Covenants

Covenants 022215

Genesis 9:8-17     Mark 1:9-15

It’s a kind of old-fashioned word, ‘covenant’…..not one that shows up in everyday talk or in the media; in fact there seems to be a flagrant disregard for anything covenantal, and most of our news seems to be about breaking covenant.

But we do talk occasionally about the covenant of marriage for example: an agreement between two people who love each other and agree to live together in a relationship they know will be work.  The essence of covenant is a binding agreement between two or more parties to live in mutual respect and commitment to doing what it takes to make it work, not something based on power but on relationship.

For those of us familiar with scripture, we know that there are several covenants between God and humanity that seem to be broken and restored over and over again.

today’s Genesis text is one of the first.  It’s a story reflecting a time in prehistory, probably coming from some memory of a real life flood event in the middle east….many faiths have flood epic stories.   In the Jewish tradition, this flood came when people had forgotten the God who created them, and Noah was called out by God to be the new first family in God’s new beginning.   The God portrayed in the flood story seems a bit cruel and over the top, a god who got ticked at people’s arrogance and warfare and sent a flood to wipe them out!    

But then we hear this awesome plea from God to be in a renewed relationship with all of creation, with the rainbow as God’s reminder, and humanity’s, of this new covenantal relationship.   It’s mostly a promise on God’s part, without much required by humanity. Does God need reminding of the divine promise?  Maybe so, when humanity continually breaks covenant with God and with creation and with one another…..perhaps God needs rainbows like I need deep breaths when frustrated!  But this is a very different God who is portrayed after the flood….a god who seeks to be in relationship with all of creation instead of having power over it all.    And all means all; this God cares about the universe, and all means all: animals, vegetables, minerals and ALL people. (quote from first hymn God of the sparrow….)

But Noah too had to buy into this covenant, to leave his old way of life and risk something dangerous and new…..some of you may remember the Bill Cosby skit:  “you want me to do what?”   Noah had already risked mockery and reputation, and now he’s asked to begin again in a new way, because

this covenant is about care and commitment….care for the earth as beloved of God, commitment to following God’s call not knowing where it might take us.

I thought about that a lot this week on vacation, and while I was gone you all heard that we as a congregation cannot continue in the same old ways as before - we need to risk setting out in new ways, not knowing what’s ahead.  And we all need to step up and be part of the change, the new thing God is doing…..change? did you say change, Margaret?  aaargh…..

But remember, we have the benefit of eons of God’s faithfulness…..it was uncanny this week how many rainbows I saw with this text in my head and heart!  I urge you to find or draw a rainbow today and tuck it in your pocket as a reminder that God is faithful, God cares, God calls us out.  (maybe have some to pick up? Esp for children’s time)

The Mark text isn’t formulated as a covenant story, yet it is.  Again we hear God speaking to one human being:  at his baptism, Jesus enters into an intentional relationship with the God of covenant, and another new beginning is possible.  Like Noah, Jesus is called out from his old way of life into something new.  This time the sign is a dove, a sign again that God is involved in this life we’re called to by our baptism too, just as Jesus was.    Here too we have a God who is in relationship with us, not one who exercises power over us.   Jesus freely agrees to risk the call to do something different, like Noah did.

The story tells us he was then driven into the dry desert where he went deep into introspection, before coming out of that discernment into active ministry, setting about doing things differently from the culture of the day, healing, teaching, confronting the powers that demean and oppress.  

Lent can be like that for us; some of us are reading “real good church” as an aid to discernment about how God is calling us to change and do things differently, but we must all take some serious stock of what this baptismal calling is that we have as Jesus followers.  No more same old same old….

This covenant we have with God isn’t just vertical: God and the earth or even God and humanity;            

it isn’t just personal either: just God and me

This covenantal relationship is also horizontal, it is communal.  It is cross shaped. 

Noah came out of the flood to begin God’s story anew

Jesus came out of the desert ready to do things differently from the culture

We may come out of Lent ready to join them.  Maybe.  But only if our lives are cross shaped: in relationship with the God of the rainbow, and in relationship with the hurting, covenant breaking world around us.

As we move into Lent with rainbows in our pockets, remembering God’s faithful love for the universe, let’s add a dove to it, reminding us that the Spirit calls us to be that Love for others.

As I sat under that rainbow (photo) the other day,  I happened to read Teresa of Avila’s words:

"Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet
with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands
with which Christ blesses the world."

Yours, mine, ours

May it be so.