The New Covenant vs. Teachers and Pastors

One of the most beloved passages from Jeremiah is 31:31-34. If it weren’t forJeremiah 29:11 being plastered on every mildly Christian graduation card ever printed, this would probably be the one passage from this book that everyone remembered. This is unfortunate because Jeremiah really is a great book. It just gets overshadowed by its neighbors: the very quotable Isaiah and the slightly eccentric Ezekiel. Ever since I first stumbled upon this passage, I’ve loved it. Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant, one which the people cannot break. The law will be within them. In a sense, they will become a new creation with no barriers between them and God. This is a powerful, hopeful message, dreaming of a perfect future, but as comforting as this passage may be, it is also troubling to me as a seminary student.

Verse 34 says, “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” One may wonder what problem a seminarian may have with this. It certainly seems like a wonderful idea. Everyone knows God. No one else needs to hear the Gospel message, everyone has it written on their hearts, closer to them than any sermon I could ever preach. But therein lies the problem. If everyone knows the LORD, I’m out of a job. 

I suspect most people have some degree of anxiety about the prolonged usefulness of their jobs. Every generation sees economic shifts that put some people in danger. As online shopping moved from being a small economic niche to becoming a serious competitor to then coming to dominate how personal commerce works for many products, many people who had spent a long time working in brick and mortar stores had to find new work. The same was true for farmers when revolutions in agricultural technology made it possible for much fewer people to farm much larger swaths of land. The same will likely be true for workers in fossil fuel industries as the global economy makes steps toward greener energy in the next few decades. Though these transitions may seem gradual on a large scale, it is always sudden and shocking to hear that you are being laid off because the company is downsizing or shifting priorities to accommodate a changing market.

This problem is particularly bad because it isn’t just about money. It is also about something deeper, a personal sense of value and worth. When something you have been doing for years suddenly becomes obsolete, you are forced to grapple with some difficult questions. What was the point of all that long toil? Did I actually contribute anything useful to the world? Even if I did contribute something useful at the time, did my work have any lasting consequence? These are some big questions, and perhaps some good topics for future blog posts here, but the situation of a minister living in new covenant times is unique.

My job isn’t suddenly becoming obsolete. My job as many people imagine it has been obsolete for nearly two thousand years. Lutherans like talking about things as being “already but not yet.” Jesus inaugurated the new covenant that Jeremiah is talking about with his death and resurrection, but we haven’t fully realized the covenant due to our sinfulness. It is here, upon us, among us now, but we can’t firmly grasp it. The fact is, everyone has God’s handwriting on their hearts. I suspect most everyone reading this has been visited by the Holy Spirit. The Gospel is part of our lives. We are undeniably, inescapably part of God’s story of salvation, and each of us has been empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry this message to others, witnessing to the power of God in Christ Jesus. So where do I fit in?

The dark truth of rostered ministry is that the entire thing is an endless journey seeking relevance. On the one hand, a pastor is not really unique. A healthy body of believing Christians can do most of the work of sustaining a congregation even without a pastor, and an unhealthy congregation can be too great a challenge for most pastors anyway. On the other hand, in a world that is growing increasingly non-religious, religion itself is struggling to find relevance. I suspect the percentage of people who outright don’t believe in any kind of higher power is probably greater now than it has been at any point in the past. In a world in which science and technology seems to provide everything we need aside from meaning itself, religion is relegated to staking its claim as the provider of meaning, purpose, and inspiration against self-help books, inspirational clips about dogs being heroes, and videos of poems by dead men being read by old men while white text stands against a black background. We see people flock to online influencers playing video games to find community sooner than they would grace the halls of a church. 

Trapped between the truth that all Christians have God’s Word written on their hearts and the fact that most people don’t seem to care, ministers can either face this fact directly and tremble or ignore how much we are caught in the current of time and being swept downriver against our wills. But if we do decide to open our eyes and look at our insignificance, maybe we will find the Gospel hidden amidst the flood.

As much as I personally like preaching, the reality is that I probably shouldn’t be doing it every week. This isn’t to say I should be taking it easy and doing nothing. Rather, ministers should be empowering people to share God’s message, raising up leaders in every congregation. Maybe part of the reason that so few people seem to really care about God’s place in the world is because so few people actually witness God’s power in their own lives. We live in the era of the New Covenant, as much as not everyone may feel like they are a good speaker, everyone has God’s story in their mouths. Everyone has God’s Word on their lips. We can trust the Holy Spirit to give us the words to speak when the time comes to bear witness to the faithfulness of God.

The leaders of the church have a difficult choice to make. Clinging to personal relevance and hiding the truth of the new covenant from people can keep things going as they are. Meanwhile, relinquishing our quest to grasp at our own significance sets us free to proclaim the arrival of the new covenant. God is here. The Word is in our hearts. The Holy Spirit moves on our very breath. We all have the words to say, not just the leaders. There is nothing I can teach anyone from myself. The best I can do is help them hear God speaking in their own lives. Once they hear, they don’t need me, but the world needs them, and to the world is where we must go.