With God's Own Hand - April 2, 2006

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Last week it was snakes. This week it's ducks. (Sometimes church is as fun and informative as the zoo, isn't it?) The Nobel-Prize winning Austrian researcher Konrad Lorenz spent the middle part of the last century studying the behavior of newly hatched waterfowl—ducks and geese, primarily—in an effort to understand what exactly is going on, genetically speaking, when we see a line of ducklings following their mother.

After careful study, Lorenz was able to identify the phenomenon that he called 'stamping in' in his native German, and which was later translated into "imprinting" in English. Referring to instinctive behaviors as imprinting was Lorenz' way of expressing that the impulse for such behaviors was somehow "stamped into" the brains of the birds before their birth. Such impulses are not subject to experience or learning. Ducklings follow their mother because they are hard-wired to follow her. It's part of what it means to be a duck.

Humans, too are hardwired for a few selective behaviors. Infants for example, do not have to be told how to nurse, whether it is from their mother or from a bottle. The suckling reflex is how we survive. It is stamped into us from before birth, to use Konrad Lorenz' language.

In Jeremiah, we are told of a day soon coming when God will make a new covenant with God's people. The old covenant, whereby God drew Israel out of Egypt with God's own hand, the covenant which they broke time and time again, is about to be made into a new thing: God is announcing God's intention to write the law on their hearts. It is as if God desires for those who believe to be imprinted with the law. It is a promise of restoration, of renewal, of redemption. No longer will God remember the sins of the past; all things are being made new.

God is not saying however that the old covenants are being superceded, or that they are no longer valid in the relationship between God and God's children. A new way of relating is necessary, not because God did not hold up God's part of the bargain, but because humanity failed to follow God.

Konrad Lorenz discovered a surprising phenomenon in his quest to study imprinting in birds:

"Soon after hatching, if baby ducklings see a cardboard box pulled by a string passing by, they'll follow the box as if it were their mother. Moreover, as the ducklings grow up, they'll continue following the box! They just do not catch on…

These ducklings have been born with the instinct to follow the first thing that passed by… the moving cardboard box appeared and triggered the response of following the box. The ducklings were imprinted on the box.

(Nature's) strategy worked beautifully for millions and millions of years—until sneaky scientists came along with artificial incubators and cardboard boxes pulled with string!"[1]

Cardboard boxes pulled with string. Hmm. What is it about us that would lead us to follow something other than the One who imprinted us in the first place? Over and over again, in response to hearing the covenant, in response to being reminded of the promise that God had made with them, after being reminded that God had led them with God's own hand out of slavery, the people of Israel responded by saying "All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. We will be obedient."

But a new generation was born, and a cardboard box came by--a cardboard box named Baal, a false God--came wandering by the children of Israel, and the people followed. And still God came to them, and God again gave them the promise of a new covenant! What a generous God we serve, brothers and sisters!

There is hope in this passage. There is hope for the children of Israel, and for the Presbyterian Church, and for you and for me. "Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant." Those are words of hope and restoration, of redemption and healing. There is no condemnation, no judgment, no punishment. There is only the promise that the hand of God has not left us.

I was reminded recently of a time when I saw the hand of God with my own eyes. You have all heard me tell stories of my time spent working as an intern with the congregation with which we spent six years while we were in California. In the spring of 2003 there were some dramatic changes within the church that left it—well, not exactly rocked to the core, but the footing was a little shaky. The much beloved pastor was called by God to another church. That was the first real rattle, and it was significant. We believed that everything that would come after this would only be aftershocks. Members and friends of the congregation were taken by surprise by his announcement, and folks reacted the way folks do, with anger and grief and sadness and reluctance to let him go do this thing he was clearly called to do. And finally, grimly, with acceptance thinly veiled by our own selfish desires.

Soon after he left, two members of the congregation, women who had been in a very long and committed relationship, planned a celebration of their love, and of their civil union. It was a day to celebrate their relationship, yes, but also a first chance for the congregation to come together for something truly joyous since Chandler left. It had all the potential for a healing moment.

When guests arrived, however, we were given some unspeakably horrible news. Two beloved members of the congregation, a husband and wife, had been killed instantly in a car crash while driving back from Lake Tahoe the day before. It was especially tragic because Diane had recently recovered from a very serious stroke, with her husband Jerry's support, and had only recently begun to return to worship.

The celebration continued that day, and was a lovely and poignant tribute to the love that Ann and Virginia shared and nurtured in spite of many obstacles. But at the same time I know that many of the tears shed that day were because Diane and Jerry weren't there, and could never be there again. Compounding the list of losses that year, it seemed unbearable, inconceivable that God would take Jerry and Diane from us so suddenly, so brutally, without warning. I saw many of us walking around with battle-weary expressions on our faces—faces that reflected my own fatigue with my call search, and my profound feelings of loss on many levels. There seemed to be no healing balm, no hand of God in sight.

The very next Sunday, a baptism was scheduled for two children—twins, a boy and a girl. I remember feeling sorry for that family, that their children were becoming grafted onto our family on such a poignant occasion, and while it seemed that we had lost our direction, and the future seemed very dim indeed. But the baptism itself was lovely—God did what God does best, and worked through the Associate Pastor to make the occasion a thing of beauty.

I don't exactly know what prompted the children of the recently deceased couple to attend worship that day. Perhaps they needed to feel close to other people who had loved their Mom and Dad before leaving and trying to get on with the hard work of grieving. But I do know that God's hand was at work that day.

The healing, redemptive, restorative moment came after worship. I don't know how many other people saw this and realized what was happening, but I saw it. I saw the hand of God when I saw the children of Diane and Jerry reaching out to the parents of the newly baptized children, and personally welcome them with an embrace. In a flash, I saw God's mercy, grace, and providence reaching down to this congregation and to me personally. In my forgetting, in my willingness to follow whatever cardboard box of my own making came along in an effort to try to make the hurts go away, in my reluctance to remember the grace and promise that God had written on my heart, by imprinting not just a law, but a savior, I had grossly underestimated Gods' ability to provide, to comfort, and to renew. But God had not forgotten.

The new promise of salvation that is our through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is God's way of reminding humanity that God desires the intimacy with us that prompted God to take the Israelites by the hand and lead them out of Egypt. And…God is still leading us by the hand today. God's hand is still in this thing that we call life. It might be as close as the person sitting next to you.[2] It might be your hand, as you reach out to feed, hunger, comfort, or heal the one in your midst who needs to be reminded of what is written on our hearts. I am reminded of the Prayer of St Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Thanks be to God.

[1]From an online article titled "Learning Who Is Your Mother" by Silvia Helena Cardoso , Ph.D. and Renato M. E. Sabbatini, Ph.D. Published Nov 4 2001 in Brain and Mind magazine.

[2]For the ideas in this paragraph, I am indebted to my friend in ministry, Rev. Chandler Stokes, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, CA.