Sermon Calvin Presbyterian/Deer Park United Church Sunday Oct 19, 2025 Kevin Parks Jeremiah 31:27-34
Sermon Calvin Presbyterian/Deer Park United Church
Sunday Oct 19, 2025
Kevin Parks
Jeremiah 31:27-34
You and I have spent some time with the prophet Jeremiah this fall. Jeremiah features as the continuous Old Testament/First Testament narrative in the Lectionary cycle we are passing through just now. As we observed a few weeks ago in our first pass over Jeremiah’s words, this prophet is speaking into the political and social situation of his day, that is fraught by a people who aren’t paying good attention to proper worship, who are engaging in idolatry, and they are setting aside the covenant they have been called into.
Our first encounter with Jeremiah was in the call story, where Jeremiah hears God say:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." (1:5)
But Jeremiah complains that he doesn’t know how to speak because he’s only a boy. God puts that argument to rest by telling Jeremiah that he will go where God sends him and he will speak whatever God commands. And God seals this promise by touching Jeremiah’s mouth with his hand and saying “Now I have put my words in your mouth.”.
What a fascinating Anthro-pomorphizing of God.. It is a pretty dramatic way to start a story that God would physically place words in Jeremiah’s mouth
But the drama has the desired effect and right after his call, Jeremiah gets to the heart of the problem. He names the people’s idolatry, their choice to disobey the first commandment:” You will have no other God’s before me. “
Says Jeremiah:
“Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked; be utterly desolate, says the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. (2:11-13)
In reference to the first commandment God calls themself “jealous”, and that doesn’t sound like a very favorable attribute for God. But what God is saying is that there isn’t room in this relationship between God and us for yet another—for another competing deity—whatever form that takes.
God has our needs in full view, and it is a vain and shocking thing to turn to other sources for help, especially since those sources are impotent—they are cracked cisterns that won’t hold water.
You know, this is a real problem for us, both on a personal level, and in the world at large. We have so many distractions that take our focus away from the one who loves and sustains us. I’m not going to make a list, because you’ve heard them all before. Some are just idle habits, but others are very problematic behaviours or attachments that consume our time and attention, and somehow erode our focus on the plain good. We don’t make much of idolatry in today’s world…it feels like an outmoded topic, but if we think about it, our focus on totems or shiny things that have no real value, but consume our time and energy for no good purpose; these undermine the integrity of our relationship with God and with one another. It is, I believe, the source of the malaise we see in society these days.
As we continue in the lectionary readings from Jeremiah over the past 6 weeks, God has Jeremiah turn out a stinging indictment of the people for this. He says:
"For my people are foolish; they do not know me; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good." (4:22)
Shortly after, Jeremiah grieves and laments over this situation: “my joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick.” (8:18) And then in a very poignant moment, Jeremiah mourns and wonders aloud:
“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?”
Because if there is: “Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? O that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” (8:21-9:1)
This is all in the first third of the book of Jeremiah’s prophecy.
Our other encounters with Jeremiah in the last month were to hear the story of the Potter’s wheel, where I’d said that we romanticize the idea that we are moulded by God, shaped as if we were clay in God’s hands. It’s another highly anthropomorphized image of God’s interaction with creation. I’d said that what this passage is really telling us is that God, when figuratively holding the clay, they might change their mind about how the clay would be shaped and formed…that God has agency in creation and in creating. And that God responds to us—the media of creation—according to our manner of being with God. We see this more clearly when at the end of the passage, God tells the people to “Turn now, all of you, from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.” (18:11) This turning…this changing…is the way to life and health and peace.
And then, two weeks ago, we heard about a strange real estate transaction, which was to show the people that there was permanence, rootedness, some hope for the people’s future, because “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land."(32:18)
And finally, today we are hearing from the part of Jeremiah that is referred to as The Book of Consolation. We’re hearing about something Jeremiah calls a ‘New Covenant’.
Now, what is this about covenant? It’s not language we typically use in everyday life nowadays. It comes up here and there, perhaps most notably with real estate agreements, where there may be covenants associated with what one can or cannot do in a condominium or in more rural areas, in a neighbourhood association. Covenants are agreements that have the force of a contract—like a marriage covenant. Treaties, throughout the ages, are a form of covenant. And in our faith tradition, the word ‘Testament’ might easily be replaced with ‘story’, ‘witness’ or ‘covenant’.
For the Hebrew people, the idea of covenant was closely associated with the ‘Law’. Covenants, like treaties are binding, they hold the covenanting parties in close association.
For Christians, we associate New Covenant with New Testament…with Jesus, and especially with communion, which will be offered in the side chapel after worship today. We hear in the words of institution “This cup is a new covenant in my blood”
But what is New Covenant doing in Jeremiah. Well, in fact, this is the only place in the Hebrew scriptures where New Covenant is referenced. And some would suggest that its appearance here is a forward reference to the life of Jesus and the New Covenant he would come to represent. But that does a disservice to the context of Jeremiah’s prophesy. If there is a new covenant, then something must have happened to an old covenant.
Beyond the recollection of ancient history, what does all of this have to do with God’s people, today?
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord”
—Boy Jeremiah has a way with a dramatic turn of phrase:
The days are surely coming when God will show the way for God’s people to fully realize their potential
“just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD.” (31:27) These words are part of this morning’s reading, but they harken back to the beginning of Jeremiah, to the call story, where God says that Jeremiah will be sent to pluck up and break down, and to build and to plant. Up to here in Jeremaih’s story—and also in ours—there’s been plenty plucking up, breaking down, overthrowing and destroying. Now this will be a time for building and planting.
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. It 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.” (31:31-32)
You know, the interesting thing about the “old covenant” that God made with the Israelite people after they were delivered from Pharaoh in Egypt and as it was received by Moses from Yahweh—the LORD—on stone tablets, is that all the onus for fulfillment of the covenant was on God. While Israel’s obedience was expected, God didn’t make obedience the basis of that covenant…the covenant was founded on God’s gracious actions to save the people from Pharoah, not on the expectation of loyalty from God’s people.
What happened then, that the Old Covenant failed? It was too easy to ignore…it was a lot of rules, a lot of words written down, meant to be memorized, and even internalized. But, the people’s focus held too strongly on right practice, on dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s. Even though the law of Moses was conceived as a measure for how a people would live justly and fairly and equitably with one another, principles got overridden by the emphasis on details that no one could keep straight. The law was a taskmaster. It was easy to flaught, to ignore, to quibble with, for people to apply for their advantage.
Don’t hear me wrong—I am not saying the law is of no good or no use. God’s law is perfect. But humans are not.
But God’s message through Jeremiah is that this time will be different. God will write the law, not on stone tablets, but on the very heart of the people.
The heart is the seat of all depth, and the heart is understood as the core of a person’s identity. This New Covenant makes it quite explicit: not only will God be God and do all the ‘God things’ that a sovereign would do to provide for a people’s needs; but the people will be God’s people—God’s claim on our obedience is made plain—and it will be easier this time, because the law—because what is required for faith—is no longer disembodied, it is contained within, it is sealed on the heart.
The principles will be the core…love God, and love neighbour as you love yourself. That’s all. Nothing more complex than that. The first commandment covers this…”You shall have no other Gods before me.
What this means for us is that every totem, every form of idolatry, every distraction that takes our attention away from this core principle of love for God and others must be acknowledged and set aside. The old law has not been replaced or supplanted. It’s been clarified. It’s been embodied. And the effect of this will be transformational for us as God’s beloved people.
Friends, the days are surely coming when we will set aside all other distractions that impede our love for God, and from that love will arise a principled, committed, impassioned love for one another and the whole of creation.
The one who speaks to humans demands the whole human heart[1]. God names us and claims us as his own. Set aside anything that stands in the way, and Love God…and thereby love your neighbour as you love yourself
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