Fifth Sunday in Lent
Sermon today by The Rev. Mercedes Clements
I have been saved.
I am being saved.
I will be saved.
This simple statement captures our belief in salvation. Recognizing that we are sinners, and believing that God is a god of everlasting love and mercy, we believe that our salvation is an ongoing process of transformation through the work of God in our lives.
We also believe that we are in a covenant relationship with God, an unbreakable agreement, in which God will continue to work in our lives and be present with us, no matter what. However, it’s common to hear people refer to the New Testament covenant as the promise of forgiveness, whereas the Old Testament covenants are the rigid promises of a judgmental God.
Unfortunately, this can lead to a broken understanding of God. To understand this, we first need to talk about covenants. Those of you who attend Bible Study have heard me describe the difference between a covenant and a contract using a model I learned in my first Inquirers Class.
A contract is an agreement like a handshake. If either person breaks the agreement, the contract is broken.
But a covenant is a stronger agreement, as if hands are clasped to each other’s arms. Even when one party breaks the agreement, the covenant is not broken. It requires that both parties agree to dissolve the arrangement. And when we talk about covenant theologically, there is more. First, consider who is on the other end of our covenant. It’s not like making an agreement with a person. The Bible tells us about the covenant between God and God’s people.
And because this covenant is with God, it’s not like a human agreement. God’s covenant is unbreakable. That is, we might let go, turn away, or sin, but God never lets go. A covenant with God is also a transformational relationship. We agree to be faithful to God as God is faithful to us, and we understand that this covenantal relationship will change us over time. If you’ve studied the histories of the Bible, you will find a pattern emerges about God and God’s people. It goes something like this:
God finds the people in distress.
God finds a leader to guide the people. This leader is always an imperfect
and flawed person.
God promises to care for the people and provides a covenant with rules
on how the people live faithfully.
God saves the people.
The people are grateful for a while and then stray from God.
The people break God’s covenant.
Because there are rules, God judges the people.
Many people stop here without recognizing the next step in the cycle. They get caught up in God’s judgment, get uncomfortable, and decide not to like this “angry” God of the Old Testament.
But what happens when we continue?
After the people break the covenant and are judged, Does God abandon them? No. This pattern happens over and over and over again. We have been saved; we are being saved; we will be saved again.
God must be a forgiving and compassionate God to remain faithful to the covenant despite our human tendency to sin. Even though we repeat the pattern over and over again, God never abandons God’s people. This is God’s unconditional love, and it is as present in the Old Testament as it is in Jesus’s ministry.
In fact, a better way of thinking about Jesus is not to say that his work and promise replace the Old Testament covenant, but that Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love and compassion. This is what we mean by incarnation. Jesus embodies the truth of God’s faithfulness to the covenant. This faithfulness is the evidence of God’s forgiveness and compassion across the history of the Bible.
Yet, there are two sides to this covenant, and when we accept that God is always faithful, that our God has always offered everlasting love and compassion, then we might dig into our side of the covenant. Why do we let go? Sin is the result of acts, both intentional and accidental, that separate us from God’s love. Very often, we don’t realize that we’ve strayed until we move far down the path of following our own will. Only when significant damage has been done to our relationship with God and our relationships with others do we start to see the impact of our choices. For whatever reason, our hearts are hardened to the truth until we have gone so far that we must atone for our sins.
Sometimes, our hearts are also hardened due to a damaged relationship with ourselves. Life circumstances, family history, stress, trauma, grief, and many other factors may conspire to make us doubt our own worthiness or forget that we are a child of God. We harden our hearts to prevent future hurt, but in the process, we also lock out God and those who love us.
When we are in a place of sin, isolation, or despair, we suffer.
Often, in response, we close our hearts, hardening them because we think we can avoid future pain.
But God knows this about us. God made a covenant relationship with humans, understanding our weaknesses.
An old Hasidic tale might help us to understand this.
A disciple asks the rebbe: “Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?” The rebbe answers: “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.” God does not seek to break our hearts, but God recognizes with deep compassion that we will turn away. Our hearts will be hardened because we don’t recognize our sins or we are hurt by life. So, in Jeremiah, we find that God places this covenant, this reminder of God’s eternal love, written on our hearts, waiting for the day we need it.
“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.”
Often, our hearts remain closed not because of the sin but because of the fear of judgment. Yet, when we name our sins and seek atonement, we most often find that this fear far exceeds the reality of our lives. When we release these fears and seek understanding, we ultimately find that a great weight is lifted from us. And in this place of atonement, we also find the opportunities for the greatest transformation. Not in the shadow of our fears but in the light of God’s love.
You may have experienced this in your life. When you acknowledge a sin, you find forgiveness instead of judgment. Or when you open your heart to vulnerability, you find love and compassion instead of isolation. After making the move towards God, we find a great relief and a sense of exhaustion as we realize the burden we’ve been carrying.
For God knows our hearts and the ways of humans. God has tattooed the covenant of eternal love on our hearts, waiting for us to realize that we cannot do this alone. When we break down, when we think we cannot bear it, when our hearts break, we will find that the loving-kindness of God waiting for us
over and over again.
I have been saved.
I am being saved.
I will be saved.
This is the promise of God’s eternal love across the generations.
