If you want old religion to be dead, it is.

In this Sunday’s lectionary scripture, Jeremiah speaks to a people far from home and bereft of hope. Into their situation, the prophet speaks words of a covenant radically unlike the one handed to them through Moses.

This covenant is not written on stone tablets but on the hearts of those who loved and followed God then, and who love and follow God now.

Hear the prophetic news. “The days are surely coming,” says the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jeremiah 31:31).”

That day is now. That new covenant is here and now because it speaks of Jesus. “And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.” (Leviticus 26:12)

We can try to achieve the Ten Commandments, the laws written in stone. If we do, we will ultimately fail.

Or we can lift and love into the new covenant, the one where God’s love is written on our hearts.

This Sunday, reorder your life, leaving the old covenant for the new. Read Jeremiah 31:31-34.