Jeremiah 31:27-28, 31-34
27 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. 28 And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord.
31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It 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.
33 But 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. 34 No 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.
More Jeremiah
Amidst destruction of their homeland/promised land, in the midst of exile to a strange land, through Jeremiah God assures people of both the southern kingdom Judah (location of Jerusalem and the J-Temple) and the long-defunct northern kingdom Israel that future life will emerge from death.
On the last Sunday of October, we'll celebrate Reformation Sunday. Texts for Reformation are the same every year and include Jeremiah 31:31-34. Luther and other theologians very accurately found God's incarnate Word Jesus Christ throughout the Spirit-breathed Hebrew scriptures we share with our Jewish siblings. The apostle Paul assured us, "…in Jesus Christ every one of God's promises is a 'Yes.'" (2 Corinthians 1:20)
Martin Luther famously discovered and uncovered Jesus Christ in almost every Old Testament passage, and we often refer to Jesus as bringer of a new covenant, as the fulfillment of all God's promises, yet God announced this particular hope for a living future to Israel and Judah, not to the church.
To some extent we cannot help but interpret scripture through the perspective of twenty-first century individualism with its assumption of autonomous individual actors. As much as this passage is about the God who covenants with each of us in baptism, the culture where it originated could not have imagined a solitary person unbound and unresponsive to a community, along with a community that was protection and refuge for the individuals that formed it.
New Covenant
Over the past few years this blog has talked about neighborology: the word about the neighbor, the other than us. I've mentioned strong similarities in worldviews of Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Luke; theologies of all three books insist our love of God best becomes embodied in service to our neighbors. Despite the Common Lectionary being compiled a half century ago, it's no surprise they included quite a few readings from Jeremiah and Deuteronomy for this year C, Luke's year.
Very loosely, a biblical or ancient near eastern covenant is an agreement or pact; biblical covenants all are covenants of grace. Creation itself was the first covenant recorded in scripture; then covenants with Noah, with Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah, ten words – a decalogue – at Sinai via Moses, later on with King David.
However, in substance this suddenly new form of the law is no different from the good news of the ten commandments of the Sinai Covenant. The new covenant God promises through the prophet Jeremiah was (and still is!) a deeper, more internalized, more fully responsive way of living with the covenant of promise that binds God to people, the covenant of obedience that binds people to God and to each other.
Where We Live
Our modern tendency to equate heart with emotion and feelings is another difference between Jeremiah's world and ours. Because in Hebrew biology the heart is the seat of will and intention rather than emotion, a covenant inscribed on hearts would lead everyone to obey instinctively. Our scripture even claims, "No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me." In short, people won't need to think so hard about their next move.
If "no longer shall they teach … for they all shall know me," does that mean no more God-talk? Not exactly! In that day we'll absolutely continue to proclaim and re-enact salvation history in liturgy and sacraments. If we don't keep remembering, for sure we'll forget. We'll also keep on keepin' on reading and studying scripture, but for everyone "in those [future] days" it will be reminder more than instruction.
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