The Rainbow Covenant

Pastor Kyle Clark

Text Lesson: Genesis 9:8-17

Sunday, March 1, 2009

First Sunday in Lent

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. For many of us, Lent has always been a somber season in the church. It was the practice of the church I was raised in, as it is in many churches, during Lent to solemnly remember the suffering and death of Jesus. But it hasn’t always been that way. For the early church, Lent was a time of teaching new and prospective members of what it meant to be united with Christ in baptism. It was a time of learning and celebration. Each Sunday in Lent was viewed, in fact as all Sundays are, as little Resurrection days or “little Easters.” The culmination of this teaching period was when the confirmand was baptized and began his or her life anew as a professing member of the church often on Easter Sunday.

In the Methodist Church Lent is often the time confirmation begins - classes in which our young people are instructed about church what it really means to be a member of the church. Things like the nature of God, baptism, Holy Communion, our basic doctrines and beliefs, and church history are taught and at the end these folks are baptized or they renew their baptism and they are received as members of the church. I spent this past two days at a confirmation retreat at Canyon Camp with about 80 6^th and 7^th graders who were beginning this process. I now have a greater appreciation for our middle school teachers! They were an enthusiastic bunch. Part of that I know comes from their age. But part of it I think, based on some of the questions they asked an comments they made comes from a real desire to connect in some way with Christ.

So I was thinking, as I watched and listened to these young people, perhaps it is time that we, the Church, recover this aspect of learning or re-learning as our central focus of Lent - a focus in which we recall our baptism and our sharing in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. We remember that baptism is not anything we do rather our baptism has everything to do with what God has done and continues to do. By our baptism we agree to participate with God in these life-giving, life-affirming, life-saving activities in the name and nature of Jesus Christ our Lord. So, I invite you to come on a journey over these next few weeks of Lent in which we explore the dimensions of our union with Christ through baptism. Since baptism begins with God, it is appropriate then, I believe, to begin Lent with a reminder of the constancy and the goodness of God!

In our reading from Genesis today I included the last 3 verses of Chapter 8 because, while the lectionary text is Gen 9: 8-17, this passage is really incomplete without the last verses from the previous chapter. Noah, his family, and all the creatures on the ark have survived the flood. They have come out of the ark and Noah has offered a sacrifice of gratitude and thanks.

At this point we are presented with an amazing truth and a powerful insight into the purposes of God. We need to keep in mind that the flood we read about in chapter 6 of Genesis was not a “do over” for God. It was not a chance for God to necessarily start again, a chance for God to get creation right the second time around. If that had been God’s intent, then God failed because you see sin did not drown in the flood. The human heart did not change. Evil and corruption remain. Rather in the flood story we get a glimpse into God’s greater plan.

Noah had found favor with God. And after the waters receded God said, ”Even though every thought every thing imagined by the heart is bent toward evil, I (God) will never again destroy all living things.” You see the flood story focuses on a fundamental tension within God; whether to destroy a wicked and corrupt world or to work to restore a right relationship with creation. The emphasis is finally not about a God who decides to destroy but about a God who wills to save.

While the argument could be made that God intended to purge the world of corruption and the analogy used that the waters of the flood, like the waters of baptism signify a cleansing, a washing away or blotting out of the present wickedness, that would be too simplistic. God grieves for the world. So God changes the divine relationship with creation. Rather than destroy all of creation, God takes the route of suffering, enduring a wicked world while continuing to open up the divine heart to that world. God decides to take on this suffering, to bear the suffering for the sake of the future of the world. If humans are to live, indeed if creation is to survive, it can only be by this divine promise of refusing to destroy.

God makes this promise to Noah. The covenant is unconditional. The covenant is irrevocable. The covenant is universal. The covenant is with Noah, and Noah’s descendant and also with every living creature.

When we think about covenant we usually think about an agreement in which there is some responsibility by both parties of that agreement. In the covenant with Abraham, the human response was circumcision; in the Mosaic covenant the human requirement was the observance of the Sabbath. This covenant with Noah, the very first covenant, the covenant which provides the context within which all other covenants become possible is significant because God and God alone is responsible for it’s fulfillment. God establishes the covenant. God will never again destroy the earth. God provides a rainbow as a sign, not for humans but as a sign for God. God will remember this covenant. Only God is obligated because there can only be resolution to human sin and earthly corruption within the person of God.

In the wake of the wickedness and corruption of the human species, God continues to give hope. God makes this move with eyes wide open. God will not respond with destruction, no matter what the human response. That does not mean that we have carte blanche to act on any and every whim. We are invited we are called, to follow God’s lead. Humans are created in God’s image; all people are created in God’s image and are of ultimate value to God. To diminish the value of any person is to diminish the value of God. And God values the earth and all that is in it. Humans can no longer take the command to have dominion over the earth as a directive to dominate the earth or its inhabitants. Instead the need to care for the earth and all that is in it in order that future generations have a viable place to live must guide our actions. This must be the case you see, because while God promises to never destroy the earth, that promise does not preclude humans, acting out of stupidity or selfishness or both, from pursuing paths, which lead to destruction.

In Jewish tradition a haftarah, is a public reading from the books of the Prophets. The Torah (what we call the Pentatuch or 1^st 5 books of the Old Testament) is read aloud publicly in the synagogue. The reading of the haftarah followed the reading of the Torah. The haftarah is generally in poetic form and is tied thematically to the Torah text. Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who is considered by many to be a modern day prophetic voice in Judaism, wrote a haftarah for the Genesis text we read to day.

You, My people, burnt in fire,

still staring blinded

by the flame and smoke

that rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima;

You, My people,

Battered by the earthquakes

of a planet in convulsion;

You, My people,

Drowning in the flood of words and images

That beckon you to eat and eat,

to drink and drink,

to fill and overfill

your bellies

at the tables of

the gods of wealth and power;

You, My people,

Drowning in the flood of words and images

That -- poured unceasing on your eyes and ears --

drown out My words of Torah,

My visions of the earth made whole;

Be comforted:

I have for you a mission full of joy.

I call you to a task of celebration.

I call you to light a flame to see more clearly

That the earth and all who live as part of it

Are not for burning:

A flame to see

The rainbow

in the many-colored faces

of all life.

I call you:

I, the Breath of Life,

Within you and beyond,

Among you and beyond…

I call you to light the colors of the Rainbow,

To raise once more before all eyes

That banner of the covenant between Me,

and the children of Noah…

and all that lives and breathes upon the Earth --

So that

never again,

all the days of the earth, shall

sowing and harvest,

cold and heat,

summer and winter,

day and night

ever cease!

I call you to love the Breath of Life --

For love is the fire

That blazes in the Rainbow.

 You see, the story of God’s eternal covenant announced to Noah is not conditional upon our living up to certain standards. There is no time in the future in which it will cease to be in affect. It is anchored in eternity, in the realm that goes beyond the limits of time and space. This covenant is the way in which God deals with us, and our sinful nature. It is founded on the very word that proceeds from God coming from beyond and breaking into the limited sphere of our earthly existence. This too is the message of the Gospel. The consistent goodness of God seen in the establishment of this covenant with Noah is contained in its entirety in the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The promise of redemption, reconciliation, and salvation through Christ is not conditional on anything we do. Through Christ a new covenant is established in which only Jesus is obligated. What we will celebrate at Easter is the fulfillment of that promise; that covenant. What we will celebrate at Easter is experienced in our baptism and it is anticipated even in the stories of the beginnings of creation. As people who have been recipients of God’s grace and God’s promises, we are to respond by being the people of God, doing the work of Christ and remembering that God’s goodness, God’s love gives us hope for the future.

 I call you to love the Breath of Life – for love is the fire that blazes in the rainbow.

Amen!