Readings: Jeremiah 31-34, John 12:20-33
`What is the most important question you can ask in life`? Albert Einstein`s answer was: `Is the Universe a friendly place or not?`. Most people intuitively live as if the answer is YES. In Jeremiah this was expressed in the Covenant between God and Israel. In John`s Gospel this Covenant develops further in Jesus Christ to embrace the Gentile world.

The biblical understanding of Covenant is born out of the Hebrew experience of slavery and oppression. The first Covenant follows the flood. It is between creation and humans - symbolised by the rainbow (Genesis 9:8-17). The rainbow is neither Jewish nor Christian, neither Islamic nor atheist. It belongs to all creation. It is the direct outcome of Mother Earth and her wonders of sunshine and rain, earth and sky that give and sustain life. The Aborigines of the West Kimberley intuitively recognised a Covenant with God, depicted in their ancient rock art as the Spirit of the Wandjina, which brings forth the rains to refresh the land. In 2011 the UC revised the Preamble to the Constitution in recognition of this reality. In the modern context, Global Warming indicates that God`s Covenant is for real and not some figment of the biblical imagination.

This Rainbow Covenant developed further as the Hebrews struggled with periods of oppression, slavery and exile. Usually history is written by the victors, but in the Bible we have the sacred history of an oppressed people, who lived at the crossroads of the great trade routes of the Middle East. Due to the wealth of the area they were conquered by the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. In this period the Covenant evolves, bringing the Abrahamic promise of land, the Mosaic Covenant of law and the Davidic covenant of rule by a sovereign king. But these Covenants failed to deliver Justice and Peace. Therefore Jeremiah says:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: 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. Jeremiah 31:33.

Jeremiah foresees a New Covenant, based on a transformation of the human heart that transcends the unholy alliance between law and violence that operated then and operates too commonly today, without the compassion and values of the Gospel.

The Bible is becoming the least understood book in the West as we dumb down on TV. The major stories of the Hebrew Bible – those of Abraham, Moses and David - are foundational for understanding God`s Covenant, in a way that provides meaning to human existence. Over the Centuries, people who have embraced these stories, have found courage and hope in the midst of suffering and even forgiveness in times of despair. These stories are so powerful they live on, transcending their Jewish roots and entering the imaginations of those who hear them. It was discovered that this was one of the keys to the Jews who survived the death camps of Auschwitz and Dachau.

But how strong is the foundation of these stories if they are not built on true events? Biblical scholarship over the past thirty years has concluded that these inspiring stories of Abraham, Moses and David never occurred. Instead they came from the religious imaginations of a conquered people hundreds of years after the supposed events. Although we can be similarly inspired by these efforts, we are forewarned that elements of these stories can be destructive if taken literally (for example, Israel vs Palestine). After the death of Jesus such literalism triggered the Jewish rebellion against the Romans, for the Jews believed literally that God would again intervene as was previously told in their scriptures. But the end result was not their liberation but the destruction of their Temple and their expulsion from Jerusalem into the Diaspora, never to return again until 1948, and again to a violent and uncertain future. It was in this period that the Christians were expelled from the Synagogue and John`s Gospel was written, to give Christians hope in the midst of tremendous adversity. Such times of adversity come upon us in our present time.

In our Gospel reading, John has Jesus facing the reality of his impending death, an inevitable outcome for standing against the Jewish and Roman powers of oppression, yet he sees through the veil of tears the beginning of a new dawn ` Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.` (John 12:24). I find this is a most amazing religious insight, for from science we learn (via many converging lines of evidence) that death is natural and generative at all levels of reality. Without the death of ancient stars, the universe would support nothing more than the simplest gases of hydrogen and helium. Without the death of generation upon generation of simple forms of life, no descendants could have evolved eyes to see, colours to attract, emotions to feel and to love. Without the death of foetal cells during the early stages of development, we would all be spheres. And of course, this: In a finite world, without the death of elders there would be no room for children.

Is this the way we now need to understand Eternal Life? For if we fail to learn that death is no less sacred than life, and that it plays a necessary role in an evolving cosmos, Christianity is in danger of being shackled by otherworldly notions of `the gospel`. Medical technologies will prolong physical and emotional suffering, and the medical industry will inadvertently underwrite the widening gap between rich and poor and the suffering of oppressed people.

Death is more distant from the Western mind today than at any other point in history. This is partly due to the breathtaking increase in longevity across industrialized nations over the past century. If you had been born 150 years ago, what would your life expectancy have been? On average it was only 38 years. Within this period, our life expectancy has doubled. This huge leap in longevity may be the greatest social revolution in human history. In everyday life, nothing compares with the fact that our lives are decades longer than they once were – not the invention of the printing press, or the increase in living standards, or the extension of the right to vote or the birth of internet compares. Thanks to advances in medical knowledge and public health, we have defied millennia of evolution and granted ourselves an extra dose of the greatest gift to humankind – existence itself. The question that remains is: what have we done with this gift? Have we used this gift to advance the common good of the wider world or just to promote our own self interest?

French high wire artist Phillip Petit, did many spectacular high wire acts without safety equipment. After walking between the twin spires of Notre Dame in Paris and the pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge, he was ready for the artistic crime of the Century, which was to break into the Twin Towers of New York City and walk the 43 metres of emptiness between their rooftops, more than 100 storeys above Manhattan. After years of planning and assisted by a crack team, he defied the security guards, rigged his 200kg cable with the help of a bow and arrow and began his crossing just after 7am on 7 August 1974. He went back and forth eight times. He also sat on the wire, danced on it, lay down on it and spoke to a seagull circling above his head. People were shocked at the fearlessness of his act. Any second a gust of wind could have ended it in tragedy. Petit summed up his philosophy of life with these words: `To me, it`s really so simple, that life should be lived on the edge .You have to exercise rebellion. To refuse to tape yourselves to the rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. Then you will live your life on a tightrope.`In many ways these words seem to sum up the way Jesus would have us approach life.

So in answer to Einstein`s question: the Bible affirms that the Universe is a friendly place through God`s evolving Covenant. Wembley Downs Uniting Church has shown the courage to live on the edge and be innovative in its exploration of the Gospel in study and in worship. May your fellowship be abundantly blessed and bear much fruit.

References:
Bill Loader, 2012, First Thoughts Lent 5: 25 March John 12:20-33 http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/
Raymond E. Brown, 2001, A Retreat with John the Evangelist: That you may have life. Kindle Audio edition.
John Van Hagen, 2011, How faith can survive its encounter with science. Polebridge Press.
Roman Krznarcic, 2011, Curious Histories of How to Live. Kindle edition.
Matthew Fox, 1989, The Cosmic Christ: The healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance.
Viktor Frankl, 2000, Man`s Search for Ultimate Meaning, Basic Books.
Gregory C. Jenks, 2011, The Once and Future Bible: An introduction to the Bible for Religious Progressives.
John Shelby Spong, 2009,Eternal Life: A New Vision Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell. Harper One.