April 2, 2006

CHANGES

Jeremiah 31: 31-34; Hebrews 5: 5-10

            A man went to see his doctor and the doctor told him that he was in terrible shape.  You’ve got to do something about it, first, tell your wife to cook more nutritious meals, second, stop working so hard, you don’t need the money that bad, also inform your wife that you’re going to make a budget and she has to stick to it and have her keep the kids off your back so  you can relax.  Unless there are some changes in your life you’ll probably be dead in a month.  “Doc”, said the patient,” this would sound more official coming from you.  Could you please call my wife and give her those instructions?  When the fellow got home, his wife rushed to him, “I talked to your doctor” she wailed, “poor man you’ve only got 30 days to live.

            “The days are surely coming”, says the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and house of Judah”.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors, a new covenant, a new contract, a chance to change.

            Israel was at a crossroads and whatever choice was made, nothing would ever be the same.  Now before we’re too hard on the house of Judah and its apparent and consistent reluctance to change its ways let’s review our own attitude toward change.

            Many people have had doctors tell them that they need to significantly change their lifestyle.  But for us humans change is not easy.  Could you turn on a dime and go in another direction with your life?  This is a real choice for many people.  You would think the odds would be fairly high that most people would change if their life was in danger.  Don’t smoke or you’ll die, sounds like a no-brainer.  Stop or die, 90 % don’t stop.  Now most people initially say they will change and they make the attempt.  But before long he enthusiasm wears off and now back to square one.

            And it’s not just a health care issue, it’s an issue for businesses as well, many businesses go belly up because they could not change.  Their mantra is we’ve always done it this way.  Corporations spend millions each year on consultants to bring in new practices and promote change, but most changes are at best short-lived and at worst rejected out of hand.

            And I haven’t even mentioned churches.  Churches are very resistant to change.  Try moving the piano from one side of the sanctuary to the other.  I served a church that wanted to change hymnals.

            How many church members does it take to change a light bulb?  What do you mean change the bulb?  It’s not that we’re uninformed it’s simply that many people and institutions just can’t change, even if it means our businesses or our churches or ourselves might die.

            So are we doomed?  Well no, the good news is that change does work for some people and institutions.  Change is tough, but not impossible, so how do we do it?  The answer lies in understanding the nature of change itself.  We usually view change as something we do or something that needs to be altered.  Change is not just about thinking about doing.

            Many psychologists today say that change happens mostly by speaking to peoples feelings.  True change needs to make us feel better!  Real change is the ability to reframe our thinking.  For example, most organizations operate with a hierarchy, rules, policies, standard operating procedures, change rarely happens if at all.

            But reframe the organization as a family or community, where relationships are paramount and it makes people view the organization differently, not that it’s easy, people become very attached to the way they do things.

            What these change experts have discovered is something that God has known all along, if you really want to change people’s behavior, you need to give them a story, an identity, a relationship that is emotionally resonant.  In Jeremiah 31, we read how God, through the prophet, seeks to reframe the experience of a people notoriously resistant to change by offering them not another set of rules but a relationship.

            It was no secret that God’s chosen were resistant to change (and still are for that matter) even after Moses parts the Red Sea after their escape from Egypt they want to go back, the known being more comfortable than the unknown.  They resisted the Ten Commandments.  Repeatedly throughout their history, Israel had a tough time changing even when threatened with exile, destruction and death they can’t seem to make the change and follow God for any consistent length of time.

            So here in Jeremiah 31 we read that God is going to take the initiative to reframe the issue and call for real change.  The old covenant, the one at Sinai, the one written on tablets of stone was one of facts, information, and commandments.  This covenant was continually broken because the people couldn’t adapt themselves to it fully, couldn’t conform.  They just couldn’t change their lifestyles

            So God turns to another approach, rather than write another legal prescription or warn them of impending doom, God will put his law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. 

            This program of change says God through Jeremiah won’t be posted on a wall or carried around in a box to be thought about, but will be installed in their hearts, their emotions, their hopes and their dreams.

            God was updating the covenant, reframing the relationship, moving from commandments to conversion, and from rules to relationship.  No longer would they know about God as an external agent of change who calls for their obedience, but they will now know God with their hearts and very lives.  God was offering a new opportunity for the people to change from a pattern of failure to a relationship of forgiveness.

            Jesus would later embody this new covenant, this reframing of the story.  While the Pharisees and others around him would continually press for the rules, Jesus was constantly calling people to engage God through a relationship rather than through a religious ritual.  He said essentially, to know me is to know God, to follow me is to follow a new path and to be in God’s presence, to experience God’s grace is the way to real change.  In other words he made change a live option even changing the threat of death itself to the promise or resurrection life

            Problem is that many individuals, churches and religious organizations are still working with their old frames.  The constant debate about rules, religious practice, theology, policy and sin keep us firmly entrenched.  We talk a lot, argue a lot and generate tons of information but nothing seems to change and thus the lives of people don’t change much either.

            Time to embrace a new story, another covenant the one God has been calling us toward all along.  God wants us to know him.  God’s word through Jeremiah is a call from our heads to our hearts, from cognition to communication and from religion to a relationship with God.

            Let us pray.