St. Andrew’s Pictou, April 2, 2006 Lent V

 

Vanished From World Wide Awareness

 

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:2-33

 

All of the scriptures today speak of one topic and that topic is “covenant.”

 

To understand the scriptures we have to be clear just what  “a covenant”” is.

 

Marriage is a covenant, but when a couple comes to me to get married, not many of them know what a covenant is even though they say that they want one.

 

While the dictionary definition may say that a covenant is “a formal legally binding agreement,” there is no way that definition really explains the consequences of what is meant when a person (or group of people) makes a covenant with another person (or another group of people.”)

 

To say that a covenant is “legally binding” leads us to believe that if you don’t keep your end of the covenant, you can be sued in the courts.

 

This would mean that if you slept around on your spouse, the other party could take you to court and sue you for breaking your marriage covenant because your covenant was legally binding.

 

A problem has developed lately over divorce because we have what is now called, “no fault divorce.”

 

Since getting a divorce has been so difficult for so many reasons when the covenant was broken, it was decided that having a “no fault divorce” would make things a whole lot easier.

 

The problem is that when the divorce happens, it seems that in some cases one of the parties appears to have more faults than the other in the “no fault divorce.” So the Supreme Court of Canada is trying to sort that out: whether one party has more blame than the other in a no fault divorce. (‘Why does the one who slept with ten partners get to keep the house’ sort of thing?)

 

Sounds like a recipe for insanity doesn’t it? You either have no fault divorce or one party is more responsible than the other for breaking the covenant. How in the world can you have one party worse than the other in a no fault divorce? How can you merge two contradictory concepts by putting them together into one?

 

We will see what the court says, but basically the root of the problem is that the concept of covenant has vanished from world wide awareness, or at least the awareness in our western world. The suicide bombers seem to keep some kind of covenant.

 

If we human beings do not know what a covenant is, and agree as to what a covenant is, and demand consequences when covenants are broken, then we end up having a no fault world: absolutely nobody is responsible for anything.

 

Now you know why:

-we can conduct baptisms where people promise in front of the whole church to come to church and we never see the people again,

-why three week Hollywood marriages are not a source of embarrassment, but fodder for tabloids,

-why we don’t want to ban athletes from the games when they lie, cheat, steal, bet, main or kill each other, or take steroids, i.e. when they deviate from their god status which one would expect in other circumstances be seen as having broken their covenant,

-why white collar crimes where people steal millions are given light jail time,

-why Martha Stewart’s stock doubled in value while she was in jail,

-why politicians don’t have to keep their promises,

-why we have no fault divorce,

-why churches won’t get rid of abusive clergy,

-why we have an epidemic of obesity and still spoon feed infants on chips and chicken fingers laced with pure fat,

-why nothing seems to really matter.

 

We don’t want to admit and hold people to the idea that breaking our promises has consequences!

 

Maybe now you understand why the police used helicopters for the recent drug bust at Northumberland High School. Someone or something has to scare these adolescents into the reality that taking illegal drugs has harmful and dangerous consequences.

 

All of our scriptures today have to do with the making and keeping of covenants for the simple reason that human beings, a civil human society cannot exist nor function without covenants, agreements and promises.

 

In Jeremiah God who identifies himself as the one who took the people out of bondage in Egypt makes a new covenant with the people. God promises in fidelity, an oath of intimate love for the people:

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God…for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

 

God promises to not be off in the distance, not something to be learned and grasped, but an intimate God of love who embraces us to the extent that God writes his name right on our very hearts.

 

The covenant is enriched and embellished by God in sending his one and only son, Jesus Christ to save us from the pain of our own self-destruction.

 

In the book of Hebrews, the apostle Paul postures this covenantal gift of Jesus as his being offered to as the consummate high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

 

“Every year the high priest went alone into the Holy of Holies in the temple to offer sacrifice for the whole people of God. It was understood that by this sacrifice the bond with God, broken by human sin, was forged once again for another year.” O’Driscoll p.36

 

There was a covenant, it was broken, and then it was restored.

 

In this season of Lent, we meditate on the reality that Jesus Christ our high priest was willing to go all the way, to go alone for us to the place of pain and sacrifice and sign his covenant for us with his own blood and bodily death.

 

I have always been amazed at this passage in John where visiting Greeks go to Jesus’ disciple Phillip and ask these simple words, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

 

What drew them to Jesus? What had they heard? What did they want? How are they like you and me?

 

Whatever the answers are to these questions, Jesus used the opportunity to point us towards his purpose and goal when he said, “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

 

Just like the Jeremiah passage: more closeness and connection; a higher degree of intimacy.

 

Isn’t that why the Greeks wished to see Jesus? Aren’t we drawn to those who keep their promises and live out their relationships in covenant with each other? Aren’t we drawn to the doctor, elder, minister, or friend who really cares for us?

 

While we live in a world where the whole notion of covenant has all but vanished, we have to realize that no matter who thinks what, it still works, we still need it, and more than that, we can’t live without it!

 

We can’t live without fidelity to each other in covenant: whether it is in marriage, between friends, minister - parishioner, teacher-student, employer-employee, or between you and I and our great high priest, Jesus Christ.

 

You see it is the “binding” part of covenant that we can’t do without.

 

We can’t live without each other, but to live with each other we have to know that we can depend on each other to keep our word; we have to know that we will keep our promises, like God in Christ keeps his.

 

We can’t teach covenantal values and integrity in a no fault world.

 

The covenants we keep are our “binding.” Our covenants are what keep us together in our own identity and maintain our society whatever it is to be.

 

The notion of covenant may have vanished in our western world, but it still works and it is still needed. There is nothing to stop you and I from keeping our word and our promises.

 

The notion of covenant has all but vanished in our western world, but when you and I keep our promises, our vows, then the binding of love and connection re-appear.

 

It is a choice we make: we keep our promises or we don’t. We have love, intimacy or closeness or we don’t. Let us follow Jesus, the one who keeps his promises, the one who said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.”

 

AMEN                  Rev. Alan Stewart