Write To The Heart
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series II, Cycle B
A four-year-old girl was at the pediatrician's office for a checkup. As the doctor looked into her ears, he asked, "Do you think I'll find Big Bird in here?"
The little girl didn't answer.
Next, the doctor took a tongue depressor and looked down her throat. He asked, "Do you think I'll find the Cookie Monster down there?"
Again, the little girl was silent.
Then the doctor put a stethoscope to her chest. As he listened to her heartbeat, he asked, "Do you think I'll hear Barney in there?"
"Oh, no!" the little girl replied. "Jesus is in my heart. Barney's on my underpants."
That little girl certainly has her priorities straight, getting right to the heart of the matter.
God gets right to the heart of the matter, too, when he chooses Jeremiah, before his birth no less, to be a prophet. Jeremiah doesn't get much of a chance to pick a career for himself, since God informs him of this decision at a tender young age. God approaches Jeremiah, who considers God's proposition for about two seconds, and says, "No thank you, God! Not me. I can't do that."
God didn't take "No" for an answer, though. The next thing Jeremiah knows, he is pounding the pavement, preaching to a people who have turned away from God, a people who believe that the God of Abraham and Sarah is far away and virtually unknowable. God is out there somewhere, but certainly not close by, and not concerned in the least with individuals and their lives, or so the people thought.
Worship practices of that day also contributed to the portrayal of God as being so holy and otherworldly that God could only be addressed with great formality. A priest was required as a mediator since people believed God could only hear precise liturgical words and formulas. And, no one other than a priest could enter the holy of holies.
When Jeremiah began preaching, Judah's King Josiah was in the process of bringing about a methodical reformation of worship practices. Some folks held to long-established traditions they had learned from their parents and grandparents. However, others were finding that a contemporary worship service was much more to their liking. King Josiah's heart was in the right place, although his domestic and foreign policies left much to be desired.
At first, Jeremiah urges the people to return to faithfulness, but when he sees that it is impossible for kings and the people to be faithful, he preaches to prepare them for God's judgment. As judgment approaches, Jeremiah looks beyond it and in God's mercy, sees hope for the people.
King David's monarchy had long ago split into two kingdoms after an uncivil war. Jeremiah lived in the southern kingdom of Judah during anxious and troubled times. The color-coded terror alert level was always fluctuating between red and orange. Homeland security was continually in danger of being overwhelmed by Egypt to the southwest and Babylon to the northeast. The people of Judah found themselves under constant stress from the threat of terrorists invading their borders. Prominent world powers vied for control of that small kingdom, with Babylon finally winning out. Leading citizens of Judah were deported to Babylon, becoming resident aliens in a far-away land of strange customs and ideas.
Jeremiah preaches hellfire and damnation to all within earshot, not winning any friends or influencing people. Even his own family turns against him after he is labeled a traitor by the authorities. Just like Job, he curses the day he was born.
God had made a covenant, a commitment always to be present for the people, loving and caring for them, but the people were not responding to God's love and gifts to them. They were disobedient, breaking covenant commands. The old covenant needed to be updated, and Jeremiah learns from God that a new and better one will take its place.
God's Law will be written in the hearts of people. God is going to write this new covenant with indelible ink on the hearts of God's people. This new covenant will be as permanent as a tattoo or a brand. It is comparable to our baptismal covenant, when we are marked with the indelible cross of Christ forever. A new world is coming, Jeremiah tells us, a world where God can be known by all people. Jeremiah preaches that, with this knowledge, comes the promise of a forgiveness so sweeping that it erases even the memory of past sins. We are given a hopeful message of rebirth and deliverance.
Jeremiah realizes that God wants very much to be in relationship with God's people. Jeremiah envisions God establishing a new covenant, a new relationship with God's people, to be placed within individual hearts. God's love is steadfast, even when we are unaware of it. Human actions cannot weaken God's commitment to us.
God will reform our hearts, thus freeing us from our sins. We will become righteous through God's grace alone, rather than any action we can take on our own behalf. The Son of God's blood of the covenant will be poured from that sacred heart for all peoples for the forgiveness of their sins.
Jeremiah has a word of consoling hope for us as well as for the peoples of Israel and Judah. Only God can heal our incurable wounds. No matter what you have done in the past, God will not abandon or forsake you (31:32). Forgiveness is readily available.
Jeremiah assures the refugees in Babylon that their exile will end. "This, too, shall pass," he proclaims. "Return to God with your whole hearts. A reformation of worship practices without a reformation of your hearts and lifestyles is futile."
For the ancient Hebrews, the heart was much more than an organ that pumped blood. The heart was the center of everything physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. The heart encompassed the entire person.
Radical changes of heart have brought about reformations throughout the history of the church. Two millennia after Jeremiah, Martin Luther became an unyielding prophet in his own time, having his heart changed as he experienced God in a personal way. The Apostle Paul's life-changing experience had occurred on the road to Damascus, and Luther's first life-changing encounter came during a violent thunderstorm while on the road to Erfurt. A lightning bolt struck much too close for comfort, knocking Luther to the ground, and initiating his reformation from reluctant law student to monk.
In 1519, Luther had been pouring over Paul's letter to the Romans, when he came to the realization that people are justified by faith through the grace of God, and not because of their own good works. "The one who is righteous will live by faith" (Romans 1:17). Luther's revelation brought about radical new traditions within the church, inspiring the Protestant Reformation.1
The Bible was translated from Latin into the vernacular -- into German, English, or Spanish, languages the common people could understand and relate to. The ministry of the laity was embraced through the "priesthood of all believers." This view of priesthood means that all Christians regardless of age, gender, race, or educational background have the right to read scripture for themselves. All Christians are welcomed as leaders and participants in worship services.
Two centuries after Luther, John Wesley attended a small gathering in a chapel on Aldersgate Street in London. Someone there read from Luther's "Preface to the Epistle to the Romans." That evening while the reader was explaining the change that "God works in the heart through faith in Christ," Wesley remarked, "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins ... and saved me from the law of sin and death."2
Catching the reformation spirit, "John Wesley gave real meaning to the word evangelism. Wesley was a remarkable Anglican priest who took the gospel out from under the tall steeple and carried it into the fields and the coal mines, blessing the lives of the common folk, people who felt forgotten, neglected, and excluded."3
Wesley reminds us that religion is more than "head knowledge" alone. We also need to experience a new heart, one that is in relationship with our God. In the body of Christ, we become joined at the heart, and life-giving love flows from one part of the body to another.
When God decides to reform our lives, we are propelled into a dimension of life that can be startling. Reformation is not usually a comfortable experience. Just as Jeremiah had by his word, Jesus now calls us to a conversion of our hearts, a turning away from all that is unclean, unfaithful, and unloving. Jesus calls us to remember our baptism daily, and to discover again and again his gracious promises of forgiveness, love, and life. Jesus calls us all to be ministers of reconciliation at his table where, by his body and blood, we are united with our Savior, one another, and with our broken world. Jesus calls us to return to him, every morning and every evening, as his faithful disciples. Let us pray each and every day that Christ will reform our hearts.
There is almost nothing as stirring as watching the life of a new Christian unfold in excitement and wonder. Our own hearts melt as we share the tie that binds us together, a bond stronger than blood. One new Christian began reading his Bible with fervor, but discovered that many sections were difficult to understand. Finally, in exasperation, he turned to the last page to see how things ended. In relief he exclaimed, "God won!"
Helen Keller once remarked that, "The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart." Today we have many options when our physical hearts deteriorate, such as medication, bypass surgery, and even heart transplants. There are situations where any chance of new life requires surgery. Heart surgery is radical as we literally open ourselves to the life a new heart provides. A new spiritual heart brings with it the capacity to have God's own communication written on it.
Regardless of the bad choices we have made, and the chaos that permeates our lives, God can break through the hopelessness with the promise of a new chance. God promises us a new heart. Today is a day to be celebrated in the spirit of hope and new beginnings, renewal, and new life.
____________
1.Ê"Martin Luther, Monumental Reformer," Christian History Institute, online at [Accessed August 1, 2004].
2.ÊAlbert C. Outler, ed. John Wesley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 66.
3.ÊFred Craddock, Cherry Log Sermons (Louisville: WJK Press, 2001), p. 61.
The little girl didn't answer.
Next, the doctor took a tongue depressor and looked down her throat. He asked, "Do you think I'll find the Cookie Monster down there?"
Again, the little girl was silent.
Then the doctor put a stethoscope to her chest. As he listened to her heartbeat, he asked, "Do you think I'll hear Barney in there?"
"Oh, no!" the little girl replied. "Jesus is in my heart. Barney's on my underpants."
That little girl certainly has her priorities straight, getting right to the heart of the matter.
God gets right to the heart of the matter, too, when he chooses Jeremiah, before his birth no less, to be a prophet. Jeremiah doesn't get much of a chance to pick a career for himself, since God informs him of this decision at a tender young age. God approaches Jeremiah, who considers God's proposition for about two seconds, and says, "No thank you, God! Not me. I can't do that."
God didn't take "No" for an answer, though. The next thing Jeremiah knows, he is pounding the pavement, preaching to a people who have turned away from God, a people who believe that the God of Abraham and Sarah is far away and virtually unknowable. God is out there somewhere, but certainly not close by, and not concerned in the least with individuals and their lives, or so the people thought.
Worship practices of that day also contributed to the portrayal of God as being so holy and otherworldly that God could only be addressed with great formality. A priest was required as a mediator since people believed God could only hear precise liturgical words and formulas. And, no one other than a priest could enter the holy of holies.
When Jeremiah began preaching, Judah's King Josiah was in the process of bringing about a methodical reformation of worship practices. Some folks held to long-established traditions they had learned from their parents and grandparents. However, others were finding that a contemporary worship service was much more to their liking. King Josiah's heart was in the right place, although his domestic and foreign policies left much to be desired.
At first, Jeremiah urges the people to return to faithfulness, but when he sees that it is impossible for kings and the people to be faithful, he preaches to prepare them for God's judgment. As judgment approaches, Jeremiah looks beyond it and in God's mercy, sees hope for the people.
King David's monarchy had long ago split into two kingdoms after an uncivil war. Jeremiah lived in the southern kingdom of Judah during anxious and troubled times. The color-coded terror alert level was always fluctuating between red and orange. Homeland security was continually in danger of being overwhelmed by Egypt to the southwest and Babylon to the northeast. The people of Judah found themselves under constant stress from the threat of terrorists invading their borders. Prominent world powers vied for control of that small kingdom, with Babylon finally winning out. Leading citizens of Judah were deported to Babylon, becoming resident aliens in a far-away land of strange customs and ideas.
Jeremiah preaches hellfire and damnation to all within earshot, not winning any friends or influencing people. Even his own family turns against him after he is labeled a traitor by the authorities. Just like Job, he curses the day he was born.
God had made a covenant, a commitment always to be present for the people, loving and caring for them, but the people were not responding to God's love and gifts to them. They were disobedient, breaking covenant commands. The old covenant needed to be updated, and Jeremiah learns from God that a new and better one will take its place.
God's Law will be written in the hearts of people. God is going to write this new covenant with indelible ink on the hearts of God's people. This new covenant will be as permanent as a tattoo or a brand. It is comparable to our baptismal covenant, when we are marked with the indelible cross of Christ forever. A new world is coming, Jeremiah tells us, a world where God can be known by all people. Jeremiah preaches that, with this knowledge, comes the promise of a forgiveness so sweeping that it erases even the memory of past sins. We are given a hopeful message of rebirth and deliverance.
Jeremiah realizes that God wants very much to be in relationship with God's people. Jeremiah envisions God establishing a new covenant, a new relationship with God's people, to be placed within individual hearts. God's love is steadfast, even when we are unaware of it. Human actions cannot weaken God's commitment to us.
God will reform our hearts, thus freeing us from our sins. We will become righteous through God's grace alone, rather than any action we can take on our own behalf. The Son of God's blood of the covenant will be poured from that sacred heart for all peoples for the forgiveness of their sins.
Jeremiah has a word of consoling hope for us as well as for the peoples of Israel and Judah. Only God can heal our incurable wounds. No matter what you have done in the past, God will not abandon or forsake you (31:32). Forgiveness is readily available.
Jeremiah assures the refugees in Babylon that their exile will end. "This, too, shall pass," he proclaims. "Return to God with your whole hearts. A reformation of worship practices without a reformation of your hearts and lifestyles is futile."
For the ancient Hebrews, the heart was much more than an organ that pumped blood. The heart was the center of everything physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. The heart encompassed the entire person.
Radical changes of heart have brought about reformations throughout the history of the church. Two millennia after Jeremiah, Martin Luther became an unyielding prophet in his own time, having his heart changed as he experienced God in a personal way. The Apostle Paul's life-changing experience had occurred on the road to Damascus, and Luther's first life-changing encounter came during a violent thunderstorm while on the road to Erfurt. A lightning bolt struck much too close for comfort, knocking Luther to the ground, and initiating his reformation from reluctant law student to monk.
In 1519, Luther had been pouring over Paul's letter to the Romans, when he came to the realization that people are justified by faith through the grace of God, and not because of their own good works. "The one who is righteous will live by faith" (Romans 1:17). Luther's revelation brought about radical new traditions within the church, inspiring the Protestant Reformation.1
The Bible was translated from Latin into the vernacular -- into German, English, or Spanish, languages the common people could understand and relate to. The ministry of the laity was embraced through the "priesthood of all believers." This view of priesthood means that all Christians regardless of age, gender, race, or educational background have the right to read scripture for themselves. All Christians are welcomed as leaders and participants in worship services.
Two centuries after Luther, John Wesley attended a small gathering in a chapel on Aldersgate Street in London. Someone there read from Luther's "Preface to the Epistle to the Romans." That evening while the reader was explaining the change that "God works in the heart through faith in Christ," Wesley remarked, "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins ... and saved me from the law of sin and death."2
Catching the reformation spirit, "John Wesley gave real meaning to the word evangelism. Wesley was a remarkable Anglican priest who took the gospel out from under the tall steeple and carried it into the fields and the coal mines, blessing the lives of the common folk, people who felt forgotten, neglected, and excluded."3
Wesley reminds us that religion is more than "head knowledge" alone. We also need to experience a new heart, one that is in relationship with our God. In the body of Christ, we become joined at the heart, and life-giving love flows from one part of the body to another.
When God decides to reform our lives, we are propelled into a dimension of life that can be startling. Reformation is not usually a comfortable experience. Just as Jeremiah had by his word, Jesus now calls us to a conversion of our hearts, a turning away from all that is unclean, unfaithful, and unloving. Jesus calls us to remember our baptism daily, and to discover again and again his gracious promises of forgiveness, love, and life. Jesus calls us all to be ministers of reconciliation at his table where, by his body and blood, we are united with our Savior, one another, and with our broken world. Jesus calls us to return to him, every morning and every evening, as his faithful disciples. Let us pray each and every day that Christ will reform our hearts.
There is almost nothing as stirring as watching the life of a new Christian unfold in excitement and wonder. Our own hearts melt as we share the tie that binds us together, a bond stronger than blood. One new Christian began reading his Bible with fervor, but discovered that many sections were difficult to understand. Finally, in exasperation, he turned to the last page to see how things ended. In relief he exclaimed, "God won!"
Helen Keller once remarked that, "The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart." Today we have many options when our physical hearts deteriorate, such as medication, bypass surgery, and even heart transplants. There are situations where any chance of new life requires surgery. Heart surgery is radical as we literally open ourselves to the life a new heart provides. A new spiritual heart brings with it the capacity to have God's own communication written on it.
Regardless of the bad choices we have made, and the chaos that permeates our lives, God can break through the hopelessness with the promise of a new chance. God promises us a new heart. Today is a day to be celebrated in the spirit of hope and new beginnings, renewal, and new life.
____________
1.Ê"Martin Luther, Monumental Reformer," Christian History Institute, online at
2.ÊAlbert C. Outler, ed. John Wesley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 66.
3.ÊFred Craddock, Cherry Log Sermons (Louisville: WJK Press, 2001), p. 61.
