Covenant Renewal Service Sermon

01/02/11

Covenant Renewal Service

Hudson UMC

As we gather together this morning to renew our covenant with God, it might be an appropriate time to consider a question that is very much relevant to our gathering.  What exactly is a covenant?  In its most basic sense, a covenant is an agreement worked out between two parties.  Although throughout history, covenants have most often been worked out between a greater power and a lesser power, they are intended to be much more mutual than, for example, a contract would imply.

Before we think about how God’s covenant with his people functions, I think it might be best if, by way of contrast, we spend some time thinking about how covenants work among human beings.  It could be said that, among human beings, covenants act as a kind of formal declaration that, “You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.”  This is not done in a threatening kind of way, recognizing that it takes both parties to make the agreement work, but is rather a way to agree to work together for the greater good of both parties involved.

In ancient political covenants between different kingdoms, we can see that the terms of the covenant were tailored to the abilities of each party.  For example, the more powerful nation did not insist that the weaker nation do the bulk of the military protection.  Rather, the smaller and weaker party did what it could do, most often, pay taxes, in return for the defense that the larger, more militarily powerful party could provide.  This way, both parties got something they wanted or needed out of the agreement.

What is important to keep in mind, however, is that this mutuality within the covenanted relationship meant that the power to cancel the covenant did not lie in the hands of only one party.  If the weaker nation stopped paying taxes, the stronger nation could cancel the covenant and would likely retaliate with force upon the weaker nation.  If the stronger party did not uphold its commitment to defend the weaker party, the weaker party was within its rights to cancel the covenant and find other means of protection.

If we keep all this in mind, it only stands to reason that you would not want to establish a covenant with someone who was not going to be able to fulfill the terms of that covenant.  If you had serious doubts about their ability to hold their end up, you might think twice about ratifying such a covenant.  If you knew with absolute certainty that the other party would not, indeed could not fulfill the terms of the covenant, you would almost certainly not establish one in the first place.

All of this reflection about how human beings go about making and breaking covenants is not so much to show us how God treats his covenant with us as it is to show us how unlike us God is, because when we look at God’s covenant with humanity, we see something very different indeed.

First, we see that, when God makes a covenant, he does not do so with people who are well equipped to fulfill the terms of the covenant.  After all, God said to the Israelites, “Be perfect, for I am perfect;” something of a daunting task.  Not only this, but, lest we should think that God cut it back for us, Jesus repeated it to his disciples, upholding it in all its fullness.  So, God made his covenant, not with perfect people, but with imperfect people, not with sinless people but with sinful people.

Why did God do this?  Well, if for no other reason, if God were to make a covenant with any people at all, they would have to be sinful people.  Where would God find sinless people to make a covenant with?  They are simply not to be found.  The only people that exist are people who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, as Paul put it in his letter to the Romans.  So, if God wanted to covenant with humanity, it would have to be with sinful people like you and me, simply because there are not any sinless people around.

However, it would be problematic if we were to think that the only reason that God made a covenant with sinful people is because he did not have any other options.  Any time we think that God does something because his hands were tied and that he quite literally had no other options, we should be careful, or else we may find that we are projecting our own weaknesses into God.  When we read the Bible carefully, we see that the first group of people that God made his covenant with were the Israelites.  Now, we can look throughout Israel’s history and see all kinds of times when they seem to have completely fallen on their faces, failing to uphold their part of the covenant.  But do we have no other choice other than to say that that was the best that God had to work with?  Not at all.  Indeed, in the life and teaching of Jesus, we hear these surprising words. 

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you Bethsaida,” both of which were Jewish cities, “For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon,” which were pagan cities, “which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.  Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.  And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you?  You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.  Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you”

We are left with the impression that, when God chose the Israelites, he was not choosing the best and most righteous of all people, but the worst of all people, for if God had done his miracles in pagan cities like Tyre, Sidon and Sodom, they would have repented, while Israel remained rebellious.  I want to make it absolutely clear, however, that this is not meant to be a word against the Jews.  Rather, it is meant to demonstrate the amazing compassion of God.  You see, God did not enter into his covenant with the Israelites blindly so that he was surprised when they failed.  No.  Instead, it shows us that, even when God is dealing with the worst of all humanity, he does not run away, does not shrink back from our sin, but confronts it with all his almighty power and molds and shapes entire communities, so that they might be utterly transformed.

 When the Israelites sinned, they broke the terms of their covenant with the Lord God.  However, when human beings violate the covenant, it is God, and not the humans, who get to choose whether or not to continue in covenant.  Through their sin, the Israelites said to God, over and over, “We do not really want to live by your rules.  We wish we could be like the other nations and do what we want.  We want to be free from you.”  In spite of that constant rejection, God simply said, over and over, in reply, “I love you and you are mine.  I will not let you go that easily, for this whole process is to mold you into the people you were meant to be.”

So, when we come before God to renew our covenant with him, we do not do so because we are somehow forcing God to take us back.  When we come before God to renew our covenant with him, we do not do so as people who are going to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps so that this time, by golly, we are going to get our act together.  When we come before God to renew our covenant with him, we do so, not as people who are somehow outside of the covenant, but people who are already embraced by the covenant before we even dreamed of accepting it for ourselves.  When we come before God to renew our covenant with him, we do so, not as sinless people who never make mistakes, but as broken people who yearn for God to bring his promises to completion in us.  We come because we have been bound to God by God.

From the very beginning, the covenant of God has always been a matter of grace.  We do not always like the idea of grace because we are afraid that it means that we are receiving charity, that we are somehow taking something that we have not earned.  Indeed, that is the case.  There is perhaps not a single more counter-cultural service that we have in the year than this one.  Though we pledge our fidelity to God and we promise to uphold the terms of the covenant, we do so as people who are accepted by God before we even take those words upon our lips.  Our promises, our faith, and our godly lifestyle are all done within the covenant, never as preconditions on which the covenant is based.  Today we declare, “I receive what I do not deserve because of the almighty grace of God.  I renounce my own worthiness and cling to the worthiness of Christ alone.”  Let us depend on Christ for Christ is not only a human being like we are, he is truly God of God and is able to do what he has promised.  Let us pray.

AMEN