Today's Scripture Readings
Genesis 9:8-17 (NRSV)
Psalm 25 (BCP, p.614).
1 Peter 3:18-22 (NRSV)
Mark 1:9-15 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
The Genesis story of Noah, the flooding and the Covenant that God establishes with humankind, has some major problems. It is highly doubtful that the story is an original. Pieces of the narrative have very similar themes, events and endings as the Mesopotamian flood hero Utnapishtim, a principal character in the Gilgamesh Epic. The story may be factual. It might also be a mythological tale taken from other literature of the day.
Part of the problem with the narrative is that it is comprised of two different versions woven together. Some of the details appear to have been from a Priestly version, such as the first account of Creation in Genesis 1. Other parts of the account are provided from the Yahwists perspective such as the case in the second story of Creation in Genesis 2. The two versions of the story, leave the reader quite confused as to which version has it's facts in order. The text in and of itself does not give us a very good picture.
The issue of it's origination is not finally the point. What the story is saying to us as we are on this journey of Lent cannot be overlooked.
In this Year of 2012, it is really difficult for us to imagine a scenario in which a "loving and merciful God" would decide to destroy all that God had created, because it had gone corrupt. After all, it was God's creation. Is it possible that the corruption was the fault of God, with something God got wrong?
The narrative challenges us to consider the question: Does God change?
I am of the opinion that God's unconditional and all inclusive love and forgiving mercy do not change. Given that God is One who has been consistently active in the events of the world, I do think that God meets us in the changing course of things, with a willingness to be the origin and destiny of all changes. I think God works as much with science including the theory of evolution as a possible explanation of what the Creation story actually means. God works through the technological and medical advancements of the modern age. God is present and active even in politics, as much as God influences religious communities and theological geniuses. God is not a stagnant Being, but as the One in Whom all that is good originates and ultimately ends. The concept of "God" is one that human beings have been struggling with ever since time began. Humankind will continue to come short of being able to fully understand who God is, or what God does, well after our lifetime.
What I believe the Genesis story says to us quite clearly, is that whatever happened in the flood, God made a covenant by which God has to be accountable. John C. Holbert in a commentary our reading from Genesis today, provides some insight into what he thinks the rainbow covenant means.
The Covenant God establishes is inclusive. This in and of itself implies that the separations that many Christianists make with regards to women, LGBT, people of differing religions, races, cultures and languages, etc., is a distinction that is human made. Not God ordained or sanctioned. Such are not an exception being made by God.
This brings us to the reality that as Christians, the story of Noah and the Covenant prefigures what Baptism means for us.
The Gospel narrative from Mark begins with Jesus' Baptism. So begins Jesus' public ministry. Baptism is our starting point, through which we are adopted as God's own. We, like Jesus and because of Jesus, are Beloved of God, with whom God is well-pleased. In our Baptism, not only do we receive our name as God's beloved, but we also die with Christ on the Cross, and rise with Christ on Easter Day. (See Romans 6: 1-11).
As sure as the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness among the wild beasts to be tempted, and was waited on by angels, so God does not leave us alone in our desert journey. God was guiding Jesus and helping him to know that God was the One by which he would survive and be saved.
Jesus then begins proclaiming the Good News, by saying that the Reign of God was at hand, so repent and believe.
As God's beloved, with whom God is well-pleased, we can trust that God is with us through our journey's of life and faith. As LGBT Christians, we too are claimed as God's beloved. In Jesus Christ we have been redeemed and forgiven for our sins.
Our sins of having denied the reality of who we are by living in closets of death and deception. Our sins of lying to God, others and ourselves about who we are. Our sins of trying to fool others into thinking we are someone other than who we really are. The sin of allowing ourselves to be caught up in the false teachings of a so called Bible-belief that our being LGBT and acting on it with in loving relationships would some how mean, that God damns us and hates us.
Those signs with the words: "God Hates Fags!" Those signs are blatant lies, not actual truths. Those who write them know what the Bible reads, but they do not know what it actually says or means. If they did, they would never write such horrible words.
The faith that we profess during this season of Lent, is by which God embraces everyone. Even those with whom we disagree. This morning, St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral had the privilege of having as our Preacher. the Rev. Canon Peg Chamberlain, the Executive Director of the Minnesota Council of Churches. During her outstanding sermon, she asked us to participate in an activity that a colleague of his uses, whenever he visits a Baptist church. He tells every person to turn around to the person and say: "God loves you, and so do I, and there is nothing you can do about it."
What would happen if all of us Christians learned to act in such a way that we turned to everyone we meet with the attitude of "God loves you, and so do I, and there is nothing you can do about it?" Do you think that at last people might actually see peace as the acceptable alternative to war? Would people who prefer discrimination and violence, begin to realize that all are children of God and that hospitality and reconciliation is the only acceptable form of relating to others?
Today's message for us in 2012, as we are on this journey of Lent, is whether you are tempted, or in sin, or feeling like you have been excluded because of someone's poor judgment and/or behavior, or that no one really cares about you, is that God loves you, so do I, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Prayers
God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."
Psalm 25 (BCP, p.614).
1 Peter 3:18-22 (NRSV)
Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."
Blog Reflection
The Genesis story of Noah, the flooding and the Covenant that God establishes with humankind, has some major problems. It is highly doubtful that the story is an original. Pieces of the narrative have very similar themes, events and endings as the Mesopotamian flood hero Utnapishtim, a principal character in the Gilgamesh Epic. The story may be factual. It might also be a mythological tale taken from other literature of the day.
Part of the problem with the narrative is that it is comprised of two different versions woven together. Some of the details appear to have been from a Priestly version, such as the first account of Creation in Genesis 1. Other parts of the account are provided from the Yahwists perspective such as the case in the second story of Creation in Genesis 2. The two versions of the story, leave the reader quite confused as to which version has it's facts in order. The text in and of itself does not give us a very good picture.
The issue of it's origination is not finally the point. What the story is saying to us as we are on this journey of Lent cannot be overlooked.
In this Year of 2012, it is really difficult for us to imagine a scenario in which a "loving and merciful God" would decide to destroy all that God had created, because it had gone corrupt. After all, it was God's creation. Is it possible that the corruption was the fault of God, with something God got wrong?
The narrative challenges us to consider the question: Does God change?
I am of the opinion that God's unconditional and all inclusive love and forgiving mercy do not change. Given that God is One who has been consistently active in the events of the world, I do think that God meets us in the changing course of things, with a willingness to be the origin and destiny of all changes. I think God works as much with science including the theory of evolution as a possible explanation of what the Creation story actually means. God works through the technological and medical advancements of the modern age. God is present and active even in politics, as much as God influences religious communities and theological geniuses. God is not a stagnant Being, but as the One in Whom all that is good originates and ultimately ends. The concept of "God" is one that human beings have been struggling with ever since time began. Humankind will continue to come short of being able to fully understand who God is, or what God does, well after our lifetime.
What I believe the Genesis story says to us quite clearly, is that whatever happened in the flood, God made a covenant by which God has to be accountable. John C. Holbert in a commentary our reading from Genesis today, provides some insight into what he thinks the rainbow covenant means.
"I am about to establish (or "set up") my covenant with you (pl) and with your (pl) seed after you, and with every living creature with you, the birds, the domestic and wild animals, all those that left the ark, every last creature" (9:9-10). The grammar of this sentence is somewhat tortured in Hebrew, but the implication is extremely important: the covenant, the contract between God and God's vast and disparate creation, poised on the divine tongue, is thoroughly and completely inclusive of all those made by God in Genesis 1. No one is excluded; no one is left out. The horrors of the cataclysmic flood are never to be repeated. "I now set up my covenant with you that never again will all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood and that never again will a flood corrupt the earth" (9:11).
Two words from that last sentence contain large ironic resonance. First, the word "cut off" is regularly used in other places in the tradition to describe the very act of making covenant! It is often said that a covenant is "cut" (this same verb), possibly referring to the ancient practice of cutting animals for proper sacrifice by way of symbolizing the covenant being made (see, for example, Gen 15's covenant between God and Abram). This covenant, though it might be said to be "cut," will stop any future "cutting off" of the world's creatures.
The second ironic word is "corrupt." God says that no flood will ever again "corrupt" the earth; it is this same word that in Gen 6:11 describes one of the very reasons for the unleashing of the flood in the first place! Human "corruption" may have grieved the heart of God, but now after the flood, God vows never again to bring divine "corruption," despite the continuous presence of human evil.
The Covenant God establishes is inclusive. This in and of itself implies that the separations that many Christianists make with regards to women, LGBT, people of differing religions, races, cultures and languages, etc., is a distinction that is human made. Not God ordained or sanctioned. Such are not an exception being made by God.
This brings us to the reality that as Christians, the story of Noah and the Covenant prefigures what Baptism means for us.
The Gospel narrative from Mark begins with Jesus' Baptism. So begins Jesus' public ministry. Baptism is our starting point, through which we are adopted as God's own. We, like Jesus and because of Jesus, are Beloved of God, with whom God is well-pleased. In our Baptism, not only do we receive our name as God's beloved, but we also die with Christ on the Cross, and rise with Christ on Easter Day. (See Romans 6: 1-11).
As sure as the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness among the wild beasts to be tempted, and was waited on by angels, so God does not leave us alone in our desert journey. God was guiding Jesus and helping him to know that God was the One by which he would survive and be saved.
Jesus then begins proclaiming the Good News, by saying that the Reign of God was at hand, so repent and believe.
Our sins of having denied the reality of who we are by living in closets of death and deception. Our sins of lying to God, others and ourselves about who we are. Our sins of trying to fool others into thinking we are someone other than who we really are. The sin of allowing ourselves to be caught up in the false teachings of a so called Bible-belief that our being LGBT and acting on it with in loving relationships would some how mean, that God damns us and hates us.
What would happen if all of us Christians learned to act in such a way that we turned to everyone we meet with the attitude of "God loves you, and so do I, and there is nothing you can do about it?" Do you think that at last people might actually see peace as the acceptable alternative to war? Would people who prefer discrimination and violence, begin to realize that all are children of God and that hospitality and reconciliation is the only acceptable form of relating to others?
Today's message for us in 2012, as we are on this journey of Lent, is whether you are tempted, or in sin, or feeling like you have been excluded because of someone's poor judgment and/or behavior, or that no one really cares about you, is that God loves you, so do I, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Prayers
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be
tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us who are assaulted
by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of
each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (First Sunday in Lent, Book of Common Prayer, p. 218).
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have
made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and
make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily
lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission
and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen. (Prayer for Ash Wednesday, Book of Common Prayer, p. 217).
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior,
the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the
great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away
all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us
from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body
and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith,
one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all
of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth
and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and
one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. (Prayer for the Unity of the Church, Book of Common Prayer, p. 818).
No comments:
Post a Comment