Jeremiah 31:31-34

William F. Schnell

March 29, 2009

   On a trip to visit Great-Great Grandfather George Michael Schnell's home in Germany, my wife and brother and I decided to check out the holocaust Memorial at Dachau.  Several in our little tour band were incredulous that we would want to tour such a site, and we were just as incredulous that anyone would intentionally miss such an opportunity.  In the end, we departed from the group and made our own way without benefit of a guide. 

   This proved to be challenging, not because we were unable to speak the German language but because nobody seemed to offer any helpful advice about how to get to the memorial.  Some said they had never heard of it, others said it had been closed and still others said there was no direct way to get to Dachau.  This surprised us because Dachau is a suburb 10 miles out from metropolitan Munich, sort of like Solon is from Cleveland. 

   We ended up taking the train to Dachau and then asking around once we got there.  Here we really received a cold shoulder, and so we started walking.  It wasnÕt long before we came upon it because the preserved area containing the memorial, displays and tour is huge.  The only visual block was a 5 foot wall that was easy to see over.  It was then that an unavoidable thought occurred.  The concentration camps were no big secret.  They were not hidden away in the hinterland.  They were in the suburbs.  Everybody had to know about them. 

   Now we began to understand the continuing sense of collective shame that drove us to distraction in our attempt to find such a large, exceedingly well-funded and well-run memorial which was definitely worth the trouble finding.  After a visit there excuses ring hollow such as, ÒI didnÕt know there was such a place,Ó ÒNobody told me what was going on there,Ó and ÒI was just following orders.Ó  Everybody knew and everybody was complicit to one extent or other, including, I would not be surprised to find, some whose last names were Schnell.  Indeed, while staying overnight at my Great GrandfatherÕs house, I saw a framed photograph of a relative in a Nazi uniform from that era.

   One of the redeeming values of touring a place like the Holocaust Memorial at Dachau is learning that it wasnÕt the Germans who killed the Jews, anymore than it was the Jews who killed Jesus.  It was people killing people, human beings enslaving other human beings, folks like you and me brutalizing other folks like you and me.  We are all capable of such things, and we are all capable of refusing to do such things because we all have an inner voice called ÒconscienceÓ that tells us right from wrong.  We can let our conscience be our guide or we can follow orders from somebody else.  But the choice is always ours to make.

   The title of our message for today is, ÒThe Dictates of Conscience.Ó  Members of The Church in Aurora have Òthe undisturbed right to follow the Word of God according to the dictates of their own consciences.Ó  Not according to the dictates of a dictator or king.  Not according to the dictates of a bishop or pastor.  Not according to the dictates of any external authority, but according to the dictates of the Holy Spirit speaking through the voice of conscience within us.  We usually celebrate that freedom we have in Christ, and it is a remarkable freedom to celebrate.  But freedom implies responsibility, and it is the latter side of the coin which we are focusing upon in our message today.

   Today's message is the third in a three-part Lenten series of sermons on our covenant with God.  By way of a reminder, a covenant is a spiritual agreement just as a contract is a worldly agreement.  Both involve terms binding upon all parties to the agreement.  In our first message we focused upon the terms binding upon God in his covenant with us.  Specifically, God promises to save the righteous just as he saved righteous Noah from the flood that destroyed the unrighteous in his day.  Though the world around us may be falling apart because of sin, and though a day of reasoning may be at hand, we have nothing to fear because God will save those who keep the terms of his covenant.

   Therefore the second sermon in our series focused upon the terms binding upon us in our covenant with God as spelled out in the Ten Commandments.  It has been said that the first 4 commandments deal with our relationship with God (no other gods before him, no graven images, not taking his name in vain, remembering the Sabbath Day), while the remaining 6 commandments have to do with our relationships with one another (honor parents, do not commit adultery, do no lie, steal, kill or covet).  But because Jesus linked love of God with love of neighbor, all the Ten Commandments have to do with our relationship with God.

   In short, the terms of our covenant with God may be summed up using GodÕs words: I will be your God and you will be my people (Jeremiah 7:23).  I will love you by protecting you and providing for you, and you will love me by loving my other children.  God will keep his terms if we keep ours.  But if we fail to love God as stipulated, even God is powerless to save us from our sinful selves.  That puts great responsibility upon us.  If we fail to keep our part of the covenant, we have no one to blame but ourselves. 

This is the point God is making through the prophet Jeremiah in our text for this morning.  ÒThe time is coming,Ó declares the Lord, Òwhen I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, through I was a husband to them,Ó declares the LordÓ (Verses 31-32). 

   A contract is broken when one party fails to keep their terms.  If I contract with you to provide me with 100 widgets in exchange for $100 dollars, and I fail to pay the $100 dollars, then the contract is broken, null and void.  You are no longer bound to provide me with anything.  GodÕs people broke their covenant with God.  They failed to keep the terms binding upon them.  They put other gods before the Almighty, such as money, and they hurt GodÕs other children rather than loving them as they should.  As a result, God was not bound by his terms to protect and provide for his people.  They were exiled from the Promised Land and into Babylonian bondage.

   From their disgraced condition they cried out to God, making all sorts of excuses and pointing the finger of blame as we are wont to do under such circumstances.  True, they had been led astray by their political and religious leaders as God testifies through the prophet Jeremiah: ÒAs a thief is disgraced when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced—they, their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets.  They say to wood, ÔYou are my father,Õ and to stone, ÔYou gave me birth.Õ  They have turned their backs to me and not their faces; yet when they are in trouble, they say, ÔCome and save us!ÕÓ (2:26-27).  

   In other words they put other gods, signified here as graven images made of wood and stone, before the Almighty.  Yet when their gods fail them, they return to the Almighty for salvation.  God responds by establishing a new covenant.  Actually, the terms are the same as the old covenant: He will be their God if they will be his people.  What is new is that this covenant will be written on peopleÕs hearts instead of stone tablets so that each person may follow the dictates of conscience rather than the dictates of prophet, priest or king.

   ÒThis is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,Ó declares the Lord.  ÒI will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ÔKnow the Lord,Õ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,Ó declares the Lord (Verses 33-34).  If ÒConscience is GodÕs presence in man,Ó as Emanuel Swedenborg is quoted as saying at the top of our bulletins, no one can claim to have been led astray by a degenerate dictator, or a corrupted religious leader.

   Jesus regularly parted company with both the religious and secular leaders of his day over issues of conscience.  He emphasizing the new covenant when he instituted the LordÕs Supper saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you (Luke 22:20).  The new covenant made it possible for Gentiles, or non-Jews, to become the chosen people of God because this law was written on their hearts and not on stone tablets which were the exclusive possession of an ethnic group of people. 

   As Paul testifies: Éwhen Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness (Romans 2:14-15).  This was a radical pill for the Jews to swallow, and it has remained a radical pill for anyone to swallow who thinks that everyone should follow the Word of God exactly like they do.

   But it is this freedom to follow the dictates of conscience which moved Luther to part from a corrupted Roman Church to begin the Protestant Reformation.  It is this freedom to follow the dictates of conscience which enabled our Pilgrim forbearers to part from a corrupted Church of England to brave the journey to this land.  It is this freedom to follow the dictates of conscience which literally unchained the Latin Bible from the pulpits and made it accessible to the people in a language they could understand for themselves.

   Our text for today is the longest sequence of Old Testament verses to be quoted in the New Testament (Hebrews 8:7-12).  That should tell us something about its importance.  Indeed, the phrase Ònew covenantÓ is often translated as Ònew testament,Ó which is so appropriate given the New Testament fulfillment of this Old Testament prophesy.  Also appropriate is that we should share the cup of the new covenant in JesusÕ blood.  Jesus paid the supreme sacrifice for our freedom to follow the dictates of conscience.  Freedom is never free.  It always exacts a cost.  It always implies great responsibility.

   As we come to this table on this fifth Sunday in Lent, let us consider how our consciences may be calling us to take a stand—an unpopular stand perhaps—for the right and the true and the good.  Let us consider what sacrifices we are called to make in taking such a stand.  Let us keep our eyes focused upon Easter and the resurrecting power of God so that we do not lose heart and shrink back from our covenant with him.  In the meanwhile, may we be filled with the Holy Spirit of God who speaks through the voice of conscience.