2012 Lent 12: Love and Justice Are Our Future Because They Are God's Present

Below is the manuscript of the sermon I preached on 3/25/12 at Lutheran Church of the Savior. Normally I don't publish sermon scripts because I preach from notes or scribbles, but this week I have a nearly-passable script. I even stuck to it, though certainly not word-for-word. The text is Jeremiah 31:31-34, which is quoted in its entirety (NRSV) in the body of the sermon.


1.    This past Monday, my wife Sarah and I were at a continuing education event in Chicago, listening to Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver. Nadia founded House maybe three or five years ago, and it’s the hippest (hipster-est?) church in the whole ELCA. Anyway, at one point on Monday, the bishop of Metro Chicago Synod got up and asked her a question about where her congregation is going. Her response really stuck with me: “I’m good at the present. I’m not very good at the future,” she said, which is quite a way to tell a bishop to buzz off. I laughed & thought, Who IS ‘good at the future’? What would that even mean?

2.    I tell this story because our beautiful first lesson today from Jeremiah is about the future. “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. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: 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. ³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

3.    That is some seriously future-tense scripture, people. It’s about God’s promise for the future. The content of that promise is one of the most gorgeous images in all of Scripture: “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… I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

4.    Now, this was written about 2600 years ago, so it’s a valid question to ask whether God has already gotten around to writing this new covenant on our hearts. The answer, of course, is yes and no. Yes, in Jesus Christ God has offered us a new covenant of forgiveness. But also no, because when I consider my own heart, the stuff I find there doesn’t always sound like God’s law to me.

5.    And so, even today, this ancient scripture points us to the future. It points us to the short-term future: the end of Lent, the Vigil of Easter when we’ll tell so many beautiful stories like this one about God’s promise to bring forth life out of death and sin. Seriously, people, you should come to the Vigil this year. It’s going to be amazing. It also points us to the long-term future, the ultimate future that God has for us beyond this life and maybe even beyond time itself. (I’m resisting the urge to make a Doctor Who reference here).

6.    I don’t know about you, but I can’t talk about the future without talking about German Lutheran theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg [Quotations below included in this link], who came up with a really helpful way to talk about God and the future. I’m going to throw some Pannenberg at you, then talk about it. He said, “History, in all its totality, can only be understood when it is viewed from its endpoint.” God sees the world from the future, from the end of history, and looks back at us now, knowing what is ahead.

7.    “The end of history, which has yet to take place, has been disclosed…in the person and work of Christ.” Even though we can obviously never know the future, paradoxically we already know the end of history. The resurrection of Jesus Christ in the past shows us that God’s love in Christ will be what’s left after history ends in the future.

8.    “Reality finds its ground in a rapidly approaching future.  It is in this future that Christian hope finds its epicenter.” In Pannenberg’s view, the future is what makes sense of the present. This is trippy, but this actually makes total sense to me in light of the gospel: because we know God’s love for us in Jesus Christ, we respond in thanks, loving and serving God and one another because we know that by doing so we are living into God’s best future for us. What we do today is based on what we know God wants for us tomorrow.

9.    “The Kingdom [of God] coming from the future is… God’s reign, a righteous rule of love and justice.” Love and justice are our future because they are God’s present. God in Jesus Christ is constantly drawing all creation into relationship with God. Makes total sense!

10.           Which brings me to one more important story about the future. One last quotation from Pannenberg: “Since my early days… I became increasingly aware that Christian theology… should not limit itself to some narrowly defined confessional loyalty inherited from the past but should help to build the foundations of a reunited… Christian church that should become more and more visible within the foreseeable future. This vision… constitutes the most important practical application of my theological project.” Ecumenism, different Christian churches working together to live into God’s future, is the point of Pannenberg’s God-talk. Combine this excitement for ecumenism with the content of God’s future – love and justice – and what do you get?

11.           Well, a number of you were with me there yesterday: THE FREE STORE!

12.           In my prayer of dedication (shouted to a roomful of noisy people), I prayed about the future. I realized that this Grand Opening was not about yesterday, but was about tomorrow. Deacon Cara Weiler talked about the model Free Store in Columbus, Ohio, with 38000 members (ours has about 189, almost double the 97 we had after our first three weeks), with a free clinic, free pharmacy, a housing rehab service, and so much more I can’t even remember it all.

13.           I asked God’s blessing not just over the members shopping there yesterday, but over the members who will come in the future. Not just the volunteers there yesterday, but the volunteers who will help in the future. Not just over the clothes on the racks yesterday, but on the clothes donated in the future. Most importantly, I prayed that God would bless the community we are building at the Free Store, not just the community present yesterday, but the community that will grow there in God’s future.

14.           The next thing we’re going to do today is officially, publicly welcome some of our sisters and brothers into the Lutheran Church of the Savior community. Welcoming new folks is, again, about the future. What does God have in store for us? How will God’s love in Jesus Christ inspire us to do God’s work in this world, together, as the constantly-growing body of Christ in this place? Oh, and don’t forget, this Wednesday evening we’re gathering to talk about how we can live out God’s mission together – in the future – with Rev. Roger Hardy from the synod office.

15.           God’s law of love and forgiveness will be written on our hearts and told in our aching bones after a day of serving at the Free Store. The days are surely coming, God promises. We don’t need to be good at the future. We don’t need to be good at the future because God is GREAT at the future. God has set forth for us a beautiful future of love and justice, of ecumenical partnership and service to our neighbor in need. To live into this future, all we need to do is look back (and forward) at the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in whom God’s future for us is perfectly clear. Amen.