Jeremiah 31:27-34
October 17, 2010
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
What is the meaning of “character?” A Christian ethicist said that “character” is who you are when nobody else is looking. Character is who you are all the way down, deep. Or as the prophet Jeremiah might put it, character is what you have “written on the heart.”
Jeremiah has been prophesying destruction and death for much of the book. Israel has been unfaithful and now there will be a price for the nation’s infidelity. But chapter 31, beginning at verse 27, looks forward to a day when there will be a glorious restoration of the people and the land. Ignorance of the ways of the Lord, that has characterized so much of Israel’s behavior up to this point, shall be healed. There will be a deep knowledge of God’s ways. Even God’s absence from Israel will be healed.
“The days are surely coming” portrays the future gift that God gives to his people. The destruction, the “plucking up” will be ended. There will be a season of building, planting, and restoring.
In this new day, there will be a new covenant. God will enter into a new arrangement with his people. The old covenant has been characterized by a string of failures: broken promises, broken commandments, broken relationships. The new covenant will be much more successful because it will be written, not on tablets of stone, but on the very hearts of the people.
Christian Ethics
In the Old Testament, we read about following God’s law written on tablets of stone. In those days, it was important for you to memorize the Ten Commandments so that you would know what to do or not do. Some people today still think that the Ten Commandments has a place in our public institutions. But here at our church, we rather not ask you to memorize the Ten Commandments. It’s not that we don’t believe in them but rather we believe that God’s law has been written on our hearts.
Good character is not a matter of accurately reading and obeying a set of rules but rather it is a matter of having something on the heart. Good character is when you are able to sing the song without having to read the notes. You know it “by heart.”
When I was in seminary, I took a course on Christian Ethics. In that course we looked at various ethical problems. We analyzed each ethical situation, weighing alternative courses of action and debating the various positions. We did research on the ethical problems of capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, war and their implications. And then, applying reason, biblical teachings, life experiences, we attempted to think through the ethical dilemma, to determine the right course of action.
“What ought I to do in this situation?” we would say. We dedicated time and attention to come up with a careful, rational understanding of what we ought to do in such situations.
And yet today’s scripture from Jeremiah, which speaks of the “new covenant” written on the heart, suggests that some of the most ethical actions we perform we do without careful, rational deliberation. We say that we acted “out of intuition” or “just from second nature.”
What we mean is that we did them because a new covenant was written on our hearts. God graciously enabled us to do the right thing without having to think about it. Deep within us was a divinely implanted sense of what ought to be done.
For Christians, this “new covenant” is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Every time we receive the Lord’s Supper and drink the cup, we recite from 1 Corinthians 11:25, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” In Hebrews 9:15, we read, Jesus “is the new mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance…”
The Apostle Paul was so convinced that the new covenant has been written on his heart that he made comments like “the love of Christ controls me” and “Christ is in me.” In other words, early Christians claimed that Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled in Christ.
Christ’s Heart
If our lives are characterized by having Christ in us, what might that look like? How might we act as if Christ’s heart is a part of our hearts? If no one was watching, what might we do when the love of Christ is controlling your life?
This year’s Canvass theme that will also be the annual church theme for 2011 is “Who Is My Neighbor?” based on the incident that a lawyer stood up to test Jesus in Luke 10. The lawyer said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
The lawyer then answered correctly, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus told him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
But the lawyer who is familiar with the law and a defender of the law wanted to justify himself; in other words, he didn’t like the correct answer he gave and wanted to find some way to justify or support his life’s action of not loving his neighbor as much as he loved God and loved himself.
Jesus then told the parable of the Good Samaritan to this lawyer. We all know this story. There was a man most likely a Jew who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers stripped him of his possessions, beat him up, and left him by the side of the road half dead. It just happens that a priest was going down this same road and saw this half dead man and walked clear away to the other side and passed him by. Then a Levite came down this same road and he did just what the priest did.
But then a Samaritan who was from a not a very respected group in the eyes of the Jews was also traveling down on this same road came near to the half dead man and when he saw how bad he was, was moved to pity. He went to him and treated the wounds with oil and wine and then bandaged him up. He lifted him up on the back of his own animal and checked the half dead man into a motel. The Samaritan took care of this man overnight and when morning came when the Samaritan had to leave, he took out two denaii for the innkeeper to watch out for the man and said that when he returns on his way back to Jerusalem, he would pay the innkeeper whatever more it was necessary to take care of the half dead man.
After telling this story, Jesus turned to the lawyer and said, “Which of these three—the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed mercy.” Jesus said to the lawyer, “Go and do likewise.”
In New Testament times, the priests and the Levites were educated leaders of their communities. They led services in the temple. They applied the Mosaic laws on the people. They had the Ten Commandments probably clearly visible and posted in public places to remind people what to do and how to behave. They probably memorized the Ten Commandments. And while they probably knew what they should have done when they saw this half dead man on the road, they didn’t.
But the Samaritan who didn’t have to read or memorize the Ten Commandments because he wasn’t Jewish, found the compassion to care for the half dead man. It is as if the Samaritan had the new covenant written on his heart. He didn’t debate with himself on what he ought to do in this situation. He performed out of this deeply implanted sense of what ought to be done—doing the right thing without having to think about it.
Faithfulness in Marriage
When I think about the “new covenant written on the heart,” I think about faithfulness in marriage. When people get marry, the presiding minister asks the bride and groom to promise to be faithful to one another, “till death do us part.” This rule is held up before the bride and groom to obey. They must respond, out loud, before God and the church, promising that they will always be faithful to one another in keeping their vows of marriage.
Now in the first days of marriage, presumably there are situations when the bride and groom need to be intentional about keeping their promises of fidelity. Perhaps they will be faced with some circumstances in which they may have to say to themselves, “Now wait a minute. I am married. I have got to keep my vow no matter what. I made a promise in front of God and everybody.”
But in most marriages, over time, the couple discovers that they are no longer trying to be faithful. They are no longer keeping a promise by thinking hard about being obedient. They simply are faithful. It is as if God has written a covenant upon their hearts. That which preciously had to do with their brains they now do with their hearts. They are faithful, “by heart.”
We wake up one day and we realize that we are no longer trying to be faithful, or being obedient; we just are faithful. We are keeping the promises of marriage “by heart.”
In the Jeremiah passage we read this morning, God saw his relationship with Israel like that of a husband relating to his wife. In the new covenant “it will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them out of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.” In this new covenant, God said, “I will put my law within them, and will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
When it comes to the way we relate with our neighbors, we want to become like the Good Samaritan. Unlike the priest or the Levite who performed mental gymnastics about whether they should or should not help the half dead man, we won’t need to think hard about helping any longer. We would see all our neighbors as God’s children just like how we like God to see us. When God’s new covenant in Jesus Christ is written on our hearts, we know God and God sees us as his people.
By Heart
There’s a story about the beginning of creation when God is trying to decide the best way to reveal God’s self to humanity. God’s angels take turns giving God advice:
“Why don’t you appear to them in their highest courts?
Why don’t you appear to them in their largest and greatest places of religious worship?”
However, neither of those alternatives satisfies God. Then one angel suggests that humanity can discover hints of God’s self in “journeys of science and art…as they learn to love and care for each other…and in their great institutions of learning, government, and worship.” The angel adds, it is only when human beings “undertake the great journey of self-discovery, the pilgrimage to learn who they truly are and when they come to the end of the journey…learn that they are truly your creatures, there you should meet them.”
It is there—“in the depth and intimacy of the human heart”—that we will discover the presence of God.
Sometimes we say that we know a song “by heart.” When we sing the Doxology after the offering, most of us sing it without looking at the words in the bulletin. It’s there for those who are new to our church. After we have received the Lord’s Supper, we hold each other’s hands and sing, “Blest Be the Ties that Binds” without having to see the words—we know them “by heart.” After the morning prayer, you recite The Lord’s Prayer “by heart.”
Thes testimonies that these pieces of music and this prayer have become part of us. They have burrowed deep within our souls, so deep that we don’t have to think about it, we just do it, “by heart.”
As Christians, the new covenant is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We say, “Jesus is in my heart.” We sing, “We got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart to stay.
We got the love and compassion of the Good Samaritan down in our hearts. Where? Down in our hearts.
We got the concerns and welfare of our neighbors down in our hearts. Where? Down in our hearts.
We got the new covenant in Christ written on our hearts. Where? Down in our hearts.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, we thank you for all the ways in which you stay close to us. We praise you for your revelation to us in scripture, preaching, the testimonials and witnesses of fellow Christians, and all the other ways you keep drawing us toward you. Continue to guide us writing your covenant on our hearts, good Lord. Keep working with us. Draw us closer to your light, infuse us with your life. Amen.