26March2000sermon.htm

"An economy of love"

Sermon for Lent 5, Year B, 9 April 2000

Episcopal Church at Princeton

Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 12:20-31

When I was a kid,
small enough that I could still trip over my mothers dresses when I played
dressing up
and had to sit on two telephone books
to see over the edge of the dinner table
I thought everyone
went to church.
They didn't all go to my church - I knew that, because I had been to church
with my best friend, and going to their church was like sitting in a box
with
the lid closed,
where as ours was more like an circus tent - it was kind of octagonal, with
lots of windows letting in bright white light.
But we all went to church,
That was just what we did, part of growing up
in our town.

As I got older, of course, it didn't take me long to discover that not
everyone went to church,
and not everyone believed in God the way my family did.
But we still thought of ourselves as living a Christian country,
and assumed that being a good Christian
was at least part of what it meant
to be a good citizen. There wasn't a whole lot of difference
between the values that I heard being talked about at school
and the values I heard at home and church.
The Ten Commandments, the golden rule,
Family values, ethical conduct,
responsibility, independence, generosity and service.
As a member of society
there were certain things I was expected to do,
and certain rewards I would get,
and as a member of the church
a similar things were pretty much the same.
It was all one
economy.
*****

The Old Testament reading for today, from Jeremiah 31,
originally came from a situation with a similar economy.
The same rules governed pretty much all relationships,
whether it was relationships between governments
or relationships between families,
or business relationships.
Bargaining, earnings, making a deal and receiving benefits,
were the way most people thought.
Covenants,
formal ritual contracts,
structured society,
and were mirrored in the way people went about things informally as well.

And so
when it came to thinking about God
people assumed
that the same rules applied.
There was a religious economy
with obligations and benefits at the core,
a deal struck
between God and the people.

And so its not surprising
to find the relationship between God and the people
being described
as a covenant.
Of course God being the powerful one, it was assumed
that God
got most of the benefits
and the people
most of the obligations.

But the covenant
the new covenant which Jeremiah talks about
turns this whole way of thinking
upside down.
Because in this covenant
all the obligation
is on one side - God's side.
God says,
"I will be their God, and they shall be my people" - not because of
anything
which the people do, but because of what God does. God chooses,
unilaterally
to forgive the people, God chooses, unilaterally
to be known to the people without intermediaries,
by writing it on their hearts, God chooses, unilaterally
to make this a covenant, a relationship about love,
a relationship in the very core of their being
which shapes everything
they do
and say.

Now I have to tell you
that this was not entirely new.
If you go back to Genesis, when God makes the original covenant, the big
one, with Abraham, there too
God takes the whole burden
of the covenant,
God
binds God's very self
in obligation
to the people.

But of course
things got distorted, as they so often do,
and the people took the gift of the law
and read it as their side of the covenant, their obligations
to God, and lost sight
of the incredibly generous self-giving
of God.

Because its often easier
to turn things over
to the way we expect them to be,
than to stand on our heads
and see what they really look like.

And so there is a new covenant,
a new covenant
to show us the way things have always been
a new covenant
where God
has all the obligation
and we
have all the benefits.

The new covenant,
the new testament
is what we often call it,
is what happens
when Christ arrives on the scene.

With Jesus, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead
come to life .

The new covenant, the gospel,
turns the world
upside
down.
so that clinging to life
might just mean losing it
and giving it up
might just mean saving it.

And as Christ is lifted up from the earth,
as Christ
is hoisted onto the cross,
in that very act
judgement has happened,
it has been and gone,
and we no longer need to live
in fear of God,
we no longer need to live
in fear of ourselves.

And that means
we are freed
to live a whole
other way.
Not a way that obsesses
with keeping accounts,
with tracking the debts of our successes and failures,
because the greatest account
has been written off. Instead
living in a way
that demonstrates
the radical upside-downness
of God's relationship with us,
that shows
that we belong
in the best sense of that word,
to God,
and are therefore free
to live out
the love and justice and generosity
of our God.

Because the economy
has moved from an economy of obligation
to an economy
of love.

It's kind of scary.
Because what it means,
what it means for you and me, is that maybe what it means
to be a good citizen here in the United States is not
the same as what it means
to be a Christian,
what it means
to be successful in Princeton terms,
is not the same as what it means
to be followers of Christ.

There are lots of people, and they may well include your parents,
who wouldn't like
what I'm saying to you tonight.
Because its so easy
to take just those parts
of the Christian gospel
which we agree with, which fit well
with our comfortable lifestyles,
and to ignore
those other parts
which call us
to a new way of living.
For the gospel is radical, far more radical than most of us
have been led to believe.

Recently I heard of someone
who had heard
that there was a need for people to volunteer
to provide safe places for people to stay
on the underground railroad
for illegal immigrants
from Central America.
When his phones were tapped
and he was hauled in before the authorities
his only answer was
"I think that was what Jesus would have wanted".

Whether you agree with him or not
this is someone
who was taking seriously
the radical nature
of the gospel.

What might that radical call
of Christ
mean for you?

Here at Princeton
would you dare befriend someone
who doesn't really fit in,
whose friendship will most likely have no benefits for you, just because
Christ calls you to love others?

Would you choose to buy a cheaper meal
when you're out with friends
so that you could give a little more money
to the group collecting money
for a soup kitchen in Trenton?

And later on, when you are working,
what will it mean?
When you are faced with the decision
between continuing with your teaching job in the inner city
or taking the offer of a new position
in one of the leafier communities
out in the suburbs,
will you have the courage
to seriously consider
where you can have
the most significant impact?

When you are a partner in a law firm
and have to choose between hiring
the Hispanic applicant who began his degree at the local community college
and the Princeton graduate,
will you have the courage
to choose on the basis of merit
rather than where they went to school?

None of these things
are easy
and none of them
might be exactly where you are at right now.
But think about it. Think about how it might be
that in the decisions you make every day
you could live out the radical, counter cultural
call of the gospel.

Not because its going to win for you
gold stars
in heaven,
but because God has called you and God has loved you
in a way that pays no attention
to what you have earned
or what you deserve
or what you can drive a bargain for
but has offered you love
and a relationship free of all should
to enjoy for ever.

This is the new covenant.
Its radical,
and it may,
it should
turn your life
upside down.

Remember it,
as tonight
we drink
that sign of the new covenant,
the wine
of which Jesus said,
"This is my blood of the new covenant, shed for you and for many. Drink it,
in remembrance of me."

Amen.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
9 April 2000