Deuteronomy 29.1-15, Matthew 15.1-9
The Old Testament Books of the Law spend a lot of time spelling out what the people of Israel needed to do to share in God’s covenant with them. This makes the Jewish faith sound like a religion of rules and regulations rather than an offer of release and freedom.
But this is only part of the story. Deuteronomy also reminds its readers about God's loving kindness to their ancestors. The nation’s wanderings in the wilderness might have been a gruelling test, which the people had to endure for 40 years, but as well as rescuing them from slavery in the first place, God had given them clothes and shoes to wear on their travels which wouldn't wear out. So the wilderness experience had shown people God's incredible goodness as well as his stern refusal to compromise on the rules and accept second best.
The writer also recognises that challenging people to remember past kindnesses will not by itself encourage them to be obedient to God. The ceremony depicted here in Moab, just outside the Land of Israel, is the first record of the renewal of the covenant promise that God had originally made with his people on the holy mountain of Horeb. The wilderness years which followed the original covenant promise had proved that simply trying to keep the covenant is not enough. So the renewal of the covenant has to be accompanied by personal renewal too.The writer says, 'The Lord must give you a change of heart before you truly understand what you have seen and heard.’
Expanding on this idea in chapter 30 verse six, the writer says, ‘Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.’ Adherence to the covenant has to be about much more than going through the motions and following the right religious observances - Sunday worship, prayer, Bible study and whatever. It has to go right to the core of who we are and transform the way we live.
Christianity continues this insight into how the covenant relationship works. While we must continually rehearse God's loving kindness in sending Jesus to die for us on the Cross, and while we must try to follow his example in our own lives, what we really need is a personal change of heart. Without that we can never become worthy partners in the covenant. But we can't simply wish to have a change of heart; it's something which God's Spirit must give us. Only then will we truly understand what's required of us in order to be able to live the covenant.
Underlying the writer's understanding of the covenant is his conviction that it's not just 'empty words’ (32.47) but something which will transform the way our lives turn out. The NRSV version of the same verse puts it like this: ‘[The covenant] 'is no trifling matter but rather your very life.’
The Pharisees tried to take seriously the idea of committing ourselves entirely to God by making the whole of life holy. This meant that complicated rules about hand washing, that were originally intended for priests serving in the Temple, were applied to ordinary meal times, because every moment’s meant to be sacred and every meal’s supposed to be an offering to God.
Jesus shared the Pharisees’ commitment to radical holiness and to the priesthood of all believers, but rebuked them for confusing outward holiness with the real thing, which is inner holiness. He quotes the Old Testament when he says in response that 'this people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.’
The annual covenant prayer is an opportunity to remind ourselves of all that God has done for us in the past and to ask him to renew us heart and soul for the future, both as individuals and as a church community. In that spirit let us renew our covenant today.
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