Jeremiah 31 & John 8
Here is Jeremiah’s vision of God’s relationship with people one day…
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people… they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
And in contrast, we over-hear this uncomfortable conversation between Jesus and some of his own people who believed in him—when Jesus dared to tell them to continue on this path, following his word and witness and that the truth could set them free…
It becomes uncomfortable because instead of acknowledging that not one of us has the whole truth, they say, “How dare you imply… no, actually say, that we’re not already free?”
They say they have never been slaves to anyone…
Forgot about Joseph and his brothers, forgot about Moses, the Passover, and the journey away from Egypt, forgot about 40 years wandering in the wilderness and the Babylonian captivity… forgot that even right now, they were a small minority pressed down under the authority of the Roman Empire.
But before our mouths drop open in surprise at those people and their forgetting of their own story…
We take a deep breath & remember…
When someone comes critiquing—or even if we just hear it that way—we can get just as defensive.
We can come on big when we’re feeling small.
We can come on big when we’re feeling small.
We can get just as confused about our identity and priorities… we can forget that our identity is not based on our country of birth or our present citizenship or even the most powerful stories that have shaped our lives so far… we, too, just as easily can forget that it is actually in God that we live and move and have our being.
So we live our life somewhere between Jeremiah’s vision—where we are so interconnected to God that we know God deep within—and our real-life struggle to become free, free enough to share life in community from the least to the greatest.
In the gospel of John, Jesus wants to abide with us.
It’s all about relationships.
It’s not about assenting to doctrine, it’s not about certainty.
It’s coming together to learn to be in the world in a new, renewed, hope-filled way.
Everyone is bound to something… the things that hold you back or hold you down… everyone needs to be freed.
This week, ISAIAH gathered pastors and imams—Christian leaders and Muslim leaders—from all over the state of Minnesota and talked about what is at stake if we as people of faith are quiet and passive in this time when there is such a need to organize for change for the common good. When white supremacy and homophobia are growing in strength, when places of prayer have been bombed, when people of faith are terrorized, when water protectors are burned out and humiliated, where parents and children are purposefully separated, when immigrants are treated as those without rights & human dignity, when lies are spoken as if they are truth… it is not only our nation’s identity and our personal and collective freedoms that appear to be at stake but much more globally, the health and wellbeing of the whole earth and all its creatures.
So, one faith leader rose to his feet and said… “It is a risk to be involved, to work together in an organized way for justice and the common good, but it is a good risk. And we may well find that doing nothing (or not enough) poses a far greater risk.”
The cost is too great if we give allegiance to the wrong gods…
And so Jesus longs to free us.
Jesus wonders, “Who do you want to belong to?”
And hopes and prays that our response might be—to you, Jesus. I belong with you. We belong with you.
Karoline Lewis writes, “Loving God and loving your neighbor could very well be the freedom you desperately need -- a freedom from your own self-absorption, loneliness and disconnection. A freedom from self-sufficiency and self-reliance. A freedom from the pain of not belonging and not being known… The words of John remind us that we are indeed bound and shackled… loving God or neighbor is rarely at the forefront of what we do and what we say.[1]How do we become free enough to embrace truth?
Today, we get to witness the Confirmation day of Abby, Gabe and Leo… and it has been my joy to meet with them over these past weeks and listen to their thoughts about faith right now as new high school students. You’ll hear from them directly in just a few minutes and you’ll get to hear for yourselves… but let me say now how grateful I am to hear about those you look to in faith—
a Sunday school teacher passionate about digging in to God’s word, a grandmother who is a model of presence & serving and another grandmother who is not just a servant of God (as you described) but a partner with God, who delights in co-creating together with God.
Today, we recognize together that God made promises to you in baptism that we all reaffirm with you again now at this milestone.
Together, we will renounce all that keeps us from relationship with God.
We’ll speak the Apostles Creed—but again, not as an exercise in assenting to doctrine—but as an invitation to a relationship of trust with God – Parent/Creator; Jesus who lived and died among us and was raised from the dead; and the Holy Spirit that breathes into us the power to live within this community of promises.
These are the kinds of conversations we can have in church. Conversations about how a life with God shapes our actions, opportunities to come together and decide how to act more powerfully for good. We find out here how to know God’s truth so that we can be free from paralyzing fears and inability to act and instead moved by the truths that we coming to know and we have been learning for years together…
Here are the stories that Leo and Abby and Gabe shared that are important to them -
How Jesus multiples the small gifts we have to share to feed a whole community…
How God has a plan that is already in motion and we can partner in it….
How God has given us the gift of this community to love us just as we are and keep loving us into who we are becoming.
We are grateful for your life and witness, for your courage and this day’s reminder of how very good it is to share life with you.
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