Covenant of Love

 

Well, it finally happened. 

I spent several hours on Friday struggling to get some kind of a coherent thought down on paper for my sermon. I managed to finish some time just before 9pm. I got it formatted as I like it. And then put it and me to bed. 

When the cat started yowling at 4am as he often does, I was awake enough to run through my head the start of my sermon. 

And I hated it. It just felt so forced and pulling at anything to get into talking about the story of Noah. 

I stayed in bed for another couple of hours, running things through my head. Finally, at about 6:30am, I got up, fed the cat, and went to the back room and opened a new document to start my sermon over. 

I've heard from other preachers that this does happen. And at least I'm not pitching it because of a tragedy that forces me to go in another direction. 

And I ended up touching in some ways on all the readings except for the Psalm! 

See what you think.

Texts: Genesis 9: 8-17; 1 Peter 3: 18-22; Mark 1: 9-15

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“God so loved the world that he put his bow in the sky and promised that no matter how much we did to deserve it…God would never wipe us out with a flood again.”

I know that’s not what the text says…but that is the basic promise God made to all of creation at the end of the story of the Great Flood.

I made ya.

I love ya.

You aggravate me.

But I’m never gonna lose my temper like this again.

The ancient people believed that the gods controlled the weather. They hadn’t learned anything of carbon footprints or jet streams.

Insurance companies still seem to think that tornadoes and floods are somehow “acts of God” as if God wants to wreck mobile home parks and swaths of cities and towns.

To be clear…like so many of the stories in Genesis…these are morality tales and human projections…not so much actual historical events.

But they do serve a purpose of helping us to gain an understanding about God and God’s relationship to us and each other.

Our early biblical ancestors must have felt as though God was some kind of vicious warrior.

An angry hunter coming after humanity with torrential rains.

But then God the warrior concludes the hunt by hanging up the bow…the bow and arrow…and declaring, “That’s enough.”

And what a way to end such a turbulent struggle!

What a beautiful symbol of God’s enduring and lasting covenant of love than to put that bow in the sky.

Don’t we all get excited when we see a rainbow?

It doesn’t matter how young or old we are…that gorgeous spectrum of light…from the radiant reds to sometimes the palest purple…when we see a rainbow… we all gaze in awe and wonder.

It fills us with a sense of hope that after a thunderstorm…the sun will come back and dry up the puddles and warm our skin again.

Somewhere deep in our DNA we must know that a rainbow means the end of trouble…and a covenant of God’s abiding love.

Is it any wonder then that the rainbow has become a symbol for everything from peace and unity to LGBTQ pride and the celebration of the diversity of love.

It’s even the emblem of those engaged in the Kairos prison ministry program.

There’s such hope embedded in that colorful visual image.

This is God making good on the covenantal promise to be with us through every turbulent storm we encounter.

The word “covenant” suggests a stronger bond than just a simple agreement.

And in this case with Noah…it’s God acting as the more powerful one in the relationship to make a commitment to us and all of creation that I will not let my anger spill over into a murderous rage.

Even as much as God might have lost it with humanity in these early chapters of the Book of Genesis…there was still hope for humankind in saving Noah and Noah’s family…as well as many species and plants that God told Noah to take with him into the ark.

There was also much loss.

But out of those waters of the great flood….God made room for new life….a fresh start or something like a do-over for creation.

We could think of baptism in that same vein.

As it says in our Epistle reading from First Peter….baptism isn’t about washing away dirt from our skin.

It’s about bringing us into closer relationship with God…and the powerful force of Love that will not be kept down.

Bringing us into a new life.

When we have a baptism…the candidate or their parents and Godparents…make pledges to turn away from the things that reject God and destroy creation…and lean into the love of God…and making that the center point of our lives.

Through those waters of baptism…we are made one with the whole Body of Christ…. becoming joined to Jesus as our brother and friend.

Baptism brings us into a relationship with God where we…like Jesus…hear that we are God’s children…God’s beloveds…with whom God is well pleased.

It’s interesting to note that immediately after Jesus’s baptism…the Spirit takes him out into the wilderness.

I think that’s true of us as well.

It seems that once we’re blessed and marked as Christ’s own forever…. we get signed up for also contending with all the things Jesus contended with in his earthly ministry.

We get tested and tempted to seek things for selfish gain…rather than seeing ourselves as part of community.

We fail to see how the way we live and move and have our being affects all those around us…including our planet.

We become consumed with our individual rights that we are unwilling to make sacrifices that protect the individual rights of others.

We always hear the story of Jesus’s time in the wilderness on the First Sunday of Lent…and there’s a reason for that.

Lent is a time of wilderness testing.

This is the time for us to face those things…. those wild beasts in our lives…that have kept us occupied with trivial matters or in a cycle of self-reliance and shutting ourselves off from the power of God’s love.

The good news is that we are not left helpless and hopeless. Just as Jesus had angels waiting on him in his time in the wilderness…there are those around us who are sharing this same space…this same trip…heading down that path which leads us to the cross and ultimately to resurrected life.

All of us are in the same boat…the same ark….getting tossed about by whatever storms are coming our way.

Each of us has our own beasts that we are contending with in our lives.

But ultimately…we also all have the same God…the one savior Jesus…who has promised not to leave us abandoned.

Look to that one hope…that one beautiful rainbow of love.

Dare to open your heart enough to receive that love.

See it in the eyes of that neighbor…that friend…that companion on this journey through Lent.

And remember that you are not alone.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.