When he received these words from God, the prophet Jeremiah was standing in the ashes of Jerusalem. Babylon had just conquered Judah, leaving the social, political, religious structures smoldering. The temple of God was destroyed. Priests, kings, administrators, artisans--nearly all religious, political, and economic functionaries were dead or marching captive into exile.
As his world turned to chaos, Jeremiah heard these words, "The days are surely coming, . . . when I shall make . . . a new covenant . . ."
Up until that time, the ancient Israelite economy had been organized around family-owned plots of land. Theoretically these pieces of ground could be sold only to carefully prescribed relatives. If someone had to sell the land, these relatives had to buy--or "redeem"--the field to keep the property in the family. It was their religious and social duty. This rather anti-capitalist structure, tended to keep the economic base more justly distributed among the people.
Babylon, by laying siege to Jerusalem, threatened this economic order. Throughout the ancient world, the more typical structure had the king owning all the land and granting peasants the right to work it at his whim. So the very notion of family farm and property seemed about to be obliterated, Yet, just before Jerusalem fell, Jeremiah exercised his duty as a relative to redeem his family property. He bought a field.
Jeremiah bought a farm. Germantown Mennonite Church bought a building.
Late 20th century North American social and economic structures have laid siege to the traditional Mennonite world. The family farm has become suburbia. Mass media makes separation from the world impossible. Individual consumer values demolish communitarian values. Large-scale violence and economic oppression nearly overwhelm the relevance of Christian faith, Mennonite style.
Yet we, like Jeremiah, have purchased a piece of property, perhaps with as little knowledge of the future as Jeremiah had. Like Jeremiah, we proclaim God's provision of hope in a chaotic world.
"The days are surely coming, God is saying this,
when I shall make a new covenant . . ."
Jeremiah does not proclaim the death of the old covenant. Throughout biblical history, God had made new covenants, with Noah, with Abraham, with Israel at Sinai, with David in Jerusalem. That Jeremiah would buy a field--according to pattern of the old covenant--makes clear his conviction that the old covenant still speaks powerfully. But the old covenant is written in stone. Stone is too brittle to bear the force of God's ever-changing history. Stone tablets are too heavy to carry into exile.
Nor do we, by purchasing a new building, declare our heritage dead. We still hold dear the Mennonite tradition represented by our historic meetinghouse two blocks away. The new covenant does not replace the old. It does change our ways of living it.
Covenant-making in our Western Christian minds, has gotten wrapped up in the terms of law and commandment. So that we even tend to see the Bible as law and verses as facts. We see a covenant as a legal document with rules that must be followed and statements of fact that must be assented to. But Jewish scholar Art Waskow has noted that the Hebrew word mitzvot, often translated "commandments" has more a sense of connecting. And torah-which we translate "law"-refers more to the process of aiming toward truth. Thus covenant-making is a process of making relationships between God and us and each other that enable us to aim ever closer to the truth. Jeremiah is simply recalling the essence of covenant making when he says,
"then I shall put my law within them,
and on their heart shall write it,
and I shall be to them God,
and they shall be to me a people;
and no longer shall they teach one another,
or each other, saying,
"Know Yahweh!"
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,
oracle of Yahweh
The new covenant remakes connections. So by working to reconnect with our local neighborhood, by working with Mennonites from our conferences, by proclaiming reconciliation in the church among people who have judged and excluded one another, we experience God writing on our hearts, healing the divisions.
"I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin remember no more." God does not lay down the law. God throws down the tablets of stone and resurrects the covenant in human flesh.
For us, who are Christians, Christ becomes the incarnation of God's heart writing upon our own. The cost of commitment will be great. Jeremiah proclaims a new covenant and goes into exile. Jesus proclaims the hour of his glory, then turns to face the cross:
"The hour has come for the Human One to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone"
Alone, unconnected, outside of relationship.
"but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
The old order crumbles. The connections remain. In testimony of which Jeremiah buys a farm. And we buy a building.
It is the deep mystery of the cross-as we march through Lent toward Golgotha-that God goes into exile with humanity. God takes on our sin-our unconnectedness-and writes a new covenant on our heart. The moment of Christ's crucifixion is the moment of judgment and victory in the Gospel of John.
Jesus says, "Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out."
The author of chaos strikes God's chosen, intending to throw the world back into chaos, to disconnect all things.
"And I," Jesus says, "when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people/all things to myself."
In death, Christ re-establishes the connections.
We proclaim the ministry of Christ, the torah and mitzvot which make up the new covenant, by remaking the connections which the powers of this world seek to destroy. Remaking justice, reconciling the world.
Jeremiah bought a farm. Germantown Mennonite Church has purchased a building. Evidence of our conviction that God is writing a new covenant on our hearts.
What shape is that new covenant taking? How is God speaking to your heart? How do you see God using this space? How will it testify to Christ's presence? How will we enflesh this building; so that it embodies the new covenant-a place for making connections, with God, with each other, with our world?
Jeremiah bought a farm. Germantown Mennonite Church purchased a building. God is writing a new covenant.