Word to the Wise
Thursday, August 5, 2010 - Thursday in the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
[Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Matthew 16:13-23]But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives how to know the Lord. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord.....
Jeremiah's message is intended to be one of hope! God promises to restore Israel in a new way, different from the previous covenant. The new way is an internal way, and not an external law! However, that is not what really happened simply because human nature resisted it. There was a "return" of sorts from the Babylonian exile, but the rebuilding of the temple resulted once more in an external faith. Furthermore, Israel did not experience the restoration of the former kingdom in all its glory. They remained subject to the great military powers that surrounded them. It was not long before the Greeks, under Alexander the Great, conquered the area and then came the Romans! When Jesus came, he once more spoke to the internal covenant - the kingdom of God - instead of the external temple-centered Judaism in all its varieties. This was neatly summed up in his use of the words from Hosea, "It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice." The law of God is written in the heart of the human person because we are all made in God's image and likeness. But we allow ourselves, like the Israelites of old, to be tempted by other "gods" that take over our hearts. We can become external Christians without mercy in our hearts. The covenant must be "internalized" or else we will simply see it as some kind of external law imposed on us, as I have experienced in my pastoral ministry with students. Jeremiah simply tells us that God's covenant is available to us all the time if we will simply let our hearts be what they were created to be - joined to God instead of "gods" of our own design. AMEN