The Covenant That Doesn’t Depend on You
Text: Jeremiah 31:31–34
Liturgical Day: Exaudi Sunday (“Hear, O Lord”—Psalm 27:7)
Introduction
Liewe gemeente, liewe broers en susters, in Christus
geliefdes. (Dear congregation, dear brothers and sisters, beloved in
Christ.)
Today is Exaudi Sunday. In Latin, Exaudi means
“Hear.” We cry with the Psalmist: “Hear my voice when I call, Lord.” It
is a Sunday of waiting. Jesus has ascended. Pentecost is still ten days away.
The disciples are huddled in the upper room, unsure of the future. They have a
command to go into all the world—but their resources seem small. Their strength
has run out.
Does that sound familiar? It should. Because that is exactly
where both of our congregations find ourselves. We look at our buildings, our
dwindling numbers, our bank accounts, our sustainability plans. And we
whisper: “We are not going to make it. We have broken the covenant. We
have failed to keep our side of the bargain.”
Into that exact whisper—into that exhausted, white-knuckled
fear—the prophet Jeremiah speaks. And God says: “The days are coming…
when I will make a new covenant.”
1. The Broken Covenant of Sustainability
Jeremiah was speaking to people who had lost everything. The
temple in Jerusalem was about to be burned. The land—the land God had given
them—was being taken by Babylon. Sound familiar? For many white South Africans,
the sense of “loss of land,” “loss of place,” “loss of security” is a deep,
unhealed wound. For our German and Afrikaans brothers and sisters, the memory
of leaving Europe, the trauma of the Anglo-Boer War, the anxiety of farm
attacks, the struggle to keep the church doors open—it all feels like a broken
covenant.
And for our Xhosa brothers and sisters? You know what it
means to have a covenant broken by the powerful. Your ancestors saw land taken,
languages suppressed, dignity stripped. The old covenant, written on tablets of
stone and enforced by human strength, failed everyone. The Afrikaner could not
keep it perfectly. The German immigrant could not keep it perfectly. The Xhosa
believer knows that no amount of traditional ritual or missionary religion can
rewrite a stubborn heart.
The old covenant said: “Do this and live.” And
we have all failed. All of us. That is why sustainability is
so hard. We have been trying to sustain a church with the fuel of guilt, fear,
and performance.
2. The New Covenant: God’s Radical Intervention
But listen to God’s astonishing words in Jeremiah 31:32–34.
Three times God says: “I will.”
- “I
will make a new covenant.” (Not you. Not your fundraising
committee. Not your pastor.)
- “I
will put my law within them… and I will write it on their hearts.”
- “I
will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
There is only one active person in this text. It is God. The
entire future of God’s people does not depend on your ability to be
sustainable. It depends on God’s ability to be faithful.
What is the new covenant? It is not a better set of rules.
It is a heart transplant. God says: “I am not going to give you
another manual. I am going to give you a new instinct. My law will not be on a
stone in the museum of your history—it will be in your chest, in your gut, in
your isifuba (Xhosa: chest/heart). You will know me. Not
because Oupa taught you, but because I have claimed you.”
This is the only kind of church that can survive when
everything external collapses. A church that runs on guilt will die when the
guilt wears off. A church that runs on tradition will die when the tradition is
forgotten. But a church that runs on the Spirit writing love for God directly
into the marrow of your bones? That church is unstoppable.
3. Exaudi Sunday: The Waiting That Changes Everything
Why does the church give us this text on Exaudi Sunday?
Because the disciples in the upper room were living the “in-between.” Jesus had
gone to the Father. The Spirit had not yet come. They had nothing but a
promise.
They had no building program. No budget. No political power.
They had exactly what Jeremiah promised: a few scared people with the law
beginning to itch on the inside of their hearts.
And then Pentecost came. And the Spirit did not give them a
strategic plan. The Spirit gave them themselves—but rewritten. They
spoke in languages they had not learned (German, Afrikaans, Xhosa, English…
imagine! The Spirit cares about every language in this room). They became a
people who shared everything, not out of duty, but out of delight.
That is sustainability. Not a balanced budget.
But a community so amazed by forgiveness that they cannot stop giving, cannot
stop welcoming, cannot stop loving.
4. A Word for Our Two Congregations
I know you are tired. The few Xhosa members sitting among
many white faces: sometimes you feel like visitors in a history that is not
yours. And the white members: you feel the weight of maintaining a ship that
seems to be sinking. Both congregations look at each other with unspoken
questions: “Do you really belong to me? Do I really belong to you?”
The new covenant says: “I will be their God, and
they shall be my people.” Not “the German people” or “the
Afrikaans people” or “the Xhosa people.” Just my
people. One people. A people whose identity is not found in language or
land or historical grievance, but in a forgiven heart.
Practical picture: Imagine if the white members stopped
running the church out of Angst (fear) and started running it
out of Dankbarkeit (gratitude). Imagine if the Xhosa members
stopped feeling like guests and started knowing that the law of love in their
heart is just as valid as any liturgy in the red book. Then you would not have
to “sustain” the church by grinding your bones together. The church would
sustain you.
Conclusion: The Lord Hears
On Exaudi Sunday, we cry: “Hear, O Lord!” And
God answers: “I have heard. I have heard your failure. I have heard
your fear. I have heard your fatigue. And I am doing a new thing.”
Do not look at the empty pews and despair. Look at the empty
tomb and the ascended King. He is not gone. He is preparing to pour out His
Spirit—the same Spirit who wrote the law on the hearts of Jeremiah’s hopeless
exiles.
You do not need to be a mega-church. You do not need to be
culturally pure. You do not need to be young or rich. You only need to be the
people of the new covenant: forgiven, heart-rewritten, and waiting.
And on that day—maybe sooner than you think—the Spirit will
fall. And two struggling congregations, one Afrikaans/German and one Xhosa,
will find that they were never two covenants at all. Just one. Written on one
heart.
To God be the glory. Amen.
Die genade van
die Here Jesus Christus, en die liefde van God, en die gemeenskap van die
Heilige Gees, bly met ons almal. Amen.
Die Gnade unseres
Herrn Jesus Christus und die Liebe Gottes und die Gemeinschaft des Heiligen
Geistes sei mit uns allen. Amen.
Inceba yeNkosi uYesu Krestu, nothando lukaThixo, nobudlelane boMoya oyiNgcwele, mabube nathi sonke. Amen.
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