10/19/2025 ~ Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost ~ Proper 24 ~ Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8 ~ YOUTUBE VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0qI49oPtnM ~ VIDEO OF FULL SERVICE: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7960701?video=1129537798
Covenant of the Heart
“…this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my Law within them, in their minds and I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God; they shall be my people.” — Jeremiah 31:33.
Fiddler on the Roof is the famous Broadway musical set in the Tsarist Russia of 1905. It’s based on the short stories of Sholem Aleichem, pen name of the writer Salomon Rabinovich. All the stories by this author were written in Yiddish and Sholem Aleichem means “peace be with you” in Yiddish.
Fiddler concentrates on the story of Tevye, the dairy farmer, and his family. The narrative tells us about this family and their attempts to maintain their traditions while the world encroaches on their lives and on their world.
The three eldest daughters are strong-willed young women. Their choice of husbands moves them away from the traditions to which the people in this small town are accustomed.
Further, in the turbulent times at the start of the Twentieth Century, the Tsarist government evicts these Jews from their town. But this government, itself, will soon be overthrown by the Communist Revolution.
Despite or perhaps because of the forces of change, the story keeps coming back to the people in the town, the personal, the individual, these people battered by change, changing times, forces beyond their control. But they do seek to find an anchor in the intimate relationships they have built over time.
This concept is well illustrated when Tevye explains to Golde, his wife, that one daughter wants to get married to someone she loves rather than go into the arranged marriage they envisioned for her, the normal custom in the village. In a song, Tevye and his wife reflect on what true love might mean.
Tevye asks Golde: “Do you love me?” Golde responds: “Do I what?” In a heartfelt, gruff way Teyve asks again: “Do you love me?”
Goldie thinks all the changes have overwhelmed her husband. “Do I love you? / With our daughters getting married / And this trouble in the town / You’re upset, you’re worn out / Go inside, go lie down! / Maybe it’s indigestion.”
Tevye will not be deterred: “Golde, I’m asking you a question… Do you love me?”
Golde then becomes reflective and practical: “Do I love you? / For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes / Cooked your meals, cleaned your house / Given you children, milked the cow / After twenty-five years, why talk about love now?”
Turning to some unseen audience (it is God to whom she speaks?), she adds this: “For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him / Fought him, starved with him / Twenty-five years my bed is his / If that’s not love, what is?” (Slight pause.)
The song concludes— together they admit they love one another. “It doesn’t change a thing / But even so / After twenty-five years / It’s nice to know.” Hence, they end the duet voicing a singular thought. The relationship they developed over time took time to develop and they worked at it. This clearly is love by any definition. (Slight pause.)
We live in our own tumultuous times today. Or at least it can feel a little nuts. It can feel like a lot of people are acting just a little… off… sometimes more than a little. Author Malcolm Gladwell writes books that explore change in society. He tells this story about giving a talk in a wealthy, suburban community. He pointed out to this audience that in the 1950s the tax rate for the wealthy people ran just over 90%. [1]
The audience refuses to believe him. Some in the crowd started to hiss. [2] And, since he was speaking at a dinner function, someone even tossed a roll in his direction. This reaction was one of anger, perhaps fear or maybe the other way around— fear then anger. But why be fearful or angry?
Gladwell did not make up these facts. So when someone throws a dinner roll at you for merely stating a fact, it proves we live in tumultuous times. And perhaps it does feel like it’s nuts when people refuse to pay attention to facts or are willfully ignorant of facts.
When presented with facts that do not match someone’s preconceived position, the result can be fear and anger. Of course, that’s what happened in Tsarist Russia— a toxic combination of a preconceived position, willful ignorance, fear and anger.
People were fearful about and of the Jewish minority. As a minority, Jews were also often isolated in small villages, ghettos. Given that, the willful ignorance of the majority morphed into fear, fear into anger, anger into violence.
The pogroms of the Tsar and later from Central Committee of the Soviet Union, took center stage. In short, ignorance, fear and anger translated not just into isolated violence but systemic violence. All this was a result of failing to know the facts but, perhaps more tragically, willfully ignoring the facts. (Slight pause.)
This is what we hear in the work known as Jeremiah: “…this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my Law within them, in their minds and I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God; they shall be my people.” (Slight pause.)
What is love? Is love infatuation? Is love an attraction? Is love simply an emotional high? Or does love, as Tevye and Golde suggest, have its real basis in deeply knowing someone. Does love have its real basis in growth? (Slight pause.)
Please notice, the promise of God is to write the knowledge of God on both the hearts and on the minds of people. Hence, the claim here is we are so deeply known by God that the fact of this intimacy produces forgiveness. Therefore, perhaps the thing to which we need to be open is for us to grow in our own intimacy with God, in our own knowledge of God.
This is clear: when growth is abandoned or simply ignored, fear is embraced. Covenant love is the opposite of that. Covenant love, as proclaimed by and in Scripture, is commitment to understanding, a commitment to respect, a commitment to… growth.
True love is not merely an infatuation nor is it only an attraction nor is it simply an emotional high. Love is something which develops, which grows.
Why? How? Love comes from knowledge, cumulative knowledge, of others, knowledge which is intentionally pursued. When a commitment to covenant love, a commitment to growth is made, a deep, enduring love is empowered to develop. When commitment to covenant love is made, growth happens. (Slight pause.)
I want to suggest the love God writes on our minds and on our hearts is already there, already present. Too often we employ willful ignorance to ignore it instead of embracing it. And there is only one way to embrace it. To love deeply and to love over time we must learn love by engaging it over time.
One more point: this reading starts with an assumption— that we will always be loved by God. Indeed, that is one reason God insist we are forgiven— because we are loved.
So the challenge for us is simple: God has made a commitment to us and invites us to be committed also. Therefore, will we become committed to loving God? Will we become committed to covenant love which is embodied by and enwrapped by constant growth, growth which will lead us to love each other? Amen.
10/19/2025
Elijah Kellogg Church, Harpswell, Maine
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This is a précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “One thought for Meditation in the bulletin today is from H. Richard Neibuhr. (Quote:): ‘Christianity is permanent revolution.’ He then uses the Greek word for permanent revolution— metanoia. ‘Metanoia does not come to an end in this world, this life or this time.’ I need to add that for me, ‘permanent revolution’ does not mean chaos nor a tumultuous time. Metanoia means being open to constant growth.”
BENEDICTION: God has made us partners in covenant. Let us truly be God’s people. Let us be guided by prayer, by study, by justice, by growth, by love. Let us continually praise the God of the universe who loves us. May our trust grow as we are empowered to do God’s work in this, God’s dominion. And may we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much. May we be so in awe of God that we are in awe of no one and nothing else. Amen.
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/income-taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
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