even as she grew, even when she went through the trials of being a tween and a teen, this was the song she wanted to hear. Those words, I believe, came to be written on her heart.
In our reading from the Old Testament today, we hear of our final example of covenant during this Lenten season. In this reading from the prophet Jeremiah, the Judeans in Babylon blamed their exile on their ancestors, who had broken the covenant established at Sinai. And the prophet brings word from God of a new covenant. A different kind of covenant, even. Jeremiah writes: “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
From now on, God says, the covenant will not be in the bow in the sky or in the giving of a new name. It will not even be in the commandments. Instead, it will be found actually within God’s people….in their minds and written on their hearts. And the covenant is the same as it has been, the same as God has been: I will be their God and they will be my people.
I will be their God and they will be my people.
Is there any word, any promise, other than that that we want to have written on our hearts? So much a part of us that there is nothing we could do to rescind it, nothing we could imagine to separate us from it, nowhere we could turn to separate ourselves from it?
How does this covenant that is written on our hearts shape who we are as people? How does it affect the choices we make each day? How does it influence what we do with what the poet Mary Oliver calls our one wild and precious life?
Can we make the covenant even more personal by changing the pronoun to a singular pronoun?
I will be your God and you will be my child.
Far from being a covenant that becomes burdensome to us, these words on our hearts free us. They free us to live as the children of God.
Christian communities have sometimes formed around a process that involved believing a certain way first, then behaving in ways that were congruent with those beliefs and finally, finally belonging to the community of faith. But this understanding that the covenant is written on our very hearts suggests a reversal of this process. We already belong. God has claimed us all – each one as God’s own. That covenant and promise is written on our hearts and dwells in our minds. It is there when we are awake and when we are asleep. It is there when we are very young and when we are very old and in between. It is there whether we think we understand it or whether we are sure that we do not have any clue what it means.
And like the songs and words and experiences we remembered earlier this morning, we do not forget it. Whether we are aware of it or not, we remember it.
And as reminders, we have the gift of signs and symbols and sacraments to help us remember.
Because it is helpful for us to have outward signs of these written on the heart experiences. For some of us, during this season of Lent, it has been very helpful to light these candles as signs of our prayers. Outward signs.
Now, I’m going to make a little bit of a confession here. I remember one Council meeting someone said something about not having a tattooed pastor. I kept quiet. Because when Taylor turned 18 what she wanted was that we would both get a tattoo of the rose from her lullaby. Mine is on my left shoulder, where her head rested as I rocked and sang to her. She said that even though she would never forget that lullaby, and she knew that I wouldn’t either, she wanted us to have an outward, visible reminder of the promise of beauty when all seems forgotten. (And Mom, if you’re hearing or reading this on the website, sorry!)
But just as that rose is a sign of a song written on her heart, we also have outward signs of what God has written on our hearts. And they are here, in our worship together. They are water, and wine and bread. They are the gift of one another that is the Body of Christ. And the greatest sign of all is present to us in Jesus Christ.
This is the promise from God. This is the covenant that God makes with us and places in our minds and then, in case our minds fade or become distracted or forgetful, God writes them on our very hearts, where we never forget: I will be your God. And you will be my people.
And that is the good news, that rests within each of us, for this and all days. Thanks be to God. Amen.