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Learning By Heart Luke 18:1 – 8; Jeremiah 31:27 – 34 Memorization was a key component of my son’s early education. During his pre- and elementary-school education each week he was required to memorize a poem or literary piece. Of course, they were quite simple when he was three, but were amazingly difficult by the time he reached the 5th and 6th grades. I credit this early requirement in his education with his ease into professional acting. But it wasn’t called memorization — especially when he was a very young boy. It was ‘learning by heart.’ Learning by heart — a strange phrase and interesting concept. We don’t say ‘we learned it by head or brain’ — but learned it by heart. An actor or musician will probably tell us that once we are able to claim this ‘learning by heart,’ memorization, or getting off-book, we are better able to feel the character or be the character we are trying to portray or whose music we are trying to have audiences fully comprehend and feel. Our passage from Jeremiah this morning is one of the most powerful in the Hebrew scriptures. It is a peak for Jeremiah’s writings, and a major theological shift — or understanding of God’s relationship with God’s people. In this passage, Jeremiah claims that God is going to write on the hearts. We will no longer learn by laws and customs or teaching each other — we are going to know God and know the faith by heart! The Jews – who were living in exile — away from their own beloved land and had seen the falling of their beautiful and holy city, Jerusalem — kept trying to figure reasons for their desperate situation. Part of their explanation was that ‘we are suffering because our fathers and grandfathers sinned.’ We are paying for all the wrongdoing of our ancestors. They were able to put blame on someone else partly because they couldn’t believe God could be so cruel to them. How long can that go on? How defeated can people get — if, in fact, they have no ability to begin a relationship with God on their own account? And so the prophet, Jeremiah, has received a word of hope, and passes that to his people. Essentially, he says – no more…no more will we pay for the errors of the past. God is beginning new and we (this generation) will have an opportunity that is not based on former acts. And, in fact, God is going to forgive and FORGET all our sins. But here’s the deal, says Jeremiah of God, this isn’t just a new opportunity this is a whole new way of relating. “Instead of trying to get you to know me by keeping the laws I am going to write myself on your heart.” Be clear – there is nothing bad about the laws. It’s just that keeping them wasn’t doing the job of developing the relationship with God, that God so dearly wanted. Laws are often the lowest or least of the expectations of behavior. What does it mean 65 miles per hour on the highway? It means that we can drive 72 before the policeman will probably ticket us. What does “cleaning up your room before you can go out” mean to some teenagers? Throwing the quilt on the bed and stuffing all the papers and clothes into the closet? Laws and rules are useful guides. As communities, we put them in place for respectful and healthy inter-actions. But keeping them does not create, sustain, or deepen relationships. Kissing your spouse or partner every night doesn’t mean that your relationship will grow or even be maintained.Providing your children with the best education or the most wonderful opportunities in music, art or sports won’t buy the love that will encourage and support them through life’s adventures. Showing up at church, reading the Bible, working in an outreach program are all important pieces of faith development, but they are not enough to bring us to the place where God wants us to be. Those are all the external aids — and as good as they are, we can either find ways to get around them and not get caught — or use them as the end-all of requirement, when in fact, they were developed as the lowest or entry obligation. No, says Jeremiah, God is tired of our games, even as we must be weary of them as well. So here is the NEW WAY… the NEW COVENANT. No more scripts…no more words…no more books. You are going to learn ME by heart. I will write MYSELF onto your heart, says God. This shift didn’t just happen in the time of Jeremiah as a means of giving hope to a desperate people. This shift happens in every individual and community faith development IF and WHEN we are open to that possibility. In our home and personal life, we have to develop patterns and disciplines just to get through a day. The earlier we teach our children about making beds and picking up toys and clothes, the more those routines become customary – a way of life. We develop customs in our faith communities in order to do and be the church, as we have understood that calling. But at some point both in our individual and community lives, we stop and ask why — what are the bases of those customs — why are we doing what we are doing? And at that moment, God has a chance with us and will say ‘good, now we are going to be about a new relationship, a new way of knowing each other’ You will no longer know me because others tell you about me. You will no longer know me because of the activities in which you are involved or think you should be involved. But you will know me because I am living through you and breathing through you. In fact, I am pumping your blood through that heart – which now you have finally realized belongs to me. And what a day that will be, my friends! Diana Butler Bass has just written a book, The Practicing Congregation (2004. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute,) in which she differentiates custom and tradition. You will hear me reference this book again because it has some powerful and hopeful teachings for congregational life. Bass claims we often get confused about customs and call them traditions. Customs are what we do “in accordance with precedent” (p. 39) Tradition is that which accompanies the action. It links the custom to something more fundamental and to the core of belief. If we know what is at the core — what is the basis of our belief and faith — if we know God by heart, then our customs do not need to be sacred anymore...but can be judged according to their continuing helpfulness. Speed limits wouldn’t matter, if we knew that everyone had the safety of the entire road population in mind while driving. Demands on clean rooms won’t be necessary, when a teenager takes pride in keeping her things in order. What are the customs that we keep that may be keeping us from knowing God by heart…that allow us to continue pretending that we are in a relationship of integrity (God integrated in our life)? Congregations who have learned God by heart are truly diverse and still able to move quickly and assuredly when opportunities for ministry are presented. Congregations who know God by heart aren’t always in one accord, but they do see the thread of faith in all that they do. Congregations who have God intertwined with their very being don’t get hung up on keeping the customs of the past, but are able to shape their present life because of core values that are based on the love of Jesus Christ. God is writing on our heart at this very moment. It is a risk to get off book, to learn by heart, to allow God to pulse through our being, but it is the New Covenant — the new relationship that God has given us. • SW |
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