"The Divine Experiment" – Jeremiah 31:31-34

A friend earned her PhD in Biology from Northwestern University. It took her six years to obtain her doctorate – two years in the classroom and four years in a laboratory. As best I understood, her lab work involved growing E.Coli bacteria and replacing that bacteria’s DNA with the DNA of a hormone used to fight cancer cells. It took her over three years to complete her experiment. Three years...one experiment.

That was hard for me to imagine, given the extent of my science education where we never had to wait longer than a weekend to see what bacteria our petri dishes had produced. She said most of her time and energy over those years was spent trying to create the optimal environment for the bacteria to grow. It involved constant trial and error; repeating the process after adjusting certain variables.

I told her I found it hard to imagine dedicating years of hard work towards creating an optimal environment for something to succeed; and waiting so long to see the finished product. She quickly countered, saying, “How is that any different from being a parent, or a pastor?”

That’s an interesting and wonderful way to think about my work as a parent and a pastor. Indeed, I have and will continue to dedicate years of constant attention and care in order to create an optimal environment for my children and the church to succeed. Even if you’re not a parent or a pastor, most of the things you are involved in and passionate about likely require a long-term experimental approach.

Our faith is no different.

This idea serves as a helpful frame of reference to understand today’s scripture from Jeremiah. In this text, Jeremiah explains God’s long-range approach to the experiment of guiding the human race. Jeremiah tells us how the original experiment went wrong and how God's planning to adjust some variables of the environment so that humanity could grow and flourish.

The experiment has undergone several iterations. The original approach as told through the stories of Genesis was that God gave only one prohibition – to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The hypothesis of that experiment was that humans would live in peace and harmony with all creation so long as they avoided indulging in things that would make them more like God.

That experiment failed rather quickly.

Later the prohibitions expanded to include the ten commandments inscribed in stone, which were given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The hypothesis of that experiment was that by giving laws inscribed in stone, the people would live in peace with one another and remain faithful to God.

Already by the end of the book of Exodus (only the second book in the Bible), it is clear the experiment needs to restart yet again because despite having the law inscribed on stone tablets, the people cannot remain faithful to God. They repeatedly worship other gods and they put their faith in things like money and power and idols. God needs to adjust some variables in order to create the optimal environment for peace and love.

This is the message Jeremiah brought to the Israelites not long after 587 BCE – the year in which the Babylonians destroyed the Temple and God’s chosen people were in crisis. You see, the Temple was the outward sign of God’s faithfulness to the Israelites. As they watched the Temple fall, they thought God was abandoning them.

Jeremiah, a prophet of God, had spent his prophetic life weeping and throwing things (literally), trying to get the people to see that their idolatrous ways will lead to God’s judgment.

But, following the destruction of the Temple (which he predicted) Jeremiah didn’t stop to say “I told you so.” Instead, he relayed some good news from God. Jeremiah informed the people it was their infidelity, not God’s infidelity, that led to the disorder and desolation. God had not abandoned them. Better yet, God was about to reset the experiment by creating a new covenant.

“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

— Jeremiah 31:31

Covenant are different from contracts between two consenting parties. The ancient covenants are much more unilateral: one party (God) is much more powerful than the other (God’s people), and so the more powerful party sets the terms by which the two parties will relate. A covenant doesn’t require the weaker party’s consent, and there is no room for negotiation.

This new covenant is not an equal partnership. In fact, it is entirely one-sided, and that is good news for God’s people, since they have nothing to offer God.

“[This new covenant] will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.”

— Jeremiah 31:32

The reason the old covenant didn’t work was because God had an extraordinarily high estimation of the ability of humanity to comply with the law it embraced. Apparently the God who created us didn’t realize the depth to which we would be predisposed to break God’s covenant, even when it is in our best interest to keep it. Despite being spurned and betrayed, God takes the initiative to renew the covenant.

“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: 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.”

— Jeremiah 31:33

Jeremiah announces that God adjusted a variable in the environment and is restarting the experiment with a new hypothesis: That by giving laws inscribed on human hearts, the people will live in peace with one another and remain faithful to God. The stone tablets are out, replaced by a call for a divinely-inspired moral consciousness to dictate human behavior.

Where sin was once written, now God's instruction, God's own will and desires, will be written not on stone, but in our flesh.

God’s new approach towards his people reminds me of parenting. After all, parenting is more than just giving a list of rules for our children to blindly follow; instead, it is about leading by example and teaching a child to embody the principles that you want to see in them. Give any child a list of rules that they are bound to break, and watch as they grow to despise you or despise themselves. Pledge your unconditional support, on the other hand, and watch they flourish.

The new covenant is not built on rules written in stone but on relationship written on the heart. The people belong to God and have God’s law guiding them.

“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.”

— Jeremiah 31:34

No longer will people simply know about God - all the right words, all the right theology. Jeremiah proclaims the days are surely coming when the people, from the least to the greatest, will know God - and will know God intimately.

Jeremiah says this will be possible because God will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more. This new experiment, this second chance, this new covenant between God and his people, is only possible because God is gracious.

You might think this sounds a little too utopian and optimistic. Jeremiah certainly painted a beautiful picture of belonging and forgiveness; but 2,500 years have passed since Jeremiah’s prophetic announcement about a new covenant; and you could say we are no different than the people whom God covenanted with on Mt. Sinai. We break this covenant with God. We continually pursue wealth and power and prioritize our selfish needs over our neighbors. But the difference is that here today, in the midst of the new covenant, God has pledged eternal forgiveness.

We have not arrived at the utopia that Jeremiah prophesied; but thanks to God’s work in the world we are headed in the right direction. The God of creation revealed in scripture promises abundant life for the human experiment, as well as the entirety of God’s creation.

And so, here at the end of the season of Lent, this passage begs us to explore the ways that we need the law of love to be written on our hearts. More importantly, it sets up our exploration in just two weeks of how the power of the resurrection can find a home in our hearts so that we, and those around us, can truly live a new life.

So we can thank Jeremiah. Instead of yet another word of judgment, we receive a lavish promise and unexpected good news:
God will bring newness out of destruction;
God will bring hope where there is no hope;
God will bring life out of death;
and God will make a way where there is no way.

What a beautiful promise we are allowed and expected to live into.

Amen.

G2A #6: "Great Leaders & The Mistakes They Make" – Numbers - 1 Kings

At this point in the Biblical story the Israelites have settled in the promised land and divided along tribal lines, only uniting when threatened by outside military powers. On their own, the Israelites came to the conclusion that their best option would be to do what everyone else was doing–have a king lead them. After all, what could possible go wrong when someone’s motivation for doing something is, “Everyone else is doing it!” Actually, the more appropriate sentiment would be “Every other nation that rejects our God is doing it, so why shouldn’t we?”

God’s response is, “Don’t say I never warned you!”

It is here, with the Israelites’ decision to appoint a human leader, where this portion of the Biblical story strikes the richest soil. Their first two kings, Saul and David can be described in the same way: they brought military victory and were exactly the type of leader the Israelites desired, until they turned out to be big selfish jerks with violent tempers and a tendency to indulge their own interests, with disastrous consequences (does the name Bathsheba ring a bell?).

Both Saul and David are kings whose leadership included great success and great failure. But of the two, only King David is regarded with esteem. King David is so esteemed that he is named more than any other figure in the Hebrew scriptures. In the same way that the peoples’ freedom from slavery in Egypt is the most influential event in Old Testament history; David is the most influential person in Old Testament history.

Before we address the question of why David was so esteemed even with his grotesque failures, let’s talk a little about leadership.

One of the most effective leaders that I have ever personally spent time around was the senior pastor at the church in Tempe, Arizona where I served as a pastoral intern for one year. It was easy to admire him because he and I were very much alike (yes, I realize how bad that sounds, but let me explain!). It wasn’t just that he and I were alike, but rather that he excelled in the areas in which we were similar. We were both quiet, but whereas people tended to think my quietness was as sign of insecurity, his quietness was interpreted as a sign of authority. We were both reflective, but his periods of reflection and contemplation would yield profound insights. We both enjoyed golfing, but he was actually really good at it.

I’m saying this a bit tongue-in-cheek, of course; but there’s truth here. Think of someone who you consider a great leader, chances are you see this person as a better version of yourself–a version of yourself that commands more power, authority, and respect; a version of yourself that has accomplished more with his or her life than you have; a version of yourself that affirms your own preconceived understanding about life.

It is a core human truth that we evaluate effective human leadership along the lines of how much we see the leader as a more effective version of ourselves, which is probably the reason God warns against the people choosing a king in the first place. God’s leadership was more than sufficient for the people, but it was leadership that looked radically different from their own impulses and desires. Actually, it was leadership that they could not even see! So the people rejected God’s leadership in favor of leadership that looked decidedly more like their own impulses and desires.

Upon further reflection, I realize that I was certainly drawn to the senior pastor due largely to the ways we were similar; however, our similarities had little to do with his effectiveness as a leader. What made my supervising pastor such a successful leader was his ability to use his mistakes and imperfections as tools of effective leadership. When he made a mistake he told people about it, apologized for it, and learned from it. He knew in his heart that he was a person infused with the gift of God’s grace. Therefore he was not a prisoner to his mistakes and imperfections.

Which brings us back to the two kings: Saul and David. Both are guilty of atrocious crimes, but David is held up as the hero. Why? The answer lies with God’s activity, not David’s.

In response to Saul’s wickedness and inability to follow God’s commands, God rejects Saul. However, in response to David’s wickedness, God’s promise remains with David. It doesn’t seem quite fair, but that’s the difference. God created a covenant with David that Saul was never privy to. And while David faced harsh punishment for his sins, God’s promise remained valid. It was not David’s leadership that makes him a great leader; rather, it is the way in which God’s promises rested with him in spite of his imperfections.

The promise God made to David was a promise that laid the groundwork for the expectation of the Messiah–a descendent of the line of David in whom God would establish his eternal kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12). This promise would be echoed by the angel Gabriel in the address to Mary–a promise of a son who will “be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end”  (Luke 1:32-33).

The difference between Saul’s mistakes and David’s mistakes is that God forgave David’s mistakes and enabled him to lead as an imperfect person. Saul was a victim of his own imperfection. David was a strong leader because of his imperfection.

The good news is that as children of God through Jesus Christ, we too are heirs of the promise of the eternal kingdom. We too are heirs of the promise that grace will sustain us through every mistake and misstep. We too are heirs of the promise that we are greater than the sum of our failures. We too are heirs of the promise that God will not take God’s steadfast love away from us.

As we go about our lives as employees, students, parents, children, citizens, and church members, we are called to be leaders who are sustained by grace. We are not called to be perfect. We are simply called to spread the message of forgiveness to those who seek to harm us as well as those who are ignorant to the ways they harm us and the wider world.

And we will know that God has blessed us as leaders not when people hoist us up on their shoulders in victory, but rather when we are able to shoulder the burdens of others and provide a shoulder for others to cry on and lean on.

Amen.