This is a three part sermon which I interspersed with the readings for Covenant Sunday. The aim of this sermon is to give people a better understanding of the biblical concept of 'covenant'. Understanding the concept of 'covenant' also helps to unpack much of the text in the liturgy of the Covenant Service itself. The sermon is written from an Arminian understanding of 'covenant' that I expect 5-point Calvinists probably wouldn't agree with!
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Introduction
This morning, we are observing a traditional Methodist form of worship called the Covenant Service, where we affirm our faith in God and rededicate our lives to God's service.
I suppose it would be quite accurate to say that what we are about to do - those who choose to do so - is like a reaffirmation of our Baptismal vows. The liturgy itself expresses the purpose of this service as 'accepting again our place within the covenant which God has made with us and with all who are called to be Christ's disciples.'
We are often used to hearing the idea that to become a Christian is to 'make a commitment to Christ' and therefore you might not be far wrong in thinking that this service is a renewal of that commitment.
But I expect you've heard it said in Covenant Services from years past that, actually, God made a commitment to us first - in the words of our baptismal service - 'before we even knew anything of it'. Because although the word 'covenant' implies a contracted promise, it also has a rich biblical meaning.
And it's the story of this biblical meaning that I'd like to review this morning.
In order to make that easier, I'd like to expand on each part of the story as we hear it rather than give 'a sermon'. The first part of the story begins in the desert. It is Moses' farewell address to the people of Israel, just before his death and just before the people are to be delivered from their forty-year exile in the desert.
Deuteronomy 29:10-15
Israel are God's chosen people, but it probably doesn't feel like it any more after forty years wandering in the desert. As the story goes, the people cannot enter the promised land until every one of the generation of people who left Egypt has died.
Imagine trying to keep faith in God's good purposes for your people as you wander aimlessly in the desert for forty years. But the ancient Israelites were no better at it than we are and they didn't keep the faith. Even as Moses went up Mount Sinai in order to get the ten commandments - a sign and seal of the contract between God and Israel - the Israelites had already broken their part of the bargain by worshipping a false god.
Yet, God remained faithful and he reestablished the contract with his people.
Now this covenant that has been made between God and the Israelites is not a contract in the usual sense because a contract must normally be made between two equals. Human beings are not able to reach out and establish a bond with God, but God is able to reach out to us. And that is exactly what the old covenant is about: through Israel, the transcendent God intervenes in history to establish a relationship with humanity in human time and in human space.
Of course, the other thing about a covenant - contract - is that it is normally viewed as being null and void when one party does not keep up their end of the bargain. And it did not take the coming of Jesus for God's people to understand that human beings cannot keep God's law.
Jeremiah understands all too well that God's people have not been able to keep the old covenant. He realises that a new covenant between God and humanity is needed....
Jeremiah 31:31-34
And so we have an age-old human problem: Human beings are not able to refrain from sinning. We are not able to keep the Ten Commandments. We are not able to keep up our end of a bargain with God.
What is the solution to be? That human beings keep sinning and that God keeps renewing the contract nonetheless? Jeremiah proposes a different solution: a new covenant.
This is is not a covenant that is based on human beings being able to keep God's law - we already know that won't work. The new covenant is based on the transformation of human hearts: not God's law written on tablets, but God's Spirit written on the hearts of human beings. If human beings are not able to be faithful on their own, then God himself will have to transform the human heart in order that we can be faithful.
For the Christian, this transformation can come only from Jesus. Jesus said that didn't come to do away with the law, but rather that he came to fulfill the law. Jesus fulfilled the law because he himself was the one human being who was able to be 100% faithful to the requirements of the covenant with God. Jesus was able to keep up our end of the bargain and he did it for us, as our substitute and in our place. Jesus' obedience to the Father is accepted as our obedience to the Father and, in Jesus, the covenant between God and humanity is made permanent for all time.
It is through Christ that God's Spirit is written on our hearts and that we can hope for our own transformation. It is through Christ and his life, death and resurrection that God intervenes once again in history - in the new covenant - to establish a relationship with humanity in human time and in human space.
And just as the Jewish people observe Passover to remember God's covenant with them and with all people, So too do we observe the Lord's Supper as a token of God's new covenant with humanity.
The following reading is taken from Mark who sets The Last Supper in the context of the Passover Meal.
Mark 14:22-25
Jesus says in verse 25: 'Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.'
Just as the Passover looks forward to the fulfillment of God's promise to the Jewish people of deliverance from exile and settlement in the Promised Land, so too does the Lord's Supper look forward to what Christians believe is the fulfillment of the promise of God to all people: the Kingdom of God.
A world in which human dignity is real and the presence of God is manifest.
But the Lord's Supper is operating under the rules of engagement - if you will - of the new covenant:
Of the understanding that human beings cannot keep God's law but that Jesus has kept it for us and that he has fulfilled it on our behalf. The Lord's Supper is the feast of the Kingdom of God: the feast to which all people are invited on account of the forgiveness that has been won for us by the cross of Christ. It is not our 'making a commitment' to God that saves us, rather it is God's 'making a commitment' to us through Christ that saves us.
The Covenant Prayer which we are about to make is an acknowledgement of all that God has done for us in Christ. We acknowledge that it is because of God's action that we belong to God. And we acknowledge that we, like the Virgin Mary, are the servants of God and that we do not do God work but, rather, God works through us.
Please take a minute or so to read over The Covenant Prayer. May God bless us as we prepare to make this solemn prayer together.
Showing posts with label Old Covenant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Old Covenant. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Sunday 6 January - Covenant. New School
The sermon below is a sermon for 'Covenant Sunday'. The texts on which it is based are: Exodus 24:3-11, Jeremiah 31:31-34, Romans 12:1-2 and John 15:1-10.
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Introduction(1)
Imagine with me, if you will, a luxury block of flats in the centre of your favourite holiday city or town. Imagine the view from the top floor of this block of flats: where ever your favourite place is.
Perhaps it’s a beautiful view overlooking hills or even mountains. Perhaps the view is one of lakes or the ocean shore. Where-ever it is, imagine the beauty that you find in that view and the sense of God’s good creation.
Now, I want to introduce you to two new residents in this block of flats: Harry and Emma. Harry lives in Flat number 12 which he just purchased.
When he moved in, he signed a tenancy agreement. He agreed to pay the management company a certain fee every year for the maintenance of the structure of the building and for the upkeep of the common areas. He agreed that he would not make any modifications to the structure of his flat without first consulting the owner of the leasehold. He agreed that his floors would be sound-proofed or carpeted. And he agreed that he would own no dangerous pets.
Now Emma lives in flat number 14 and she didn’t make any such agreement with the leaseholder. In fact, she’s made no agreement with anyone. Emma gets to live in flat number 14 without having signed a tenancy agreement and without having to take responsibility for anything in her flat. In fact, Emma doesn’t even have to make her own meals!
Have you guessed it yet? Emma is only a few weeks old and she lives with her parents. Oh, I forgot to say that Emma is adopted.
The Old Testament Covenant
This morning, we have heard two readings about the theme of ‘covenant’ in the bible.
In the Old Testament, there are many places where we read of an approach to Covenant that sound like the sort of tenancy agreement that Harry entered into: God sets out certain conditions which his people agree to just like a tenancy agreement. The usual format is: ‘I (God speaking) will be your God and you shall be my people’. We’ve heard this format in this morning’s reading from Exodus.
So, it can seem to us that if we break our end of the bargain, if we break our tenancy agreement, then the covenant is broken and we will be evicted.
There are a number of times in the Old Testament where either Israel or Judah are told that punishment will come upon them – or has come upon them - because they have broken their Covenant with God. This is the old form of covenant relationship: a relationship between God and his people under the Law.
The New Covenant
But even before the birth of Christ, we have a biblical witness to a new form of Covenant relationship with God and this New Covenant was expressed in our reading from Jeremiah.
In fact, these verses from Jeremiah are considered to be the key verses in explaining the concept of ‘The New Covenant’ and the key to the entire covenant is actually in the very last phrase that was read: ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.’ This idea of forgiveness is actually the foundation on which the New Covenant rests.
Unlike the Old Covenant, in the New Covenant, our relationship with God is no longer based on the condition that we keep up our end of the bargain. God knows that we can’t be like Harry: we are not going to be a good tenant who keeps his tenancy agreement.
The foundation of the New Covenant is that God forgives first. Once God forgiveness has been granted to us by God, the New Covenant have a firm foundation on which to rest.
God knows that we are actually like baby Emma. Not only can’t we keep up a tenancy agreement, we aren’t even in a position to sign one. Like baby Emma, we are simply incapable of making such an agreement. Just like baby Emma, we need someone else to do it for us.
To stretch this analogy just a bit further let’s imagine that Emma’s adopted father is actually the son of landlord. The building will eventually belong to Emma’s dad, and there is no question that anyone will ever demand that baby Emma be responsible for keeping up the tenancy agreement.
It’s as if, because God knew that there is no chance of any of us ever being able to keep such an agreement, that he decided to adopt us. Because of our adoption as sons and daughters, our inheritance – as it were – becomes part of who we are; it is written on our hearts.
Or, to use the image from today’s Gospel reading, through the forgiveness mediated by Christ, we are grafted on to Christ, who becomes our support and our nourishment. Our relationship with Christ is not dependant upon our clinging on to the vine. It exists because we have been grafted on to the vine. Christ supports us, not the other way around.
The Covenant Prayer
What has any of this got to do with the Covenant Prayer?
Well, I think it’s important for us to understand that we are making this prayer under the New Covenant.
We are not ‘making a decision to have a relationship with God’ in this prayer; we are not chasing God down the street and saying ‘Hello! I’ve decided that I want to have a relationship with you now.’ Doing this would be trying to have a relationship under the Old Covenant.
We’d be acting as if we were in a position to keep all these promises under our own strength – as if we were Harry, who could keep his tenancy agreement.
What we are doing when we pray the Covenant Prayer is acknowledging that our relationship with God already exists and that we are aware we had nothing to do with bringing it about. We’re acknowledging that we are like baby Emma: living in a relationship with God because he was gracious enough to adopt us and to offer us a permanent tenancy with him.
When we pray, ‘I am no longer my own but yours’ we’re not saying ‘Once I belonged to myself but now I’ve decided to turn myself over to you.’ We are acknowledging that we understand that we’ve always belonged to God in the first place.
When we pray the Covenant prayer, we don’t give God the gift of ourselves. When we pray the Covenant prayer, we say that we understand that we’ve always belonged to God, that whether we are troubled or at peace, that whether we have work to do or no work to do, that we understand that the Covenant is there and always will be.
As the introduction to the prayer tells us, we are simply accepting our place within a Covenant which already exists because God himself brought it into being.
Preparation for the Prayer
In a few minutes, I will invite those of us who wish to do so to make the covenant prayer.
I invite you now to turn to page 7 in your pink books where the text of the covenant prayer can be found. We will have a few moments of silence to give us all an opportunity to read this prayer and for each of us to consider the manner in which we might make it. As you read, I invite you to read the prayer as if the prayer were God making a promise to you – because that’s what he’s already done.
May the grace of the Triune God be with us all in our consideration. Amen
(1) Credit for the illustration: Rev Andrew Sails, Mint Methodist Church, Exeter, http://www.themint.org.uk/z146.htm
===
Introduction(1)
Imagine with me, if you will, a luxury block of flats in the centre of your favourite holiday city or town. Imagine the view from the top floor of this block of flats: where ever your favourite place is.
Perhaps it’s a beautiful view overlooking hills or even mountains. Perhaps the view is one of lakes or the ocean shore. Where-ever it is, imagine the beauty that you find in that view and the sense of God’s good creation.
Now, I want to introduce you to two new residents in this block of flats: Harry and Emma. Harry lives in Flat number 12 which he just purchased.
When he moved in, he signed a tenancy agreement. He agreed to pay the management company a certain fee every year for the maintenance of the structure of the building and for the upkeep of the common areas. He agreed that he would not make any modifications to the structure of his flat without first consulting the owner of the leasehold. He agreed that his floors would be sound-proofed or carpeted. And he agreed that he would own no dangerous pets.
Now Emma lives in flat number 14 and she didn’t make any such agreement with the leaseholder. In fact, she’s made no agreement with anyone. Emma gets to live in flat number 14 without having signed a tenancy agreement and without having to take responsibility for anything in her flat. In fact, Emma doesn’t even have to make her own meals!
Have you guessed it yet? Emma is only a few weeks old and she lives with her parents. Oh, I forgot to say that Emma is adopted.
The Old Testament Covenant
This morning, we have heard two readings about the theme of ‘covenant’ in the bible.
In the Old Testament, there are many places where we read of an approach to Covenant that sound like the sort of tenancy agreement that Harry entered into: God sets out certain conditions which his people agree to just like a tenancy agreement. The usual format is: ‘I (God speaking) will be your God and you shall be my people’. We’ve heard this format in this morning’s reading from Exodus.
So, it can seem to us that if we break our end of the bargain, if we break our tenancy agreement, then the covenant is broken and we will be evicted.
There are a number of times in the Old Testament where either Israel or Judah are told that punishment will come upon them – or has come upon them - because they have broken their Covenant with God. This is the old form of covenant relationship: a relationship between God and his people under the Law.
The New Covenant
But even before the birth of Christ, we have a biblical witness to a new form of Covenant relationship with God and this New Covenant was expressed in our reading from Jeremiah.
In fact, these verses from Jeremiah are considered to be the key verses in explaining the concept of ‘The New Covenant’ and the key to the entire covenant is actually in the very last phrase that was read: ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.’ This idea of forgiveness is actually the foundation on which the New Covenant rests.
Unlike the Old Covenant, in the New Covenant, our relationship with God is no longer based on the condition that we keep up our end of the bargain. God knows that we can’t be like Harry: we are not going to be a good tenant who keeps his tenancy agreement.
The foundation of the New Covenant is that God forgives first. Once God forgiveness has been granted to us by God, the New Covenant have a firm foundation on which to rest.
God knows that we are actually like baby Emma. Not only can’t we keep up a tenancy agreement, we aren’t even in a position to sign one. Like baby Emma, we are simply incapable of making such an agreement. Just like baby Emma, we need someone else to do it for us.
To stretch this analogy just a bit further let’s imagine that Emma’s adopted father is actually the son of landlord. The building will eventually belong to Emma’s dad, and there is no question that anyone will ever demand that baby Emma be responsible for keeping up the tenancy agreement.
It’s as if, because God knew that there is no chance of any of us ever being able to keep such an agreement, that he decided to adopt us. Because of our adoption as sons and daughters, our inheritance – as it were – becomes part of who we are; it is written on our hearts.
Or, to use the image from today’s Gospel reading, through the forgiveness mediated by Christ, we are grafted on to Christ, who becomes our support and our nourishment. Our relationship with Christ is not dependant upon our clinging on to the vine. It exists because we have been grafted on to the vine. Christ supports us, not the other way around.
The Covenant Prayer
What has any of this got to do with the Covenant Prayer?
Well, I think it’s important for us to understand that we are making this prayer under the New Covenant.
We are not ‘making a decision to have a relationship with God’ in this prayer; we are not chasing God down the street and saying ‘Hello! I’ve decided that I want to have a relationship with you now.’ Doing this would be trying to have a relationship under the Old Covenant.
We’d be acting as if we were in a position to keep all these promises under our own strength – as if we were Harry, who could keep his tenancy agreement.
What we are doing when we pray the Covenant Prayer is acknowledging that our relationship with God already exists and that we are aware we had nothing to do with bringing it about. We’re acknowledging that we are like baby Emma: living in a relationship with God because he was gracious enough to adopt us and to offer us a permanent tenancy with him.
When we pray, ‘I am no longer my own but yours’ we’re not saying ‘Once I belonged to myself but now I’ve decided to turn myself over to you.’ We are acknowledging that we understand that we’ve always belonged to God in the first place.
When we pray the Covenant prayer, we don’t give God the gift of ourselves. When we pray the Covenant prayer, we say that we understand that we’ve always belonged to God, that whether we are troubled or at peace, that whether we have work to do or no work to do, that we understand that the Covenant is there and always will be.
As the introduction to the prayer tells us, we are simply accepting our place within a Covenant which already exists because God himself brought it into being.
Preparation for the Prayer
In a few minutes, I will invite those of us who wish to do so to make the covenant prayer.
I invite you now to turn to page 7 in your pink books where the text of the covenant prayer can be found. We will have a few moments of silence to give us all an opportunity to read this prayer and for each of us to consider the manner in which we might make it. As you read, I invite you to read the prayer as if the prayer were God making a promise to you – because that’s what he’s already done.
May the grace of the Triune God be with us all in our consideration. Amen
(1) Credit for the illustration: Rev Andrew Sails, Mint Methodist Church, Exeter, http://www.themint.org.uk/z146.htm
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