Jeremiah 31:32e – Covenant Conviction

31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke… Jeremiah 31:31-32e, New King James Version

I had lunch with my friend Billy yesterday. Billy's theology is being burned upon his heart by this moment in history, and his speech flowed from the fullness of his heart. Billy is Black, and he is realizing a different, deeper, more personal connection to the Bible. He told me that the research he has been doing reveals Exodus entirely excised from the Bible proclaimed to his enslaved ancestors. He is putting in perspective the righteous indignation that men taught the parts of the Bible they found useful to uphold the unjust order at one point in time, piously proclaiming other-world Truths in order to distract from their accountability in this world.

As I continue in Jeremiah 31:32, I can't say that the covenant to which this verse refers prohibited enslaving foreigners. It did not. But I can come to terms with my own moment, my own tendency to downsize and refocus "my" covenant, the agreement handed to me by my white, Southern ancestors like Thomas Jefferson to live up to certain ideals in response to inalienable, God-given rights. Jefferson said in response that all men are created equal, and I have broken even that scaled-down covenant with my eyes to see God's image in the people I encounter and treat them accordingly. If I break that one, how can I claim that I would have done better with the more comprehensive Hebrew covenant, that my forbearers have somehow replaced that covenant's original audience?

We need recounting moments like God insists on in Jeremiah 31:31-32 if we are to appreciate the arbitrary, gracious recreation He offers in the new covenant. Otherwise, our ideals and resolutions are ever-springing from our best intentions – and our painted-over pride. We will get out of bed and tell ourselves, our neighbors, and our God the calling we will live up to. We will judge others for not emphasizing the same things, and yet by day's end, we are much more forgiving toward ourselves. We take no real notice of the trail of broken promises or its downward slope unless we pause before God's Word and see them as He sees them, outside of ourselves and our excuses.

The sun that bespeaks today's mercies because of the just wrath which fell on Christ to enact that new covenant may first need to expose the absolute need for a new start. We cannot negotiate righteousness on our own. When we begin to grasp it, like the Hebrews, we dare not even approach the mountain where righteousness is enunciated. We enlist interpreters like they enlisted Moses on the mountain. We let so-and-so in their enlightenment tell us what to do. We forsake a direct relationship with God with its painful conviction on the way to true reconciliation in Christ.

We are indeed broken as have been our promises historically. Healing is in Christ. Rectitude and reconciliation are in Christ. The ability to see people from different races and classes, from different historical traditions, is bequeathed by Him and not by our education level or the effectiveness of our leaders. Nor does Christ show us how He sees our fellow man that we may simply assent in the abstract. In acknowledgment, we serve Him by serving them, and doing so gladly.

By such service, undertaken in Christ's ever-renewing power, we distance ourselves from our insistence on being served by others. We, by God's audacious grace, point toward our Father in Heaven by our works, and we store up rewards which no deference from fellow humans can equal.