Stories, forgotten and remembered

Jeremiah 31:31-34

The days are surely coming, says Adonai, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It 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 Adonai. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Adonai: 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. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know Adonai,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says Adonai, for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, and though the mountains shake in the depths of the sea; though its waters rage and foam, and though the mountains tremble with its tumult. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be shaken; God shall help it at the break of day. The nations rage, and the kingdoms shake; God speaks, and the earth melts away. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. Come now, regard the works of the Lord, what desolations God has brought upon the earth; behold the one who makes war to cease in all the world; who breaks the bow, and shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire. “Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.” The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Romans 3:19-28

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

John 8:31-36

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

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Everybody has a story. You want to know who somebody is, you get their friends (or their enemies) to tell you a story about them, a defining event, an over-the-top decision, an outrageous experience. Tyler is a kid with a heart of gold, he’ll even use the gift card his teacher gave him to buy dinner for his friends. Luke loves the city life but takes his prayer time on his neighbor’s tractor out in the country. Dr Klein has been teaching Old Testament for so long he reads directly from the Hebrew and loves telling those stories of his two grandsons who were put together in a petri dish. Stories.

Then there are the stories of baseball teams like the Cubs, stories of celebrities like Bill Cosby, stories of family fishing trips and community traditions that help us re-live the historical events that shaped every celebration ever since then. Some stories are told with pride and carried forward, others with pride that we’ve gotten past them and don’t live like that any more. Many stories tell how we got to where we are and why we respond in the way we do when tragedy strikes or when a certain time of year comes around. My grandmother was always sad in mid April, because she suffered a miscarriage one April well over fifty years ago, and her body carried that story until the day she died. 

The Jewish people had a story they tell every spring, and two thousand years ago that storytelling became for us what we call Holy Week. The story of the Passover, the signs and plagues sent down on Pharaoh to set God’s people free from slavery. They were in slavery in the first place because Pharaoh forgot the story of Joseph, who interpreted the dreams of a previous Pharaoh and saved Egypt from starvation during seven years of famine. You’d think a famine lasting seven years would be a big enough struggle that folks would remember it for generations. When I lived in Massachusetts, every snowstorm led to the grocery stores being picked clean by people who remembered another storm from 40 years ago. But a seven year famine didn’t concern the Egyptians who figured their Pharaoh was a god, and they put all those foreigners in their midst into forced labor, despite the fact that those foreigners had been part of their basic survival.

Passover tells the story of God liberating God’s people from that slavery, sending the plagues, leading them in the wilderness, drowning Pharaoh and his army, providing manna in the desert, promising a homeland. It’s the defining story of the people. 

So it’s a bit funny that when Jesus talks about true freedom, the people who tell this story as their own, year after year, would say ‘we’ve never been slaves of anybody!’ Not just funny, it’s downright sad. Like the fairy godmother rescued Cinderella from a life of poverty, and she claims she’s always lived in the palace. Or the nation of immigrants goes on and on about how lazy and dangerous immigrants are, or the adults forget what it was like to be a teenager and the teens forget what it was like to be a kid. How have we lost who we are, where we come from?

There’s this movie with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, called “50 First Dates,” where he falls for her but she has long-term memory damage and can’t remember yesterday when she wakes up in the morning. Every day, Sandler’s character has to reintroduce himself to Barrymore’s, because every morning she wakes up with no idea of their history together. It doesn't seem to phase him, though. Every morning she wakes up to a video reminding her of the reason for her memory loss and a recap of the recent history she’s lived through. God seems to be in that same sort of position with us, over and over again, reminding us that we were once strangers, that we were once far off and have been brought near, that we have all fallen short of the glory of God, that we are grafted into the tree as outsiders, that we were slaves in Egypt and have been slaves to ourselves and to our sin from the outset.

So that, when we get to the end and wonder what it was all for, when we get into the middle of the mess and wonder what’s the point to all of this, when we ask ‘why me?’ or ‘what now?’ or ‘what does it matter?’, we have a defining story, a root, a source to turn back to for strength and hope and freedom when it seems for all intents and purposes that our hands are tied and we’ve buried ourselves alive again.

We are grafted into a long, deep, rich heritage of God, where every time we run to our own destruction we are pursued, every time we turn our back on each other we are brought back together, every time we sin we are forgiven. Our short memories, however, lead us deeper and deeper into the lie that we can free ourselves from sin, that we can live perfect lives if only we try hard enough, that we’ve gotten this far on our own strength and so should everybody else if they’re worth the effort.

There’s the great story Jesus tells about an older brother who works for his father as though he has to earn his place in the family. He never takes a holiday, never asks for anything, works his fingers to the bone, and then his younger brother takes half of the family bank account and runs off to splurge on childish, irresponsible, immature… Anyhow, with the younger brother out of the way, the older still has to do most of the work, but then one day that little snot comes home all apologetic, and the father sends servants to slaughter a prize animal for a feast! A feast to welcome back this piece of worthless mess, while the eldest has never gotten the recognition he deserves. He might as well be a slave, for all the thanks he gets, so he doesn’t bother to welcome his brother home, because he’s too busy working and trying to earn the love his father gives away freely.

We have been set free, but we keep living like slaves, insisting we were never slaves in the first place. It's messed up. It’s why we confess our sins together at the start of each worship service, because it’s the most basic rule of recovery: admitting you have a problem is the first step in healing. We tell a story on Reformation Sunday about Martin Luther, a Catholic monk who was absolutely terrified of God’s judgment, who lived in a time when the church was ignoring the pain of the poor who were dying all around in their own unholy fear of God, who in the age of a brand new printing press published some ideas for academic debate which ended up turning the world at the time upside down. One of those early ideas was: “The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.” No matter what sort of financial situation the church would ever be in, the story of our salvation, of God’s work setting us free from captivity to sin, is the source of our life and our greatest treasure.

Righteousness apart from works of the law. Law as no longer accuser or guilt-bringer, but gift of life and marriage covenant. God who relentlessly pursues us wherever we run or hide. A story of rescue, over and over again, and once and for all in the cross of Jesus Christ. This is what we celebrate this Reformation Sunday. This is our story, our freedom. Thanks be to God.