Jeremiah 31: 31-34 Psalm 119: 9-16
Hebrews 3: 1-6 John 12: 20-33
Grace and peace to you from God, who Created us, from Jesus who redeemed us, and from the Holy Spirit, who empowers and sustains us. Amen.
Sixty years. Sixty years ago at this time the #1 song was “Wheel of Fortune” by Kay Starr. In 1952 movie-goers were watching Singing In the Rain and High Noon. And here we are, sixty years later. Any guesses about what the #1 song is today? It’s Stronger, Or What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger and the #1 movie today is The Hunger Games, a dark but fascinating story of life after the apocalypse.
Doing this deeply theological research, I was hopeful that I could connect a top song or a top movie to the life of this congregation. But they seemed to fall short in one way or another, although some days we do sing in the rain, and if our worship service were to go past high noon we might find ourselves in another sort of hunger games. I suppose what I had hoped for was a movie or a song about traveling through time. Something along the lines of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which was popular back when Luther Memorial was about 39 years old. Because we’ve spent a lot of time looking back this weekend, back at the decades of ministry and mission here in this place. We’ve seen photos of people we have loved dearly; there are some funny photos, too, and some striking ones, like the photos depicting the construction of the sanctuary. The writer of Hebrews notes in our second reading this morning that every house is built by someone but the builder of all things is God. The builder of all things is God.
This is most certainly true of this ministry, that began as a Sunday School and quickly became a worshipping congregation. God’s handprints are everywhere….and we’ve seen them in the photos and memorabilia from the past six decades.
Like us, the people of Israel were also led and fed by a God whose handprints were everywhere: leading them out of Egypt, crossing through the Red Sea to the safety of the other side, feeding them with manna. And like us, the people of Israel often looked back at their history with great fondness. There is nothing at all wrong with that.
But what the prophet Jeremiah describes in our first reading today is a God who is always doing a new thing. In the case of the people of Israel, God is making a new covenant with them. Now, this is a pretty big deal because for the people of Israel the old covenant, the Law, was how they ordered their lives. They lived by those rules and regulations, which the Lord had given to them as a part of the promises God made to them. All of those promises were significant and meaningful and important. It was how they knew and understood who they were. It was how they saw God’s handprints.
Throughout our history as a congregation we have understood ourselves and experienced our identity in evolving and changing ways. We have been a congregation of vital and lively music programs. We have been associated closely with the former Lutheran Bible Institute. We have been among the first congregations to partner with Holden Village. We have had pastors who stayed for a long tenure and others whose time here was short. And in all of these things, God was at work doing a new thing.
But here’s the problem when God is at work doing a new thing….God does not send us a written description of what God is up to. Doesn’t that seem like a better plan than just assuming that we’ll trust God and go along with whatever new thing God is doing because it’s hard to do that when we don’t know what it is.
The Israelites knew this. They usually whined and complained about what God was doing. They complained about the manna God sent them for nourishment. They complained about the long journey to the promised land. They even complained about being set free from bondage in Egypt because as awful as that was, it was what they knew and what they knew was certainly better than what they didn’t know…this new thing God was doing.
So imagine how they must have responded to the news of a new covenant. And not just a new covenant but a new and different covenant. It will not be like the old covenant said Jeremiah. No, this is new. This covenant is written on their hearts, it is in their very souls. It is, in fact, a part of their being. They can’t even teach it to one another because knowing the LORD and understanding this new covenant will be a part of their very identity. It will, literally, define who they are.
Sixty years ago this congregation formed as people of the new covenant. God was at work here in the Broadview neighborhood doing a new thing. And no one knew what that would be or what that might look like at the time, but trusting not only that God’s handprints were there, but that God’s very hands were leading them, this congregation was formed. From the youngest to the oldest, or as Jeremiah put it, from the least of them to the greatest (although who is who is open to interpretation), the people of Broadview Luther Memorial Church all knew God. They knew God, not necessarily because they taught it to one another, but because God had put a new covenant on their hearts.
And like the Israelites, there were times of great gladness and growth and prosperity and there have been times of struggle and disappointment. We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge that. We would miss an important part of our history as a congregation if we did not remember the times that we wandered through deserts and wilderness, wondering what it was we were to do next. But, you know, God is always up to something. To refer back to the movie theme, we can be sure that there is another excellent adventure, another new thing coming in God’s good time.
In every decade and in every year and every week and every day, we are called in this place to be that place where people come to see Jesus. Just as the the Greeks came to Philip and Andrew and said, “We wish to see Jesus” we are reminded that those who come in these doors are also looking for him. And so in our remembering the past and in our planning for the future we put this at the forefront of all that we do. That this is a place where Jesus is found. Jesus is found in the waters at this font, in which many of you were baptized or brought your children to be baptized. Jesus is found in the Word as it is sung and enacted and spoken and taught and shared. Jesus is found in the bread and in the wine, as we gather at this table to share this holy meal. Jesus is found in the Body of Christ as is forms and re-forms, throughout the years. For all who come here and wish to see Jesus, our task, indeed our call as people of the new covenant, is to show him, here, present, with us.
Sixty years ago a congregation was formed here and later a house was built here. Our gathering hymn calls it a house where love dwells, where prophets speak, where love is found in water wine and wheat. It is a place where hands reach out to heal and strengthen, serve and teach. It is a place, this place, where outcasts and strangers are warmly welcomed and daily served because in them we see the face of God. It is a place where each person is called by name in the waters of baptism and claimed as God’s beloved child. And while this house was built by human hands, literally as stone was laid upon stone, and throughout the years by all of the faithful communion of saints who gather here in body and in memory, we know that Christ is the chief cornerstone. And we recall, with the writer of Hebrews that Christ was faithful over God’s house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belongs to hope.
And we do have hope. We have hope because we have seen that God has done a new thing in this place for sixty years and, God willing, will continue to do that new thing for many years to come. May it be a faithful and most excellent adventure.
Thanks be to God! Amen!
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