Exegesis and Preaching Notes
Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year B
March 25, 2012

Exegesis and Preaching Notes
by Stan G. Duncan

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Ps 51:1-12
Heb 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Background

This is a beautiful and theologically powerful passage. However, perhaps the first thing to be emphasized in interpreting it is that its reference to “old” and “new” covenants does not refer either to the Old and New Testaments, or to the Eucharistic words of Jesus. It is certainly clear that the Christian Bible compilers had Jeremiah in mind when they separated the two testaments (or testamentum, “covenants”), as did Jesus (or his biographers) at the last supper. But to say, as commentators often have, that Jeremiah was prophesying the division of the Bible or the words of Jesus diminishes the very important message that Jeremiah was in fact trying to convey. (1)

In terms of its background, this section is a part of a larger collection of writings, chs. 30-31, sometimes known as the “Book of Comfort.” There is some debate as to whether portions of this collection (including today’s text) were authored by Jeremiah himself or one of his followers. The reason is that they were written during the latter days of the Babylonian exile and Jeremiah would have been extremely old by that time if he was their author. However, the language and message is very compatible with that of Jeremiah (see the very similar message found in ch. 32:37-41 and 24:7), so if they were in fact composed by a later writer, that writer believed that he or she was writing within Jeremiah’s point of view. (2) Also, the purpose of this section was to promise hope and a renewal of the covenant to the beleaguered and depressed Hebrew community living in Babylonia, and for our purposes, that message is important regardless of the author.

The New Covenant

In this text Yahweh promises a new day and a new covenant for the exiled houses of Judah and Israel. The previous covenant was based upon their liberation from bondage, “when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.” But they broke that covenant, resulting in their new bondage in Babylonia, and now God is promising to try it again, this time placing it within them and writing it on their hearts.

To illustrate to your parishioners what this offer of a new covenant might have meant theologically to Israel (and to us today), you might reflect with them on the meaning of the original covenant Yahweh made with Moses at Mt. Sinai. It was the central event for all Israelite life and thought in what we know of as the Old Testament, and had a profound impact on Christian thinking in the New. In it Yahweh promised to liberate the Hebrews from slavery and in return they promised to act like liberated people. That meant two things: worshiping only Yahweh, and treating others in the same manner that they had been treated by God. They were to live lives that were different from those of the other nations. They were a chosen, liberated people, and their only requirement was that they were to act like it: they should be different from their idolatrous, brutal neighbors. This is the basic theological assumption of much of the Hebrew scriptures (including Jeremiah).

Deuteronomy contains a number of statements of this theology. For example, why should you love a stranger? “You shall...love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). Following a list of things to do in the Sabbatical year, which included the remission of debts and slaves, commands to “not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor,” and to “open your hand to the poor and need neighbor in your land,” the Deuteronomist reminds them why they should do these things: “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; for this reason I lay this command upon you today” (15:15). Their redemption from slavery was the theological backbone for ethical conduct with the weak and the marginalized: “You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you too do this” (24:17-18). “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be fore the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this” (24:22 cf. Deut. 5:6, 15, 10:17-22, 16:12, 26:6-10).

However, as numerous prophetic voices point out, the Hebrew people repeatedly broke their end of the covenant, following after other gods and oppressing their neighbors.

To the Israelites, the clear result of breaking the covenant was punishment and a return to bondage in Babylonia, which for them became a new “Egypt.”

This (the exile) occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the L ORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods and walked in the customs of the nations....(2 Kings 17:7-8a. Cf. 2 Kings 21:14-15, 23:26-27, 24:3-4)

In his famous “Temple Sermon,” Jeremiah paraphrases the “if...then” nature of the covenant:

But, of course, they did not hold up their end of the covenant. With that background, we can return now to chapter 31, and understand how important this “new” covenant was to be. God had liberated them from slavery and delivered them to a promised land so that they would be different from their neighbors. They would create a community of justice in which the weak (widows, orphans, resident aliens, and “the poor”) would be cared for. Deuteronomy 15, Exodus 12, and Leviticus 25 (the latter containing the Jubilee laws) describe a kingdom with radically just values, the values of a world as God intended it. Slavery of your neighbors (which in Israel was almost always caused by indebtedness) would be banned. Slavery of foreigners would be canceled after seven years. Aid would be given to neighbors in need, and one was not allowed to give aid to a friend or family member in need in such a way as to turn a profit. But instead of this egalitarian kingdom, the Israelites evolved into a society of economic exploitation and oppression rivaling that of their neighbors.

On Their Hearts

The result of all of this for Jeremiah (and others) was that God responded to their violation of the covenant by delivering them into a second slavery, this time in Babylonia. In 597, with the surrender of Jehoiachin of Judah, and again in 587, with the fall of Jerusalem itself, the wealthy, the powerful, and the royalty of Israel were all deported to Babylon for almost fifty years. This geopolitical event was, according to Jeremiah and other theologians of the period, a direct result of their acts of oppressing the poor and worshiping idols: the two major “planks” of the violated covenant. But now, says Jeremiah, in spite of their sin, God would give them a second chance, a second opportunity to bring about the world that God intended. God was now promising to make available for them a new covenant. It would not be new in terms of content—the torah would still be its basis (Jer. 31:33)—but in terms of place. This new covenant which would be made available to them would not be imposed upon them from the outside, but would be “within them,” “on their hearts” (or “in their center”). It is a bit like the emotions of a cat. There are few things in creation that are less responsive than a cat who does not give a damn whether you live or die. And there are few animals more loving than a cat who wants to show affection. The difference is a matter of the will from the inside, certainly not a will imposed by a cat’s “owner” from the outside.

The heart, for Jeremiah, is the seat of the will. It was not a geographical location, but a volitional one. When the heart was evil, one turned from God and did evil. When the heart was good, one turned to God and did good. But according to Jeremiah the hearts of the people of Israel had become evil. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (17:9).

In a prophesy calling upon the people of Jerusalem to repent he appeals to them to “wash your heart clean of wickedness so that you may be saved” (4:14 a). In a passage that anticipates the one for today, Yahweh makes the promise to the exiles that “I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. (24:7. Cf. also 3:17; 7:24; 9:14; 11:8; 13:10; 16:12; 17:1; 18:12; 23:17).

A sermon could be based solely on the notion of the ways in which we have broken the covenant of worship toward God and justice toward others. The central ethical principle of the Hebrew Scriptures and echoed in the Christian scriptures is that God has liberated (saved, redeemed) us and now we should liberate and redeem others. What it means to be a religious person is to liberate slaves. And that means slaves of psychic demons in abusive homes, and it means physical demons of countries so enmeshed in poverty and oppression that their children starve and die in infancy. But God, in spite of our perpetual inclination to break the covenant, comes to us in these words of Jeremiah and offers us a second (and third and fourth) chance. “Renew the covenant, and have it written on your hearts, where it will emanate out from you rather than being imposed from outside onto you.” God is always calling us back to the basics of worship and justice. God is always offering us a chance to come home from Babylon. It is up to us to make the decision to make the journey.

Knowledge of God

According to Jeremiah, for those who respond to this new covenant written on the heart, two radical things will occur. First they will no longer need to learn of God from others, for they will now “know the LORD” from the inside, “from the least of them to the greatest” (31:34b). An important point to make here is that for Jeremiah, to know the LORD, is not a mere act of religious education. It isn’t a list of facts that one can memorize for confirmation class (you do, however, have kids memorize things in Confirmation class don’t you?). For Jeremiah to know God is to do acts of justice. When criticizing King Jehoiakim, he compares his wicked reign with the good one of his father Josiah. He first attacks him for using slave labor to build himself a palace during a time of war and tremendous deprivation.

In the ancient world there were typically two ways that one acquired a slave: as a captive during war, and through loaning money to the poor at usurious rates and then foreclosing on their freedom when they could not pay up (cf. Nehemiah 5:1-13; Matthew 18:21-35 (the parable of the Unforgiving Slave). It’s interesting for a sermon that touches on the brutality of debt burdens around the world, that since Israel seldom won a war, they had very few military slaves, but a crisis-level number of debt slaves, especially during times of economic distress. Therefore, when both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures refer to a “slave,” it is almost always synonymous with “debtor.” So, among other things, Jeremiah is criticizing Jehoiakim for enslaving the poor for their debts and then using them to build a first world-style house for him. It is being built with unrighteousness and injustice. But then he goes on to compare Jehoiakim with his father, Josiah: A Jubilee sermon could be based on the justice demands of the notion of the “knowledge of God.” Walter Brueggemann, commenting on this passage, argues that one cannot know God without being attentive to the needs of the poor and the weak. And he says it is not that one is derived intellectually from the other, “rather, the two are synonymous. One could scarcely imagine a more radical and subversive theological claim.” (3) This is very similar to the claims about loving God in the New Testament. See for example the blunt words of 1 John 4:20-21: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars.”

Hosea, a contemporary of Jeremiah, reports that when “there is no knowledge of God in the land, swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish....” (4:1b-3a). The Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez makes the point that God is encountered in concrete acts of justice an mercy to others. So if justice is not present, then God is not present. “To know Yahweh...is to establish just relationships among persons, it is to recognize the rights of the poor. The God of Biblical revelation is known through interhuman justice. When justice does not exist, God is not known; God is absent.” (4) Robert McAfee Brown, in a sermon on a related passage in Jeremiah, gives these examples of the same point:

So, to know God might mean working in a political party to overthrow a modern Jehoiakim. It might mean saying no to economic or religious structures that provide privileges for the rich at the expense of the poor. It might mean joining a labor union in areas where labor unions are outlawed, since in no other way would the poor be able to gain enough power to demand just working conditions and just wages. (5)

Forgive Their Iniquity

The second thing which will happen to those who respond to the new covenant is that they will receive forgiveness. “I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (v. 34c cf. 1 Kings 8:46-53). The phrase hangs on the key introductory word, ki, “because.” All of the above will happen because I forgive their iniquity. Everything in the new covenant and all sense of beginning again anew depends entirely on Yahweh’s forgiveness. Accept it and a new life opens up. Reject it and you have rejected the covenant itself. (6)

Second, true forgiveness redistributes power. (7) The corollary of the new “Golden Rule” is, “the one has the gold gets to make the rules.” This is uncannily true in the workings of such financial institutions as the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, that have the power to set global rules for finance and trade and then force third world countries to comply, even if it means impoverishing their own people. In true forgiveness, the one who truly forgives, forgets the past and shares the gold. Jesus was despised by his the power brokers who were his contemporaries, because he understood this. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43-45).

Now Behave

Archbishop Desmond Tutu once told a story of teaching a confirmation class years ago in which he outlined the meaning of the Mosaic Covenant. He went step by step through it, explaining the promise of God, that God would rescue the Hebrew people from slavery and that they would worship only God and then act in ways that show themselves to be liberated people. And he showed them how that principle showed up in the teaching of Jesus later on. When finished he asked them as a review to tell him what he had just said. He got a variety of attempts, some close some not. Then one little boy raised his hand and put it better than any theologian could have. He said (quoting God), “I saved your butts, so now you go behave.”

John 12:20-33

This is a turning point passage in the Gospel of John. Heretofore, Jesus holds back full manifestation of his glory with the explanation that his “time had not yet come.” When his mother at the wedding in Cana tells him that the wedding party has run out of wine, he says, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come" (John 2:4). When his brothers try to convince him to go to Jerusalem to show his powers, he resists, saying, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here” (John 7:6). When crowds wanted to arrest him, they could not, “because his hour had not yet come” (John 7:30). And similarly, when he was angering many people in the temple with his radical teaching, they wanted to take hold of him, “but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come” (John 18:20).

It is all the more significant, then, that at the beginning of this passage, when Jesus is confronted by a visit of the mysterious “Greeks,” he finally announces that “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (18:23). Who were they and what did he mean?

Probably the appearance of the Greeks was to symbolize that Jesus came to redeem the entire world. They clearly appear symbolic because they do a “walk on” and are then never heard of again. They begin by asking Philip, who then takes them to Andrew. It may be that these two are singled out because they have Greek names. In preceding passages, John gives indication that the mission of Jesus was to the entire world. In 11:51-52, John says that Caiaphas prophesied that “Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.” In the passage immediately preceding this one, the Pharisees are amazed at his popularity and say to one another, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!” So this passage today is in answer to the question: How can Jesus be the redeemer to the whole world if he never left Nazareth and Galilee? The answer is that the world (the “Greeks”) came to him. The phrase “the hour has now come” then, means that the time has come for him to make himself available to the world. Not just in Israel, but through his being “lifted up” (v.32) as the crucified and glorified Christ (crucifixion and glorification are the same thing for John) who will be present with his followers and believers everywhere through the Holy Spirit. The theme of Christ’s presence with this followers through the Paraclete is frequent the remaining portions of the book, especially in the farewell discourses and farewell prayer (chapters 14-17).

Perhaps a message of this for us is the same as for John’s church. It was important to them to know that Jesus was present with them, even when his physical body had left them. We could stand to have the same assurance today.

Another possible message of this passage might center on the Greeks (outsiders) attempting to “see” Jesus. If “seeing” is interpreted as wanting to become followers (O’Day, in the New Interpreter’s interprets it this way)(8), then a sermon might be developed on the questions of how to help the outsiders “see” Jesus. Research from the Barna Research Group cited in the April, 2000, Christian Community Report said that the most important indicator of growing churches in not conservative (or liberal) theology, but whether or not the church members invite people to church. But Jesus’ presence with his followers in the world also required his death. He offers two thoughts on that: (9)

There is a law in nature that demands death if there is to be more life. As he puts it, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (v.24); There is a principle of discipleship that demands death to self-interest in order to have life eternal “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor” (vv. 25-26) (“Hate,” v. 25, incidentally, is a Semitism for “love less”);

And Jesus is not to be exempt from this order of things: “And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour” (v. 27).

Note that in the Synoptics, “Father, save me from this hour’ is spoken in the garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus’ answer is quite different. Here John will not allow Jesus to show human traits of agony or despair. Instead, for John’s Jesus, death is his smooth move into exaltation, and God’s voice from heaven confirms it. In this passage Jesus “graduates with honors in Divinity.” The battle is over, the “ruler of this world will be driven out” (v. 31), and the rest of his journey is one of resolution and self determination.

Hebrews 5:5-10

The author has spoken of the Jewish high priesthood; he has said that a (human) high priest was “put in charge of things pertaining to God” (v. 1), on behalf of the people, to offer sacrifices for their sins. Since he himself from time to time offended God by sinning unintentionally, “he is able to deal gently” (v. 2) with others who commit such sins, and “must offer sacrifices for his own sins” (v. 3) as well. Further, one could only become a high priest when called by God - “one does not presume to this honor” (v. 4).

Now the author tells us how Jesus, whom he sees as a high priest, is like (and unlike) a Judaic high priest. Jesus too was called by God (v.. 5): some manuscripts of Luke 3:22 record that, at his baptism, the “voice” speaks the words quoted here. But Jesus, per Psalm 110:4, is different: he is a priest “forever” (v. 6). (“Melchizedek” is mentioned in Genesis 14:17-20; there he brings bread and wine, and blesses Abram. In Hebrews, he resembles the Son of God and lives for ever: he is a supernatural figure foreshadowing the eternity of the Son of God - see 7:2-3.) During Jesus’ earthly life (“the days of his flesh”, v. 6), he prayed to God, to the one who could deliver him from death. But, although he was already God’s “Son” (v. 8), he “learned obedience”, he obeyed the will of the Father, he submitted reverently (v. 7): this involved suffering and death. But the Father did hear his plea: he rose again from death. He was then “made perfect” (v. 9): his priesthood was completed in his sacrifice for the sins of us all, and he was raised to be with the Father. In this way, he brings salvation to all who follow him. This salvation is forever (unlike the limited duration of that brought by Judaic high priests.) He is high priest for ever.

Notes
  1. A case strongly made by Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, revised), pp. 291-295.
  2. Gerhard Von Rad sees these two passages as different versions of the same message delivered on separate occasions, and therefore evidence that both are from Jeremiah. The Message of the Prophets, tr. D.M.G. Stalker (New York: Harper & Row: 1965), p. 181.
  3. Brueggemann, “Covenant as a Subversive Paradigm,” A Social Reading of the Old Testament: Prophetic Approaches to Israel's Communal Life (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress: 1994), p. 49.
  4. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, tr. Sr. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (New York: Maryknoll: 1988, revised ed.), p. 110-111.
  5. Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), p. 68.
  6. Brueggemann, Jeremiah, p. 294.
  7. See Brueggemann, “Covenant as a Subversive Paradigm,” p. 50, for more on this.
  8. Gail O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX. (Nashville: Abingdon , 1995)
  9. From Craddock, Fred B.; Hayes, John H.; Holliday, Carl R.; and Tucker, Gene M., Preaching Through the Christian Year, C (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1994)

(Comments to Stan at standuncan@post.harvard.edu.)

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