As part of my seminary training, I spent a summer as a student chaplain at a skilled nursing facility in central Pennsylvania. Each Wednesday morning that summer I led a brief worship service with the residents - a few songs, a Bible reading and reflection, and prayers.
On that first Wednesday, I remember looking out with dismay at the small group of residents who had been gathered for the service. Most were slumped over in their wheelchairs, eyes closed. One was murmuring something unintelligible under her breath. I pressed on, feeling like I was speaking to an empty room.
Toward the end of the service, I began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. To my surprise, other voices joined with mine - some quiet and hesitant, some sure. They had forgotten so many things, but this? This prayer was written on their hearts.
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This week’s covenant comes from the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet, writing for people in exile. The exile - when the Temple was destroyed, and many were scattered from their homeland - was understood to be punishment for the people’s unfaithfulness. Much of the book of Jeremiah details this unfaithfulness, and God’s heartbreak and judgment because of it.
What had they done? The people sought out other gods. They turned away from truth and scorned justice. They spoke falsely about God. They oppressed the vulnerable - immigrants, orphans, and widows; they shed innocent blood (7:6). They thought empty rituals would appease God; thought that going through the motions of worship would keep them safe from the consequences of breaking God’s laws (7:8-10).
Again and again, as the story goes on, God reminds them of the covenant. The people plead for mercy, but then keep on doing the same things that got them in trouble in the first place. Their sin eventually brings forth God’s judgment.
We, too, have been unfaithful. We, too, have turned to other gods, forgetting our partnership with the one who created us. We’ve placed our trust in other things: in ourselves, in earthly leaders, in wealth, in our ability and health, in guns, in purity, and in the myth of self-reliance. We cling tightly to old prejudices, and twist scripture and religion to justify the harm and exclusion of people God loves.
After the reality of human sin becomes so clear, after so many broken covenants, God decides on a different way. The prophet announces God’s promise to the people of Israel, that the exile will end, and the people will be gathered in their homeland once more. Out of love and mercy, God makes a new kind of covenant with God’s beloved people. Onto their hearts would be inscribed God’s good law and the promise that God will be their God, and they will be God’s people. Onto their hearts would be inscribed God's love.
Again and again God chooses relationship, life, wholeness, and flourishing for God's people. Again and again, God offers mercy. Human sinfulness had left a string of broken covenants, but this new covenant would not depend on the people’s goodness or faithfulness, but on God’s.
Human nature hasn’t changed much in all this time. We see our brokenness and selfishness daily; see the harm caused by words and actions that are not from God. God sees it, too, and yet the covenant written on our hearts remains. God’s promises make us new. God’s forgiveness, God’s promise that we are God’s shapes and changes us. In baptism, we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. We belong to God, and nothing can separate us from God’s love.
God’s covenant, written on our hearts, is like those prayers and hymns that become embedded after so many years of speaking and singing them again and again. They are so internalized, so close to us, that the promises they hold remain even when so many other things fall away. God’s covenant, too, stays with us even when we forget, and fail. God’s promise that we are beloved and belong to God is trustworthy, and it is a promise that is ours forever.
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