New Writing
Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 12:20-33

April 2, 2006


The media keeps avalanching our attention and allegiance so that it is no longer a simple matter of seeing and reading the Gospel, but how one absorbs the information and the message that seems to matter. Books, movies, TV, websites, cartoons all attack our brains and souls in different ways. When Jeremiah declares God’s desire to write the law upon our hearts and the Greeks in Jerusalem wish to see Jesus, the medium is the message.

In my days as a sports writer, I was fortunate to be on a small daily newspaper in an isolated region in which we still wrote a story about last night’s game. Half the town was at the game anyway, but people always wanted to read again what happened, not in a flood of statistics, but turning point to heart-stopping ending. The narrative interpretation of events recreated in their minds what they had experienced. For those who were not in attendance, it was also a way to create an image and the inner feelings of the game. My typical challenge was to describe how our boys’ basketball team lost by 30 points and weren’t really all that bad. It is an art form to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and I became an artisan. In small towns you really couldn’t write that your next door neighbour’s son couldn’t shoot a basketball for beans, just that he missed that particular shot, and darn it, it was close!

The sports editor and I talked endlessly about the art of writing a good game story, how it could capture the pathos, even the meaning, of a tossed ball or slapped puck, and a passionate heart. I was disheartened then when I read an account by Roger Kahn, one of the great baseball writers, of his visit to a Cincinatti Reds game. Sitting in the press box, he watched as 45 year old Pete Rose proceeded to bat 5 for 5. The old sports hand could see the headline taking shape in the next day’s paper, “Five for Five at Forty-Five.” The beat writer heard his idea and said, “Naw. We don’t bother with the game anymore.” He was more interested in some of the gambling allegations coming out about Rose.

Kahn was taken back, because after all isn’t there a game going on here? No, the TV reports the games now. If he had waited a few more years, he could have added that even TV is trumped by the various internet websites. So the newspaper is left with writing “about the game,” not inside the innings, batter by batter, pitch by pitch, but outside the event for all the peripheral developments, like players’ strikes and salaries, drug use and gambling, trades and the shenanigans of the team owner. Hard news, the real world everyone likes to pontificate, but the heart of the matter is no longer of real significance.

It’s like that in the church. We have a game going on here. Does anybody know who is playing and what the score is?

We people of the Book are enthralled by the words of scripture, yet have difficulty comprehending what the words really depict. As time goes by, words and narratives lose sight of their situation in life and the tone of voice with which they are spoken. Was Jesus asking an innocent question, playing around, teasing and laughing, upset or angry, simply incredulous, or being kindly compassionate? Usually, one reads the Biblical words as if they were written last week, but then one is only listening to oneself, not hearing the Word.

Compiling and enforcing a group of laws and commandments has been the occupation of most readers of the Book throughout the millennia. Right at this moment, there are significant players in all three religions of the Book apparently quite conversant with their holy texts, memorizing much of them, yet carrying on wars of violence and murder against the other readers. What happened to the words?

The game has never changed, but it is easier to write about the game than get involved in the play by play. Jeremiah seldom had nice words for Israel because the Israelites were content with reading the words in worship, but not living the Word outside of the Temple. Babylonia came along and made all their words sound hollow, but this was precisely the moment that Jeremiah had something good to say, good because the Word was God’s. “I will make a new covenant.” Covenants today are still carefully crafted bunches of words, especially in the Reformed and Congregational traditions. Israel already had a good covenant from Sinai, but this time it is going to be different. It is not going to be written in ink to discuss and debate and interpret and argue about. The new covenant is going to be written into our moral genes, internalized so that it is our instinctive direction. The game is to be like God and treat other people as if they were God. God wants you and me never again read a rule book.

During the Passover festival, when Jerusalem swelled beyond its capacity with pilgrims, a group of Greeks, non-Jews or Gentiles, were there and they sought the opportunity of a lifetime. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” That remains the game still, to see Jesus right before us, written indelibly into the moral genes of our hearts. I am a person in love with words and their power to change the way one thinks and loves, but words “about” Jesus are powerless without seeing Jesus standing right here with us.

Of course, there have always been people darn certain they know who Jesus is and exactly what he said and meant. The Globe & Mail obviously knew what I was preaching about, so they told us about Sergei Torop, the “Jesus of Siberia.” Jesus, however, never is a foreigner. There are precious few people from other countries and cultures that we listen to and respect. Their accent is too strong and their words and thoughts are too strange. The game is still the same - to be like Jesus and to treat others like Jesus. Experience has taught us generally to mistrust those who say they are Jesus.

Jesus’ words recorded in ink are not empty, but seldom easy or comfortable. You want to see Jesus? The disciples had all thought that this small town dynamo was going to overthrow the Roman occupation and the old line religious leadership and establish in some fashion the kingdom of heaven on earth. This guy was charismatic, a visionary, the right person to lead, so why wouldn’t they be excited? This is the kind of leader we still look for.

Jesus talked about other things - about being betrayed, failure and death, and then resurrection. Suffering and betrayal were going to lead to the conquering of death - which makes no sense. Yet, do you want to see Jesus? Look at the person who is suffering and has been betrayed. See the one who makes things happen by relinquishing power. Watch someone who has been defeated time and again, but who retains her dignity and principles. Look out for the person who has died a death of injustice and imprisonment and is now fearful of no power-that-be, for that’s what a resurrected human being looks like. Sir, we would see Jesus. You already have and you will see him again. Read the words he has written on your heart and you will see.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan