Abstract
A New/Old Covenant
What a hot mess of metaphors our readings give us today. “Sour grapes” in Jeremiah; “itching ears” in Second Timothy, and both a persistent, pugilistic widow and God Almighty compared to an unjust judge in Luke. The psalmist is lighting his pathway with Torah, and the prophet has the audacity to talk about a covenant that is not written on a scroll or stone tablet, but is written on our hearts, no longer something that must be taught, but a new reality that is simply known.
We tend to focus on the parable of the ‘persistent widow’. She is quite a character, determined and intense enough to scare the judge into giving her what she wants—the words the NRSV renders as “wear me out” can be literally translated as “give me a beating.” And what of comparing God to an unjust judge? Yes, God is compared favorably to the guy, but who saw that analogy coming?
The author of Second Timothy famously writes that “all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work”. We often forget that last part, that the “why” of biblical inspiration is not so that we can win arguments but do good works. And we often forget that by “scripture” the author meant the Old Testament, not the New. So taking our cue from Second Timothy, let us direct our attention to the OT lesson for today, in particular to the “new covenant” Jeremiah declares.
We should be careful how we describe a covenant. They are at once both more and less common than we think. Covenants can be formal, like marriage, and informal, like the “social contract” that is in danger of fraying to the point of disintegration in so many countries. True covenants are mutual, and intentional, like the baptismal covenant in the Prayer Book. Covenants are not decreed from on high, they are “entered into” or joined. God, the Bible tells us again and again, decided from the start not to rule over creation like a despot but to share “dominion” with humanity. And God chooses not to demand from us blind obedience but seeks a relationship, mutual and reciprocal; a covenant.
Jeremiah says he is talking about a new covenant. What does this “new covenant” look like? First things first: he is not talking about Jesus. When Jesus says at the Last Supper, and we repeat in the Eucharistic prayer, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor. 11:25), it is Jesus looking back at Jeremiah, not Jeremiah looking ahead to Jesus. It is not messianic; but instead the renewal, perhaps even the reinvention, of covenant. The language of covenant is the language of God’s relationship with us, then and now. Jeremiah mentions three key ideas: the new covenant is “written on the heart” and so does not have to be taught. It is for everyone regardless of status, and it is a covenant of forgiveness.
What do you know by heart? We do not memorize in school like we used to, and memorization is not the same as knowing something by heart, is it? The late Fred Craddock, surely the finest preacher of the last century, tells of the time he was suffering from a life-threatening illness, Guillain-Barré Syndrome. He could not focus to see, he could barely hear. The only thing he had, he says, is what he knew by heart—the Lord’s Prayer, favorite psalms and other poems, snatches of hymns and songs. In other words, he had exactly what he needed to get through his ordeal. That is what we know by heart, what we really, really need, what means the most to us. Not what someone has taught us, or we memorized for a test. This new covenant, the relationship God always wants with us, is like that.
Next, the covenant Jeremiah describes is for everyone, “from the least to the greatest.” This was as big a deal in his day as it is in ours. Social stratification has always been an issue. In chapter five Jeremiah is sent to try and find one “just” person in Jerusalem. He fails at first, and says, “These are only the poor, they have no sense.” (5:4). It was and is a common prejudice, and Jeremiah learns in the next verse that the rich are no wiser. It is this prejudice, one we all carry to a greater or lesser degree, that the new covenant rejects. It is phrased in a way that reflects Jeremiah’s own ongoing issue. It is also our issue, a church issue. A few years ago one of my students preached a devastating sermon challenging his home parish to confront its own prejudice, asking pointedly what the parish was doing to make people feel as welcome in the nave for Sunday worship as they felt in the church basement for 12-step meetings and the once-a-week soup kitchen. The new covenant is a covenant of radical inclusion.
In a book about his two decades of ministry with Latino gangs in Los Angeles, Tattoos on the Heart, Fr. Greg Boyle, the Jesuit founder of “Homeboy Industries” and other projects, writes about God’s jurisdiction, and how important it is for the church to broaden its own jurisdiction to mirror God’s. He tells of taking a pair of “homies” from East L. A. with him to a speaking engagement in an affluent suburb. They stopped to eat, and he realized it was the first time these two 20-year-olds had ever been to a restaurant where the menu was not posted above the cash registers, but was carried by the hostess, who was not happy about taking them to a seat. She put them as far away from herself and everyone else as she could.
“G,” said one of the former gangbangers, “everybody’s staring.” And they were, at their size, their color, their jeans and hats, and most of all, at their tattoos. The young men were uncomfortable and wanted to leave, “We don’t belong here, G.” And then a waitress came over, put her arm around the boys’ shoulders and called them “honey” and “sweetie,” brought them extra sides and refills and free dessert. She was, Fr. Boyle writes, “Jesus in an apron.”
Above all Jeremiah’s new covenant is a covenant of forgiveness. I wish I had words adequate to tell you how important this is. We think too often of our relationship with God as one of duty and obligation, of covenants as something that must be enforced. And there is more than enough in the Judeo-Christian tradition to support this approach, even in Jeremiah himself. Not here. Here, perhaps in spite of himself, Jeremiah realizes something different. “For I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (v. 34).
No more. Your sin, my sin. No more. And not just us, who will later share in the prayer of confession and receive absolution. If it was just for us it would give the lie to the first half of the verse, “from the least to the greatest.” This covenant of forgiveness is for us, and for all. God’s grace is not bounded by our limitations.
We limit God every time we imagine ourselves beyond God’s love, unable to be forgiven, and every time we project that image onto others. We are not. We have never been. And we never will be.