Jeremiah 31.31–34
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC,

About 15 years ago, a member of our congregation had a problem with his heart…the rhythm of his heartbeat wasn’t quite right, and it turned out that the issue had to do with the electrical impulses that were being sent to his heart. And so, he had a process called cardiac ablation, in which his cardiologist inserted a catheter through a vein in his leg and into his heart and used laser light to create scarring on sections of his heart, which fixed the problem. The Sunday he returned to Plymouth, I happened to preach on this text, and he said, “I feel like that passage from Jeremiah was for me: as if I literally had something written on my heart, and only now do I know what the message was: that God’s love is with me wherever I go.”

Of course, the heart is also metaphor for all kinds of things, as it was in Jeremiah’s day as well. I’m quite certain that Jeremiah was not expecting cardiac ablation by God! For us, the heart is metaphorically the center of feeling and emotion. So, God is saying that she will inscribe her covenant at the core of our being – in our center of feeling and emotion – so that we don’t need to think so much about it…we just have a visceral remembrance of it, a bodily knowing of the covenant…sort of like muscle memory that becomes part of what you do.

When we speak “heartstrings,” we’re describing a tug on deepest emotions or affections. We even say, “Oh, that makes my heart ache,” even though there is probably nothing going on with the organ in your chest that is pumping oxygen-rich blood throughout your body.

I would imagine that many of us have experienced some heartache in the wake of Carla’s resignation. Clergy hold a unique relationship with our parishioners…we aren’t cardiologists going in to perform a procedure, and then we leave and maybe see you for a follow-up visit. We develop ongoing relationships, especially when we are able to be face-to-face, that can run deep. On my first day in Colorado, I was at the deathbed of one of our members; those connections sometimes build fast and deep. It is normal to feel confusion, grief, and abandonment in the wake of a pastoral departure. But one of our staff members put it well last week. She shared a story about being on the staff of a Presbyterian church whose senior minister left after being with congregation for 20 years to take a similar position at a larger church. The congregation was grief-stricken and wondered what they had done wrong to bring about their pastor’s departure. Our wise staff colleague told them, “She still loves us, and God still loves us. It was time for her to go to what’s next on her journey. And don’t worry…God will send us someone to guide us next.” I hope that you know that, too: that Carla was crazy about Plymouth and that God loves us and will send us the right person for the next step in our pilgrimage.

We’re also at a point in the church year that is emotionally intense. When was the last time you heard a story in scripture that pulled at your heartstrings or that made your heart ache? If you can’t think of anything off the top of your head, stay tuned, because Holy Week begins next Sunday. From the triumphal parade on Palm Sunday to the night of desertion and betrayal on Maundy Thursday, to the desolation of the cross on Good Friday, there will be plenty of opportunity for deep feeling. And I encourage you to tune into our Maundy Thursday service, which includes the dramatic service of Tenebrae with readings by our ministers and laypeople. On Good Friday, Mark will present a noontime organ concert, and at 7:00 we invite you to tune in for an ecumenical Good Friday service that includes Plymouth and other mainline congregations. It’s moving, not morbid, and if we don’t live through the abandonment of Maundy Thursday and the tragedy of Good Friday, the triumph of Easter loses its meaning.

Another way we speak metaphorically about this thumping muscle in our chests is to know something by heart. Most of us know the Lord’s Prayer by heart…but are there pieces of scripture or other prayers that you know by heart? Perhaps when you were young, you learned the 23rd Psalm by heart. It’s good to have memorized and to deeply know a few things by heart…to have internalized them so deeply that they are with us wherever we go.

When God tells Jeremiah that he will write the law on their hearts, I imagine it means that they will know it by heart, not just through memorization, but by internalizing the new covenant in the core of their being…that it becomes something not just to know, but to feel deeply.

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Many times, when I am celebrating communion and am serving the wine, I will offer the words “the cup of the new covenant,” which reiterate the words of Jesus at the Last Supper: “This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.”[1] That language is covenantal and visceral…the lifeblood is pumped by the heart carrying oxygen to all parts of the body.

The prophet Jeremiah talks about this upcoming new covenant with the Hebrew people, but it doesn’t get mentioned again at all in the Hebrew Bible, but we do find the theme getting picked up by the writer of Luke’s gospel and by Paul.

You no doubt recall the covenant God made with Noah, the covenant with Abraham and Sarah, the Sinai Covenant (or the Ten Commandments), and now we have the promise of a new covenant.
But this one is less well defined: it’s not a clear mandate from God that she won’t flood the earth and wipe out humanity again, or that he is going to make great nations from one family, or even a set of codes etched on stone tablets. God is saying, through Jeremiah, that this new covenant is going to be an internal agreement: written on the hearts of God’s people. This new covenant is going to be “an inside job.”

Another really important idea we can derive from Jeremiah’s prophecy is that God can continue to write new things on the hearts of people. And what if God wants to write different teachings on the hearts of different people?

We hem God in and imagine a very small deity when we think that God stopped operating in human history with Noah or Abraham and Sarah or Moses or Jeremiah or even Jesus. Our God is not a small God. You and I are integral parts of God’s unfolding story; we are a continuation of the stories of faith we read about in scripture.

So, what has God written on your heart? And how do you know that it’s God’s handwriting, not the calligraphy of your superego or a message from the culture in which you’ve been raised? I would ask whether there is also deep congruence between what is written on your heart and the life and teachings of Jesus.

You may find that God is calling you to go places you’d rather not be – pushing you beyond the limits of your comfort zone. I am not an activist by nature, but for many years, I have felt obliged to speak out against gun violence. And I will continue to do so, even though it undoubtedly offends some people, and causes others to struggle with what I say.

The way I perceive speaking for peace and justice is as something God has written on my heart. It isn’t an action I always want to take; it’s something I am called to do. And it’s what I think Jesus would be doing – and maybe is doing through us. And I will keep on praying for wisdom and discernment as I try to detect the loops and ligatures of God’s handwriting. And I will continue to voice what I perceive as the way God is leading us as a people.

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As we walk together toward Holy Week, I would ask you to consider carefully two questions: what has God written on your heart, and how can you tell it’s God’s handwriting?

In The Little Prince, Antoine de St. Exupery writes, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.” Perhaps that is why God has written a message on yours.

Amen.

[1] Luke 22.20 and I Corinthians 11.25

Psalm 38
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
This is an auspicious date for our congregation…not because St. Patrick’s Day is this week (hence the great Celtic music)…not because we should “beware the Ides of March” tomorrow…but because we have been worshiping remotely for a full year.

And even as some of us are getting vaccinated, before we rush to celebrate the light at the end of a very long tunnel, we need to take stock of what we’ve been through together as families, as a congregation, a community, a nation, and a species. For some of us, the pandemic brought us in sight of possible death for the first time. “What if I get it…will I survive?” For others among us who are dealing with serious illnesses already, you may have wondered if it was safe to get ongoing treatments at the Cancer Center or the hospital. And some of us are dealing with a double grief of the death of a loved one in the midst of so much death, which is compounded by not begin able to mourn in the company of family and friends in a typical memorial service.

You may or may not know someone who has died as a result of the novel coronavirus, but the figures are staggering. Estimates are that 1 in 3 Americans know someone who has died of Covid. More Americans have died of Covid in one year than died in the Second World War, which for us lasted four years. Novel coronavirus deaths in America have exceeded 9/11 deaths by 127 times. About 1 in 624 Americans has died as a result of the virus, and we know that people of color have died in even greater numbers. 225 people have died of Covid in Larimer County…to put that in perspective if they were sitting here today, they would be overflowing from our sanctuary here at Plymouth. The global numbers are very hard to imagine…2.6 million people have died. I don’t even know how to put that in perspective.

All of us grieve in different ways. Culture and nationality have something to do with it, and the current administration has actually tried to put grieving into the national spotlight on February 22 with lighted candles outside the White House to remember those we’ve lost. I think that we, as a society, will need to come to grips with the collective trauma we’ve experienced.

I don’t know if you’ve heard the verb, “to keen,” but keening is a wailing lament for the dead. It comes from the Irish Gaelic…and from a culture that knows how to weep and mourn more expressively and openly than most Anglo-Saxon cultures do. When was the last time you heard of a ripping great wake for a white Congregationalist or Episcopalian? Doesn’t happen.

At my father’s memorial service in 1986, my younger brother, who had been unable to shed a tear at the time of my dad’s death, wept with abandon. It was deep, true, and healing. And my mother told him to pull himself together. I’ve learned a thing or two about grief since then, and I often tell families coming to a memorial service that this is a place that welcomes your tears. And so, I say to you: this is a place that welcomes your tears.

One of the things the church does right is to acknowledge and provide a setting, a container, for grief and mourning. We have ritual moments for saying a final goodbye and sending off our loved ones. We have prayers committing their souls to God’s care. This is critically important spiritually and emotionally. If we don’t acknowledge our grief and work through it, it will fester…the wound will become deeper and not lessen.

The Psalms provide so many examples of lament for us with the broadest sweep of emotion, from anger to dejection to bitterness to sorrow to regret. Have you been through the loss of a loved one? Most of us have. See if this sounds like something you experienced at some point in the process of grief:

“But I am like the deaf, who do not hear;
like the mute, who cannot speak.
Truly, I am like one who does not hear,
and in whose mouth is no retort.” (Ps. 38.13-14)

The numbness of grief is a very common experience, when your emotions are so raw and in overdrive that you just can’t take another thing in. We are overwhelmed and silenced by our grief. I know that feeling, and perhaps you do, too.

But silence is far from the only way we experience grief. The Psalmist demonstrates to us that we can shout out to God for help.
“Do not forsake me, O Lord;
O my God, do not be far from me;
make hast to help me,
O Lord, my salvation.” (Ps. 38.21-22)

You’ve undoubtedly seen those British World War II posters that say “Keep Calm and Carry On,” as well as all of the take-offs. One of my favorites is on the back of a sugar packet I picked up in a café in Italy, which says, “Keep Calm and prendi un caffe!” (That is a good example of the ways in which Anglo-Saxon and Italian cultures are very different!) But maybe we don’t have to keep it together with God…maybe God is ready for us to weep and stamp our feet and cry out loud. Many of us are really good at keeping a stiff upper lip, but there is a time and a place for lament…acknowledging that this is all a bit too much to handle on our own (whatever this happens to be). Lament can involve wailing, weeping, groaning, crying over a grief, whether it’s the loss of a loved one, dealing with a serious illness, isolation during a lockdown, not seeing grandkids or parents for a year, losing a job, missing the normality of life…any situation that causes you grief. In a few weeks, you will hear Jesus quote Psalm 22 from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If Jesus can lament using the Psalms, it’s okay for us to do that, too.

Every one of us has encountered something that is too heavy to bear on our own. The good news is that you don’t have to carry it alone! (And that doesn’t mean taking it out on your family or colleagues or kicking the dog!) The genius of a lament in our setting is that it opens dialogue between you and God. Crying out to God in distress is a great way to begin! Psalms of lament are the largest category within this collection, and with good reason: being human is difficult…it’s hard…it is riddled with losses and griefs…not just for a few of us, but for all of us. The Psalmist usually circles back in a psalm of lament to include confidence in the ability of God to be present and to turn things around with us. The most succinct form I know is from Psalm 30:
“Weeping may linger in the night,
but joy comes with the morning.” (Ps. 30.5)

Last week I was in Santa Fe with two of my UCC CREDO colleagues, and we talked at length about the experience all of us have been through with this pandemic. One commented that for us who live though the pandemic, it will be like our parents or grandparents’ experience of living through the Great Depression. All of us were concerned about the collective trauma we’ve experienced. What is it like for you to internalize the catastrophic number of Covid deaths? Every one of us has felt the impact of the pandemic, personally and by extension. And I don’t think we should discount our own experiences during this time, even if at first glance you think of them as trivial.

As we take baby steps at coming back together, and as we live into the next year, we’ll continue to talk about where you are, how relying on God can help, and ways we can learn from our pandemic experiences to shape the future.

This has been a very long year. I thank you for your patience with the changes in our worship and in the life of our congregation, a life which continues to expand in new ways and in new directions.
Will you be with me in prayer? How long, O Lord, how long? We are so weary of confronting things in new ways, that your constancy is welcome and make us feel at home in you. Help us to sense your presence in palpable ways…help bear our burdens…bind up our wounds…give us hope for a new day.
Amen.
 
© 2021 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal at plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.