God Renews
the Covenant
Pentecost + 17 – October 6, 2019
“Love the Lord Your God”
· Talking about the importance and the power of habits
· That we change our lives through the things we do
every day
· (and she has a whole book devoted to various
strategies centered around creating the new habits we want to embrace or
breaking the old habits we know aren’t serving us anymore)
· And what we do most days is what will influence and
change the direction of our lives and help us to become the people we want to
be – or not
Ancient Israelites were in danger of forgetting this
· Of forgetting their identity as God people, chosen to be a
holy people and a priestly nation
· Of falling away, falling into bad habits
· Of breaking covenant
· Background/context
o People who are about to enter the promised land (finally! – after 40ish years)
o Not the original generation led out of slavery from
Egypt (not the grown-ups anyway – everyone over the age of 20 at that time was
destined to not enter the land b/c
they didn’t trust God to make a way/allow them victory over the people already
in the land…)
o And so this is a new generation, one that grew up or
was born in the wilderness as they wandered
o A people on the move, who has known the provision and
protection and promise of God
o And now they are about to go into the land – but not
before Moses preaches to the whole assembly – men, women, and children
o Reminding them of their relationship with the Lord
o And reminding them, in his own way, that what they do
most days/every day is more important than what they do once in a while
· Hear, O
Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
might. 6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your
heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you
are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8
Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead,
9 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
o Keep these words in your heart. Recite them to your
children. Talk about them at home and away, before bed and 1st thing
in the morning; attach them to your hand and on your forehead; write them on
the mirror, put a post it on the fridge where you’ll see it every day, make it your screensaver on your computer, set a reminder on your phone
· Remember who you are, remember who God has called you
to be; internalize these words so that they become a part of you, so that you
live, every single day, these words that tell and teach what it means to be the
people of God who have been led out of slavery into freedom…
We are sometimes in danger of forgetting this too
– that what we do most days is more important than what we do once in a while
· That God has made a covenant with us
o “Not just with our ancestors did the Lord make this
covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today…”
o That God has created us for relationship with the
divine and with each other
o And that God has a vision for what that relationship
looks like when it is lived out among God’s people
§ We see the broad outlines in the 10 Commandments –
what it looks like to live as a people who have been freed from captivity –
what it means to embrace that freedom and extend it to other
· Sometimes tempted to take that for granted, to get
complacent
· Neglecting it, not living it out, not practicing our
faith each day
· Preaching to the choir here – here you are on Sunday
morning and many/most of you are here most Sundays
o And engaged in faith practices regularly
· But can we embrace this life of faith more deeply? Can
we deepen our discipleship as people who have been claimed by God in the gift
of baptism?
o Because when we don’t practice our faith, boy, it’s
easy to fall into other habits – to be lured away to all of the things the
commandments tell us not to do!
o Practicing our faith – through weekly worship, sure,
but even more through daily prayer and reading the Bible, serving others,
giving, seeking to build God’s kingdom – this is what helps us to internalize
God’s words to us, to make keeping covenant a habit (and in a good, life-giving
way – not just rote routine, but the habits that influence and change our
lives, so that we become the people we wish to become, the people God has
called and claimed us to be!)
God continually renews the covenant
· Moses reminded the people gathered that this covenant,
this relationship with the LORD was not just with their parents and
grandparents, but that God wanted to relationship to live on in them
· And thank God – literally – that God is a covenant
keeper!
o God has been making these promises to their ancestors
for generation upon generation, stretching all the way back to Abraham
o And though they have failed and faltered along the way
(even while Moses was up on Mt. Sinai receiving the 10 commandments in the
first place – remember that bit about
the golden calf?!?!!!), though they anger and disappoint God, forgetting who
they are and their end of the deal – God never falls away
o God continues to call them and claim them and send
them back out into the world to live as people of the covenant, people whose
lives are guided and shaped by the words God is writing on their hearts
God continually renews the covenant with us too
· And God hasn’t given up on us yet
· The covenant of
faith is passed on to us in the moment of baptism
o Which happens for many/most of us when we are infants
or children too young to really know or understand or even remember what is
happening; a covenant entered into on our behalf by loving adults who speak for
us – and as we grow, we hopefully come to claim and live that faith as our own; my family's practice of remembering baptismal anniversary for each of us - candles, water, scripture, pictures, stories
o But even when we don’t – the promise is still there,
because God is the keeper of covenants
o And in baptism, we are made God’s beloved children
forever – sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ
forever!
· May we seek to live into this covenant every day, not
just once in a while: loving God with all our hearts and with all our souls,
and with all our might (with all our oomph!), keeping these words in our
hearts, and then going into the world to share the love of Christ as we have
been sent to do. Amen.
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