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March 29, 2009 | 6:30 p.m. Vespers

Change Has Come
Change Is Coming

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 51:1–12
Jeremiah 31:31–34

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Last week my wife Anna and I traveled with our three-month-old son down to my childhood home in Florida for a quick spring break with my parents. During the drive back to Chicago yesterday, Anna was reading a magazine that featured a cover story about the actress Selma Hayek. Inside the magazine, Hayek answers the following question from a reader: “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” She responds with this answer: “I would make it so people are kind to one another” (In Style, April 2009).

At first I thought this was a pretty lame answer, because in my lifetime of comic book reading I’ve never once run across a superhero that had such a power, so it seemed like she was just evading the question. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that this was at least some kind of godlike power, which is essentially what we mean when we talk about superpowers.

And the more I thought about it, the more impressed I was with her answer. Most people, myself included, would answer this question with something pretty selfish, like the ability to fly or be invisible or have great strength. But Hayek’s answer wasn’t about her at all. It was about others, about community.

And as I thought about it yet some more, it occurred to me that this wild vision of kindness and peace throughout the world isn’t all that different from the vision in tonight’s scripture reading from the prophet Jeremiah. In this passage the prophet envisions a world much better than the one he lived in, much better indeed than the world we live in. It is a world in which people have the law of God written on their hearts.

• • •

I’ll never forget being in Grant Park on election night this past year. I was fortunate enough to have a ticket for the part of the rally where soon-to-be-President Obama would address the crowd and the world. Along with some friends, my very pregnant wife and I waited in line for hours to get in. Right as we were getting through security, they were calling the election for Obama, and the entire park erupted in cheers. Even though we were at the back of the crowd and relied on the massive video screens to see much of anything, we could feel the energy when President-elect Obama took the stage. I’ll never forget the feeling I felt when he said, “Change has come to America,” and the crowd roared with approval and exuberance.

Yet perhaps the most amazing thing that evening happened after the speech was over, when the nearly quarter of a million people gathered in the park poured out into the streets of Chicago. Between the time we entered the park and the time we left, the police had closed most of the downtown streets to traffic. As we walked north down the middle of Michigan Avenue, there was what I can only describe as a sea of people as far as I could see, extending north toward the river. But the most amazing thing about this mass of moving people is that in the midst of all that energy and all that potential for chaos and loss of control, it was the most peaceful place I’ve ever been. There was absolutely no animosity, no fear, no anger, no hate. There was only hope.

The feeling I felt in that sea of people represents for me the real sense of hope that President Obama generated in his campaign. It was for me a tangible embodiment of the hope and anticipation that surrounded his election and his subsequent preparation to assume the office. It was there again when, on paternity leave with my wife and newborn son, I spent inauguration day glued to the television, following every event and speech that day.

Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, the first 100 days of a presidency has been a benchmark for measuring success. What a president does—or doesn’t do—in those days is scrutinized as an indication of what we can expect in the years to come. This has only intensified with our current media coverage on cable news networks and late-night comedy shows. This, coupled with the genuine hope and excitement surrounding Obama’s election and the lofty rhetoric he used throughout the campaign, has made this perhaps the most anticipated first 100 days since FDR’s.

Obama promised change, and now we are waiting for it. About two thirds of the way into Obama’s first 100 days, it sure seems like a lot of business as usual in Washington. With only a month left to go in his 100 days, President Obama has yet to produce the magic plan that will fix our troubled economy. We are still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. There isn’t peace in the Middle East. People are still hungry and homeless. Kids are still getting substandard educations and being killed in their own schools and neighborhoods. Our world is still filled with hatred and violence. Now that the euphoria of hope has simmered down, as we continue to wait for the change we were promised, reality has settled in.

Our scripture reading from the prophet Jeremiah also promises change. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” These words were spoken to a people in exile, a people who had seen their homeland destroyed by a foreign empire, the same empire in which they now lived. With their sacred temple and holy city devastated, they mourned in exile and wondered if their God had abandoned them. They wondered if they could sing to God in this strange land. They wondered if God would listen.

To these fears God spoke words of hope through prophets like Jeremiah. God promised them that it would not always be this way, that this time of trial (and, according to their beliefs, time of punishment) would eventually end. God would restore the exiles to their home. God would help them rebuild their sacred temple and holy city. God would rebuild their society and restore their fortunes. God would save them from their despair and humiliation.

And in the oracle we heard from Jeremiah this evening, God promises even more. The very nature of their relationship with God was going to change. We must read this carefully to note that the law itself wasn’t going to change—indeed, the law was for them the most sacred manifestation of God’s will and way. Instead, what would change was the covenant relationship between God and God’s people. No longer would they need to teach each other the sacred way revealed in the law. Instead, this divine law would be written on their very hearts. It would become an intrinsic part of their very beings. For the first time ever, as they lived out in their lives the law of God, they would truly become God’s people.

To me, this sounds like quite a utopian vision. Imagine the kind of world it would be if God’s law was truly written on people’s hearts. Imagine what it would be like if everyone truly lived the way of life spelled out in God’s law. People would love each other as much as they love themselves. People would care for each other. Poverty and hunger and homelessness would be no more. Everyone would share God’s good resources. Everyone would have enough. War would be no more. Hate would be no more. The world would be filled with peace.

Now unless I missed something in my studies of history, that never happened. Such a world was never realized in ancient Israel—or anywhere else, for that matter. I’m not sure what the ancient Jews who first heard these words expected. I’m not sure what they felt when things didn’t change right away. I’m not sure what happened when reality settled in. I wonder if they were disappointed or let down. I wonder if they were frustrated. Or I wonder if they simply kept waiting for the change that they were promised.

I do know that several centuries later, after some of the descendents of these Jews experienced the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, they began to read these words in a different way. They began to believe that what they had just experienced in Jesus was in fact the fulfillment of this prophetic word. They believed that the new and progressive way of Jesus was in fact the new covenant that Jeremiah spoke of. In fact, once they produced sacred writings of their own and collected them together, they called them the New Testament, which means “new covenant.” And to this day, as we will hear this very evening, the words of institution in our communion liturgy proclaim that the cup we share is the new covenant sealed in Christ’s blood.

The first Christians believed that the good news Jesus preached and lived was a new covenant, and this belief has shaped the church throughout its history. But once again, unless I’ve missed something, the utopia promised by Jeremiah still hasn’t happened. Our world is still very much in exile. Our world is still full of hatred and violence and suffering. We still don’t act as if God’s law is written on our hearts. Even the church itself has not lived up to this promise. Time and time again we have failed. I have failed. I’m not sure I can say that I’ve yet lived an entire day of my life that was completely guided by the law of God written in my heart.

If we believe that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was the ultimate plan to fix all that is wrong with humanity, something must be missing, because after 2,000 years we’re not there yet. And if we spend our time sitting around and waiting for Jesus to return and fix it all for us, I think we’re missing the point.

This is why the season of Lent is so important. Lent is not just a time to prepare for the celebration of Easter, though the celebration of Easter is where many of us in the church tend to focus. Lent is a time to prepare to follow Jesus beyond Easter. I don’t believe that the joy and hope of Easter is enough. We must be inspired by this joy and hope to take the next step and live out the good news of Jesus in our own lives. We must let that joy and hope fill our hearts and compel us to live lives of love for God and love for each other. If all we do is celebrate Easter, we’re not doing enough.

On the first Easter Sunday, something in the world changed. And on this coming Easter Sunday, something will change once again. But that change will never be complete unless we move beyond the empty tomb and go out into the world that needs to be changed too.

Just as a single person sitting in an oval office in Washington can’t bring complete change to an entire nation. It will take each one of us opening our hearts to the law of God to change the world we live in. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has made a change. And God is calling us to participate in that change. God is calling us to help make that change complete.

Change has come. But change is coming still.

Amen.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church