2018 Lent I ~ Genesis 9:8-17
Throughout the Bible, from the very
first word to the very last word there is one, incredible theme which is
stated, alluded to, illustrated or pointing towards…and that is God’s
redemption of all creation and all people is God’s burning desire and motivation.
And there are points throughout the Bible where the poignancy of this
redemption story is more obvious or concentrated.
The story of Noah and the Flood is one
of those places.
In the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible
God established a pattern of initiating covenants — Divine promises to God’s
people. Each covenant is a little different, and each shows us important
and transformational sides of the God of all life.
As we journey through
Lent together this year, our first reading each Sunday includes one of five
Covenants of God given in the Old Testament. I thought it would be a good opportunity to examine
these ancient promises of God and see what they have to do with us today.
First we consider the
question, “what is a covenant?” We might use words like promise, agreement,
contract, or oath, to describe what that word means – but some of these don’t
quite convey the true character of covenants, especially when God is involved.
When I was a kid, I
was fascinated with the concept of blood oaths. I read about them in books, and
even saw people doing them in movies. It’s how you became blood sisters or
brothers. Becoming blood sibling was to form a special bond or relationship of
trust. You knew this person with which you shared the oath was someone who would
keep your secrets. A promise made between you would be sacred, and a blood
sister or brother would forever be a loyal friend to you. You would have each
other’s back, through thick or thin.
The process for forming such a bond usually
entailed a ritual that involved each person cutting a finger or hand until it
bled and then both parties shaking hands or binding together their wounded
fingers. The idea was that with the co-mingling of blood, the two participants
were now inseparably bound together. (This was, of course, before the days of
HIV and AIDS, and hand sanitizers, and the bodily fluid precautions that are
now part of our everyday existence. So, Friends, do not try this idea out at
home.)
The blood oath in the stories of my youth made
a relationship sacred, for surely, nothing could break the bond true blood
siblings. It signified that the promise being made was real and could be trusted.
At the same time, as participants in a
covenantal relationship, we willingly yielded power and made ourselves
vulnerable to the other person in the relationship. That’s what happens in
covenantal relationships. We can think of marriage as an example of this.
Our reading from
Genesis this morning tells the story of the first covenant God strikes with
humankind. The Noahic Covenant, as it is known, follows what we know of as the Great
Flood – the flood to end all floods. This
world annihilating flood forces us to wrap our minds around the action of God
that destroyed most of humanity, a Divine impulse which attempted to drown out
evil and injustice in our world.
If we go back a few
chapters in Genesis, we discover the cause for the flood. In the beginning, God
had created the earth, populated it with people and creatures of all kinds, and
called it good. What God created was beautiful and bountiful and balanced. It
didn’t take long however before that changed.
First, there was the tragic fall from grace
through the introduction of sin in the Garden of Eden. Then, within humanity’s
second generation, brother struck out against brother, introducing murder into
God’s creation. And so it went, until by chapter 6 of Genesis, humanity had
trespassed across every boundary that God had established in the beginning for
the good of all creation.
The ensuing violence
increasingly corrupted God’s “very good” creation, sending it into a downward
spiral of death and destruction and chaos, like the primordial chaos from which
God had first created it. Finally, we read in chapter 6, “The Lord saw that the
wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of
their hearts was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Wow. Let that soak in for a
moment.
“Every
inclination of their hearts…” every
inclination,
“…only
evil”.
Continually.
Those words leave no
doubt. How tragic and heartbreaking that the good order God created into the
world was so destroyed by the workings of humankind.
Then comes the
verdict: “And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and
it grieved him to his heart” (Gen. 6:6).
After
the flood, t’s easy to picture God, with head in hands, trying to make sense of all that had
just happened. In this reflection, or maybe even regret, God turns to
Noah with a promise.
Never again will God use annihilation
to solve a problem, never again will the creation be destroyed at God’s hands.
God will remember Noah and all the animals. This remembering that
God says over and over God will do, is not because God is feeling a little
absent minded, rather God is turning with compassion towards Noah and all of
the creation, just like the “do this in remembrance of me” that beckons us to
the communion table. Remembering is a loving turn towards another.
This covenant between God, Noah
and all of the creation is a promise. Unlike most covenant, unlike the blood
oath, where both parties give up something, promise something, nothing is asked
of humanity, nothing is demanded; all is being offered.
God initiates the promise, God
is the keeper of the promise, God is remembering the people and all the
creatures with this promise. God is not
only interested in remembering us, the fallen rebellious humanity, God is also
moving toward the created world and keeping us in relationship with it.
In this covenant, God is not expecting
perfection, which was possibly the expectation before the flood. No, God
has been transformed through the flood and the healing and now God commits to
the future of less than perfect world. God will move forward with a wild and
free creation and a wild and free humanity, God will remember us.
There is such healing power in turning
from violence, turning from score keeping and who is right and wrong and
welcoming another with warmth, compassion, and maybe a cup of coffee.
Sociologists may label this non-complementary behavior, but we, the body
of Christ on earth know it as grace. The undeserved, unwarranted love of
God lavished upon us.
The same God who holds the power of
destruction turned towards us, laid down his bow and cast it up to the heavens.
And every time that rainbow arches over the earth, God remembers God’s
promise of mercy.
The story of God’s
rainbow covenant was recorded by the people of Israel while they were in exile
from their homeland. Their world had been destroyed. They had seen the demise
of their secure government. They had suffered chaos and upheaval as religious
structures and practices dissolved. This story served to remind them of their
relationship with God; and the assurance of their bond with a compassionate and
merciful God brought renewal and hope.
We might think of the
ancient world’s slide into its own self-destructive ways. We might look around
at our world today and wonder how much has changed. The recent past is full of
the evidence of chaos that still exists in our world, and we might wonder if
God is still heartbroken, still sad, still sorry for granting us life. Yet, in
spite of the overwhelming presence of sin, chaos and struggle, God’s covenant
abides.
In our generation chaos on the world stage has
included World Wars, Holocaust, Nuclear warfare, genocide, famine and poverty. Ecological
and natural disasters seem more commonplace than ever, with each season
breaking records for the heating of the earth and oceans, historic storms,
rising seas, and extinction or near-extinction of a range of creatures from the
honeybee to sea animals feel the crushing weight of humankind’s footprint.
Gross inequity of the
distribution of resources and wealth among the world’s many people includes a
widening gap between the rich and the poor.
Our individual chaos
results in relationships broken by death, divorce, illness of mind or body, addiction,
and myriad abuses between people.
Communally, the
destructiveness of racism, xenophobia, bigotry, sexism, intolerance and self-serving
disregard for the plight of the other reveals our resistance to God’s ways and drives
God’s creatures further and further apart. And still, God keeps God’s promise,
a promise that is extended through the cross of Christ.
In Jesus, God responds
with a blood oath of sorts, but it is a one-sided promise. We hear of it every
time we gather around the table and witness the deep abiding love of God broken
and poured out for us in bread, and in wine. “After supper,” we hear, “Jesus
took the cup, he gave thanks and he gave it for all to drink saying, ‘this cup
is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people for the
forgiveness of sin.”
God responds with love
and forgiveness in the midst of life’s chaos. In covenantal love, God reaches
out to us despite the misery we bring upon ourselves, and in the midst of the
chaos the world inflicts upon us.
Hearing the story of God’s first covenant
with the People of Israel on the first Sunday of Lent, we begin our walk with
Jesus toward Jerusalem, understanding in a deeper, fuller way, the God who sent
him, the God whom he served.
The rainbow bending
over Noah’s ark with its doors wide open and spilling out pairs of animals into
a new world is an image that reminds us not
only do we remember God’s turn towards us, but God too remembers us, responds
to our brokenness and rebellion with grace and mercy, and grants us a covenant,
so the cycle of violence, destruction and sin might be broken.
In this covenant the whole earth is
remembered, the whole earth is restored.
May we now strive to live as people of this
covenant gift. Amen!
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