It’s a fable. The enchanting – or perhaps frightening – story of Eve, Adam, the serpent, and the tree is a fable. We know that the earth isn’t just 6,000 years old. We accept the Big Bang theory and believe that our cosmos came into being about thirteen billion years ago, and that it’s still continuing to expand. The theory of evolution tells us that human beings didn’t just appear exactly fully formed as we are today. We know that the first woman was not formed out of one of the ribs of the first man. If anything, scientists tell us that the first humanoid might have been a woman. We even know that there were alternate humans, the Neanderthals, who eventually blended in with our species, homo sapiens. (If you’re interested in humans and Neanderthals, look into Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.)
It’s a fable. The sages who finally included the story in the Torah, and all the rabbis who have commented on it since, knew it was a fable and not to be taken literally. But the sages who compiled the Hebrew Bible included the two stories of human creation because both of them contain deep truths – truths to which we must still pay attention. Today’s story in the reading from the book of Genesis especially contains within it lessons about our place in creation and God’s expectations of us. As we begin our Lenten journey to the Cross, it is important that we not miss what the story of Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the tree has to tell us.
Today’s reading comes from the second creation story in Genesis. What you heard is actually two disconnected pieces, with an important piece missing. In the first part of the story, God has made the first human being “Adam” from the dust of the earth, “adamah” in Hebrew. In the Bible, yes, we truly are “dust.” Then God created a garden and placed the first human in it. God gave the first human two instructions: what our translation renders as to “till and keep” the garden (“dress it and keep it” in the KJV), and to refrain from eating from a certain tree. After this, there is the story of the creation of a second human, a woman, which our reading skips over. Then we have the second part of our reading, the story of the interplay among the woman, the man, the serpent, and the fruit of the forbidden tree.
So what are we supposed to learn from this fable? Both creation stories, and especially the first one, give us a breath-taking picture of God speaking creation into being. “Let there be light,” God thunders in the first creation story, and there was light. Let the waters recede, and let there be sun and moon, and vegetation, and animals, and – finally – humans created in God’s own image. And it was all good.
The second creation story, the one we hear about this morning, begins right with the creation of the first human being, followed by the creation of the Garden of Eden. Why did God create the human being? Here is the answer: to “till and keep” the garden, and by implication all of creation.1 In the context of ancient creation myths this reason is quite amazing. Other creation stories show humans as an accident, or an after-thought, or even a mistake. In our modern creation myth, we humans tend to see ourselves as the apex of creation, the point of it all. In contrast to both these points of view, the Genesis story says that humans are not created for themselves, but are created to till and keep the garden.
Do you wonder what “till and keep” means? Actually, this isn’t a good translation of the Hebrew. A better translation would be to “serve and protect.” In other words, we humans were created, as the teller of the Genesis story understands it, to take care of creation – not to exploit it. We were created so that we could pay attention to the needs of creation, rather than to our own needs, to love creation as God loves it. And we are responsible for its well-being, both now and into the future. We are to be concerned “for those who come after us.”. In a word care for God’s garden is our mission as human beings.
And how well are we fulfilling our mission as human beings? The story of Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the tree suggests that we are not doing very well. In a word, we let ourselves get distracted and forget about God’s mission. We get distracted by our physical needs. Eve thought that the forbidden tree was “good for food.” Those in our country who still worry about where their next meal is coming from – and whether their SNAP dollars will last through the end of the month – are very appropriately distracted by physical needs. Most of us, though, are distracted by our desire for “stuff,” for clothes, cars, electronics, airplanes, weapons – you name it. Do really need the latest style of tennis shoes, or a new cell phone every two years? Our landfills are bursting, and still we keep buying – and tossing out. Worse, we get distracted by physical substances that do us real harm, especially alcohol and drugs. You have only to open the daily newspaper to know that, despite the “war on drugs,” our opiate addiction is killing us – right here in southern Ohio. (If you’re interested in the drug problem right here at home, look into Dream Land: The True Story of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones.)
If we are not distracted by physical needs, many of us are distracted by things that dazzle and entertain us. For Eve, the forbidden tree “was a delight to the eyes.” Well, sometimes I get dazzled by flowering trees, but most of us are more likely to become dazzled and enthralled by football games or other spectacles. Or maybe you’re hooked on video games. For some of us it’s social media. Am I the only one who looks around after an hour or so and says, “Did I just spend all that time on Facebook?”
Aren’t we also distracted by our need for control? Eve thought that the forbidden tree would “make one wise,” i.e., that it would allow her and Adam to be like God. Do we think we can know all the variables that will affect our lives and then control them? We know we cannot, yet we can get seduced into thinking that we can.
And finally, of course, we get distracted by the illusion that we will not die. This is the serpent’s most perverse lie: “You will not die.” But we believe it! Or we live as if we do. We live as if there’s still time to turn our lives around. We live as if there’s yet another day to do the right thing. We think we have plenty of time to apologize and make amends to those we have hurt – or to forgive and reconcile with those who have hurt us. We put off working for peace and justice, because there’s still plenty of time for us to do those good things. We don’t take care of our bodies, nor do we care whether our neighbors have enough to eat or have access to decent healthcare. We don’t make wills. And we don’t prepare for the day when we will actually take our last breath.
My brothers and sisters, it’s just a fable, but it’s a fable that is also describing our lives. What happened in that garden also happens to us. The story of Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the tree is also a story about us. We still have a responsibility to serve and protect the earth, in the 21st century now perhaps more than ever. The Paris agreement on climate change still matters, as does the ability of our federal and state agencies to fund research. In our relatively under-populated country, we may still think that the earth will regenerate itself after we’ve harmed it – or that we can just move further west. The truth is that the network of mines under southeast Ohio will last forever. The mountains in Kentucky and West Virginia that were flattened by the mining companies will be scarred for centuries. The fracking water that we’ve pumped underground will stay there forever – we hope.
Lent is a time to acknowledge and recommit ourselves to stewardship of the earth – and to remind our elected representatives to be mindful of the needs of “this fragile earth, our island home.” Lent is a time to recognize and repent of all the things that distract us from our responsibilities. It is a time to turn our backs on the blandishments of the serpent and return to our responsibility for creation and its inhabitants. It is a time to read Scripture attentively and note, for example, how Jesus responded to the distractions from his mission that he was offered. Lent is a time to examine our lives and ask how we, as individuals, as a parish, and as a community, need to change. Lent is a time to pray that now, in this mortal life, God’s Holy Spirit will lead us to amendment of life and commitment to God’s holy mission. Lent is time to be confident in God’s mercy and open to God’s leading. May it be so.
1. With thanks to Jon Berquist in Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox), pp. 27ff., for suggesting the theme of “till and keep” for this story.
Showing posts with label Lent 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent 1. Show all posts
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Into the Wilderness
Suppose you decided to take a solo camping trip in a remote area. You needed to get away – don’t we all sometimes? Or you wanted to see another part of the country. Or you needed to test yourself. Suppose that you decided to walk the Appalachian Trail by yourself. The AT is 2200 miles long and runs from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. People who commit to walking the entire trail, “through-hikers,” as they are called, usually start out at the southern end in late March or early April and reach Mt. Katahdin in late summer or early fall.
So suppose you decided to walk the AT by yourself. When would you go? Would you try to hike the whole trail or just a section? What would you take? Remember, you’d have to carry everything on your back. You’d need some shelter, a tent or lean-to perhaps, a sleeping back, stove, and light. Would you take food or count on buying what you needed along the trail? How about books or extra clothes? Would want a small MP3 player with your favorite music? What about batteries? As your backpack starts to get heavy, would you begin to wonder, “What’s really essential?” Would seeing a bear or a bobcat make you leave the trail? Could you handle the silence? Would you use all that time to think about the choices you’d made in your life? Would God be more present to you along the trail than at home?
Did Jesus face some of these questions on his own solo camping trip? As if Jesus were a unique and mysterious person, the writer of the Gospel of Mark provides few details about Jesus’ decision to go off into the hills of Judea or of his experiences over the weeks he spent walking those hills. Jesus had already had two powerful spiritual experiences. He had followed the Spirit’s urging and sought John’s baptism. He had plunged into the Jordan River along with all those from Jerusalem who were there confessing their sins. Coming up from the water, he had felt deeply God’s affirmation of him, and he knew himself to be connected to God in a new and different way. Was his whole life about to change? He had scarcely climbed up the river bank and changed into his dry clothes when the Spirit, now not a gentle nudge in his ear or a dove on his shoulder, but an arm of surprising strength, gripped him and led him up into the bleak hills.
Did Jesus know how long he would stay out in the hills? Did he have time to pack a kit bag or a backpack, to decide what to take with him? Did he have a blanket to wrap around himself during the chilly Judean nights? Did he take a cloak or second tunic? A knife? A lantern? Did he eat wild roots or leaves? Perhaps there were wild apples or other fruit up there. What did Jesus do when he met a wild animal? Did he see it as a threat, or as a creature that also shared God’s life? What did he think about, pray about, or wonder about, during those long, silent hours? Perhaps he knew himself to be in a “thin” place, where the veil between earth and heaven gives way, and deeper communion with the Holy One becomes possible. Did his heightened sense of nearness to God clarify God’s call to him? Did he understand that a ministry of preaching God’s good news, teaching, and healing would be bitterly opposed by the religious and political authorities and would ultimately lead to his death? How did Jesus know when to come back down? Was he ready for the arduous labor that now lay ahead of him? Did the Spirit warn Jesus that the political leaders who had had John arrested were after him as well, and that he should begin his ministry in Galilee instead Judea?
Jesus was not the only one in Scripture to feel the powerful grip of the Holy Spirit. After Samuel had identified David, the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons, as the next king of Israel, Scripture tells us that, “the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward” (1Samuel 16:13). As the exiles began to return to Jerusalem, the prophet Isaiah knew that, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me…. 61:1). At the beginning of his ministry in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus would apply that very declaration of Isaiah to himself. Other prophets report encountering God in desolate places, in deserts, and in mountains.
Throughout the centuries, serious followers of Jesus have sought out mountains and deserts, or have been driven into them by the Holy Spirit, in order to experience God’s presence more deeply. Beginning as early as the third century AD, holy men and women left behind the temptations and rich life of Egyptian cities. They settled in small desert communities and lived simple lives, dedicated to contemplative prayer, charity, and forgiveness. As they wrestled with God, they wrote about their experiences, hoping to share their insights with their followers. The sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, as they are now known, are rich source of spiritual wisdom to this day. Following his vision of Jesus in the country chapel of San Damiano, St. Francis renounced his identity as a prosperous cloth merchant’s son and lived as a beggar in the hills of Assisi. After much careful discernment, Teresa of Avila left the settled, relatively relaxed life of Carmelite nuns in 16th century Spain to found a new order that allowed for periods of silence and contemplation. Closer to our own day, Trappist monk Thomas Merton led us into the contemplative desert through his book The Wisdom of the Desert, while Belden Lane, Kathleen Norris, and Terry Tempest Williams recount their own experiences of being drawn by the Spirit into secluded places.
My friends, in Lent we too are invited to go on a solo camping trip, to venture into a spiritual wilderness. This year we were not able to confront once again our mortality, in the imposition of ashes. Nor did we hear the exhortation for Ash Wednesday. Nevertheless our work for this season, as the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, is to observe a holy Lent "by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” For most of us, given our 24/7 overly busy lives, the only way to fulfill that charge is to let the Spirit drive us into the wilderness, to find some time and place apart where we may truly listen to the Spirit and discern God’s direction for our lives. What do you need for such a solo camping trip? Perhaps you need to commit to a definite time of prayer, perhaps first thing in the morning, over the noon hour, last thing at night, or on a quiet Saturday or Sunday afternoon. How many minutes will you give to God? Ten, twenty, thirty? You may need to commit to particular place, where you can pray without interruption for some brief period, a room where you can shut the door, or even a basement or attic. You might consider joining a quiet morning or day, where you may hear God in the silence of contemplative prayer. Do you need anything special? A book of Lenten devotions perhaps? A notebook or tablet for keeping a spiritual journal? Perhaps you can create your own “thin place” by lighting a candle, wearing a prayer shawl, or using Anglican prayer beads. Perhaps an icon, a window, or a painting will lead you into God’s silence. What else do you need to take with you? The support and help of family and friends, perhaps? What do you need to leave behind? Expectations of “what’s in it for me” or what the outcome of prayer should be? Can you let the Spirit work her will in you, giving you glimpses of God’s affirmation of you and leading you to a clearer sense of vocation?
If you let yourself be led by God’s Spirit, you may well be surprised. Perhaps even Jesus was surprised by what happened to him in the Judean hills. Perhaps he came down from the hills surer of his vocation, clearer about his role in God’s design, less fearful of what lay ahead, and more confident in God’s love for him. We too are invited into a process of transformation. When we return from our solo camping trip, our time apart with God, we too may find ourselves surer of God’s call to us, less fearful of what life may hold for us, less afraid of death, and more confident of God’s love for us.
Perhaps too we will be empowered for greater ministry. When Jesus’ retreat came to an end, the Spirit lured him from the silence of the hills to the noise of the needs of his people. Jesus went public with the message of God’s good news for all of humankind, indeed for all of creation. For us, too, time spent in the wilderness leads to transformation, to seeing ourselves and others in new ways, to understanding ourselves as members of God’s realm, and to sharing God’s healing and welcoming touch with others. As we sojourn more closely with Jesus, we understand that contemplation must always lead to outreach, introspection must always lead to action. Jesus has been there before us. Jesus is with us still, assuring us in the wilderness that we too will find divine refreshment and spiritual insight. God bless us all during this most holy season.
So suppose you decided to walk the AT by yourself. When would you go? Would you try to hike the whole trail or just a section? What would you take? Remember, you’d have to carry everything on your back. You’d need some shelter, a tent or lean-to perhaps, a sleeping back, stove, and light. Would you take food or count on buying what you needed along the trail? How about books or extra clothes? Would want a small MP3 player with your favorite music? What about batteries? As your backpack starts to get heavy, would you begin to wonder, “What’s really essential?” Would seeing a bear or a bobcat make you leave the trail? Could you handle the silence? Would you use all that time to think about the choices you’d made in your life? Would God be more present to you along the trail than at home?
Did Jesus face some of these questions on his own solo camping trip? As if Jesus were a unique and mysterious person, the writer of the Gospel of Mark provides few details about Jesus’ decision to go off into the hills of Judea or of his experiences over the weeks he spent walking those hills. Jesus had already had two powerful spiritual experiences. He had followed the Spirit’s urging and sought John’s baptism. He had plunged into the Jordan River along with all those from Jerusalem who were there confessing their sins. Coming up from the water, he had felt deeply God’s affirmation of him, and he knew himself to be connected to God in a new and different way. Was his whole life about to change? He had scarcely climbed up the river bank and changed into his dry clothes when the Spirit, now not a gentle nudge in his ear or a dove on his shoulder, but an arm of surprising strength, gripped him and led him up into the bleak hills.
Did Jesus know how long he would stay out in the hills? Did he have time to pack a kit bag or a backpack, to decide what to take with him? Did he have a blanket to wrap around himself during the chilly Judean nights? Did he take a cloak or second tunic? A knife? A lantern? Did he eat wild roots or leaves? Perhaps there were wild apples or other fruit up there. What did Jesus do when he met a wild animal? Did he see it as a threat, or as a creature that also shared God’s life? What did he think about, pray about, or wonder about, during those long, silent hours? Perhaps he knew himself to be in a “thin” place, where the veil between earth and heaven gives way, and deeper communion with the Holy One becomes possible. Did his heightened sense of nearness to God clarify God’s call to him? Did he understand that a ministry of preaching God’s good news, teaching, and healing would be bitterly opposed by the religious and political authorities and would ultimately lead to his death? How did Jesus know when to come back down? Was he ready for the arduous labor that now lay ahead of him? Did the Spirit warn Jesus that the political leaders who had had John arrested were after him as well, and that he should begin his ministry in Galilee instead Judea?
Jesus was not the only one in Scripture to feel the powerful grip of the Holy Spirit. After Samuel had identified David, the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons, as the next king of Israel, Scripture tells us that, “the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward” (1Samuel 16:13). As the exiles began to return to Jerusalem, the prophet Isaiah knew that, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me…. 61:1). At the beginning of his ministry in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus would apply that very declaration of Isaiah to himself. Other prophets report encountering God in desolate places, in deserts, and in mountains.
Throughout the centuries, serious followers of Jesus have sought out mountains and deserts, or have been driven into them by the Holy Spirit, in order to experience God’s presence more deeply. Beginning as early as the third century AD, holy men and women left behind the temptations and rich life of Egyptian cities. They settled in small desert communities and lived simple lives, dedicated to contemplative prayer, charity, and forgiveness. As they wrestled with God, they wrote about their experiences, hoping to share their insights with their followers. The sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, as they are now known, are rich source of spiritual wisdom to this day. Following his vision of Jesus in the country chapel of San Damiano, St. Francis renounced his identity as a prosperous cloth merchant’s son and lived as a beggar in the hills of Assisi. After much careful discernment, Teresa of Avila left the settled, relatively relaxed life of Carmelite nuns in 16th century Spain to found a new order that allowed for periods of silence and contemplation. Closer to our own day, Trappist monk Thomas Merton led us into the contemplative desert through his book The Wisdom of the Desert, while Belden Lane, Kathleen Norris, and Terry Tempest Williams recount their own experiences of being drawn by the Spirit into secluded places.
My friends, in Lent we too are invited to go on a solo camping trip, to venture into a spiritual wilderness. This year we were not able to confront once again our mortality, in the imposition of ashes. Nor did we hear the exhortation for Ash Wednesday. Nevertheless our work for this season, as the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, is to observe a holy Lent "by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” For most of us, given our 24/7 overly busy lives, the only way to fulfill that charge is to let the Spirit drive us into the wilderness, to find some time and place apart where we may truly listen to the Spirit and discern God’s direction for our lives. What do you need for such a solo camping trip? Perhaps you need to commit to a definite time of prayer, perhaps first thing in the morning, over the noon hour, last thing at night, or on a quiet Saturday or Sunday afternoon. How many minutes will you give to God? Ten, twenty, thirty? You may need to commit to particular place, where you can pray without interruption for some brief period, a room where you can shut the door, or even a basement or attic. You might consider joining a quiet morning or day, where you may hear God in the silence of contemplative prayer. Do you need anything special? A book of Lenten devotions perhaps? A notebook or tablet for keeping a spiritual journal? Perhaps you can create your own “thin place” by lighting a candle, wearing a prayer shawl, or using Anglican prayer beads. Perhaps an icon, a window, or a painting will lead you into God’s silence. What else do you need to take with you? The support and help of family and friends, perhaps? What do you need to leave behind? Expectations of “what’s in it for me” or what the outcome of prayer should be? Can you let the Spirit work her will in you, giving you glimpses of God’s affirmation of you and leading you to a clearer sense of vocation?
If you let yourself be led by God’s Spirit, you may well be surprised. Perhaps even Jesus was surprised by what happened to him in the Judean hills. Perhaps he came down from the hills surer of his vocation, clearer about his role in God’s design, less fearful of what lay ahead, and more confident in God’s love for him. We too are invited into a process of transformation. When we return from our solo camping trip, our time apart with God, we too may find ourselves surer of God’s call to us, less fearful of what life may hold for us, less afraid of death, and more confident of God’s love for us.
Perhaps too we will be empowered for greater ministry. When Jesus’ retreat came to an end, the Spirit lured him from the silence of the hills to the noise of the needs of his people. Jesus went public with the message of God’s good news for all of humankind, indeed for all of creation. For us, too, time spent in the wilderness leads to transformation, to seeing ourselves and others in new ways, to understanding ourselves as members of God’s realm, and to sharing God’s healing and welcoming touch with others. As we sojourn more closely with Jesus, we understand that contemplation must always lead to outreach, introspection must always lead to action. Jesus has been there before us. Jesus is with us still, assuring us in the wilderness that we too will find divine refreshment and spiritual insight. God bless us all during this most holy season.
Monday, March 10, 2014
On Retreat
We are on retreat. On Ash Wednesday, I suggested that we might think of Lent as a time for all of us to be on retreat, a time for the church to withdraw from business as usual and seek a deeper relationship with God. How many of you have actually been on a retreat? I don’t mean what is called a “retreat” in corporate or academic circles. Those are usually just extended business meetings that happen to take place in a hotel or resort, where you have drinks and good meals instead of the usual coffee and doughnuts, and where the emphasis is often on “team-building.” True retreats are just the opposite of business “retreats.” They usually take place at retreat houses, perhaps monasteries or convents, with simple accommodations and meals. They can be corporate, but they emphasize vertical, not horizontal ties, i.e., our relationship with God rather than with each other. They are mostly silent. Many last a week, although some, especially those focused on the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, can last for thirty days.
My own first silent retreat was for two and half days at the convent of the Community of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal order of nuns whose motherhouse is in Glendale, near Cincinnati. That retreat was simply one of unstructured prayer and reflection. Since then, I have made two week-long silent retreats, both at Our Lady of the Pines, a Catholic retreat house in Fremont, Ohio. I will return there again this summer. Often we make retreats like these for discernment, i.e., we go asking God’s help with a decision, a question, or a request. And they usually include daily spiritual direction, i.e., conversation with a wise guide who can help us discern how God is acting in our lives. In the right place, with the right spiritual guide, such a week can be life-changing, or, at the very least, a deep experience of God’s presence and grace.
Jesus was on retreat. Just like all those who go to the desert, a monastery, or a retreat house surrounded by a pine forest, Jesus was on retreat. All three synoptic gospels record that he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. If you remember the video we watched during Lent last year, “In the Footsteps of Jesus,” you remember the barren hills above Jerusalem that Jesus must have wandered through and the caves where he must have spent the night while he was on retreat. Why, immediately after his baptism in the Jordan River, did the Spirit send him on retreat?
In the church, we tend to focus on Jesus’ divinity. After reciting “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,” in the Nicene Creed, most of us slide right over “and was made man,” i.e., became a human being. We forget that Jesus really, truly, was a human being, and that he might have wrestled with doubts and questions about his identity and vocation, just as we do. If indeed Jesus was truly human, then he too entered into discernment as he hiked the Judean hills. As he sought God’s presence in deeper silence, perhaps he also sought to discern more clearly God’s will for him. Perhaps he especially wished to understand the words he had heard after his baptism, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” What could it mean to be God’s Beloved Son?
What might it been like for Jesus out there in the barren hills? Perhaps he had taken a knapsack with him. Well before forty days were past, though, he would surely have run out of the food he had brought with him. The caves might have provided shelter but little comfort, even if he had a blanket with him. Could he have bathed or washed his clothes? Unlike those of us who make retreats with others, Jesus was utterly alone. Perhaps he was also spiritually bereft. Perhaps he was experiencing a “dark night of the soul.” Perhaps he felt that God had utterly abandoned him. Perhaps he felt paralyzed, unable to discern what lay ahead and what might be demanded of him.
Mark provides no detail about what Jesus actually experienced on his wilderness retreat. Matthew and Luke suggest that, in this exhausted state, Jesus grappled with three deep questions, three temptations, if you will. The first question was whether he should be a miracle worker. Should he use his God-given powers to create food and other material objects? Should heal everyone who was sick? Should he exorcise all the demons that plagued people? The second question was whether he should call on God’s protective power to keep him safe from all harm. And the third question was whether he should seek to defeat the powers that be through exercise of superhuman political power. In other words, was Jesus really willing to be fully human? As Debie Thomas suggests, “If those forty days in the wilderness was a time of self-creation, a time for Jesus to decide who he was and how he would live out his calling, then here is what the Son of God chose: deprivation over power. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honor. At every instance in which he could have reached for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous, he reached instead for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane.” This is the paradox of Easter, she reminds us: that “Jesus’ ‘free gift’ to humankind is rooted not in his power but in his sacrifice.”1
Perhaps, just perhaps, Jesus didn’t come to an understanding of his vocation all at once. Perhaps it took him forty – or more – days of wrestling with it for him to understand his vocation and truly embrace it. However, the Gospel accounts tell us that, once his initial time of discernment was completed, he emerged from his retreat willingly embracing his human limitations and his vocation, and ready to follow God’s lead wherever it took him.
We are on retreat. We have not physically removed ourselves from our ordinary lives. We have not come away to a retreat house, although I heartily recommend the experience of extended retreat for anyone who has the chance to do it. We are not in silence, although silent prayer and contemplation are always commendable. But we do have the gift of Lent to go on a kind of retreat. We can perhaps let go, for a time at least, of those things that distract us from God. We can think about how we might simplify our lives. Even if all you do is clean out a closet or a drawer, or say no to some obligation that no longer feeds your spirit, or say the short form of prayer at the end of the day, you have come closer to a simpler life. We can take advantage of the opportunity to grow in faith together, through our Lenten study sessions. Most important, we can attempt to discern more clearly where God might be leading us.
So here’s my invitation to you. Go on a virtual retreat. Follow Jesus into the wilderness. Take some time today to think or pray about what you might want to discern during this Lent. What question do you want to ask of God? What do want to request from God? With what decision do you seek God’s guidance? Write down somewhere, perhaps in a journal, your question, request, or object of decision. Find some extra time in your day or week to pray about it, and to deepen your trust in God’s leading. At the end of Lent, see whether you have any clarity about what is on your heart. If you need any special help with discernment, there are many different materials out there, which I’ll be happy to recommend. I can also provide, or direct you to, appropriate sources for spiritual direction and retreat centers. If it is helpful, use this prayer, perhaps even daily. Let’s pray it together.
O Lord
I do not know what to ask you.
You alone know my real needs,
and you love me more
than I even know how to love.
Enable me to discern my true needs
which are hidden from me.
I ask for neither cross nor consolation;
I wait in patience for you.
My heart is open to you.
For your great mercy's sake,
come to me and help me.
Put your mark on me and heal me,
cast me down and raise me up.
Silently I adore your holy will
and your inscrutable ways.
I offer myself in sacrifice to you
and put all my trust in you.
I desire only to do your will.
Teach me how to pray
and pray in me, yourself.2
Most important, accept God’s gift of Lent. Let God’s gift of Lent draw you into fuller acceptance of Jesus’ humanity and your own. Let God’s gift of Lent lead you into a deeper understanding of the One whom we profess to follow. Let God’s gift of Lent draw you closer to God’s heart and more deeply into God’s love.
1. “My Flannel-Graph Jesus,” Journey with Jesus, March 9, 2014, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/
2. Vasily Drosdov Philaret, c. 1780 – 1867, http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/special/discern.html
My own first silent retreat was for two and half days at the convent of the Community of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal order of nuns whose motherhouse is in Glendale, near Cincinnati. That retreat was simply one of unstructured prayer and reflection. Since then, I have made two week-long silent retreats, both at Our Lady of the Pines, a Catholic retreat house in Fremont, Ohio. I will return there again this summer. Often we make retreats like these for discernment, i.e., we go asking God’s help with a decision, a question, or a request. And they usually include daily spiritual direction, i.e., conversation with a wise guide who can help us discern how God is acting in our lives. In the right place, with the right spiritual guide, such a week can be life-changing, or, at the very least, a deep experience of God’s presence and grace.
Jesus was on retreat. Just like all those who go to the desert, a monastery, or a retreat house surrounded by a pine forest, Jesus was on retreat. All three synoptic gospels record that he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. If you remember the video we watched during Lent last year, “In the Footsteps of Jesus,” you remember the barren hills above Jerusalem that Jesus must have wandered through and the caves where he must have spent the night while he was on retreat. Why, immediately after his baptism in the Jordan River, did the Spirit send him on retreat?
In the church, we tend to focus on Jesus’ divinity. After reciting “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,” in the Nicene Creed, most of us slide right over “and was made man,” i.e., became a human being. We forget that Jesus really, truly, was a human being, and that he might have wrestled with doubts and questions about his identity and vocation, just as we do. If indeed Jesus was truly human, then he too entered into discernment as he hiked the Judean hills. As he sought God’s presence in deeper silence, perhaps he also sought to discern more clearly God’s will for him. Perhaps he especially wished to understand the words he had heard after his baptism, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” What could it mean to be God’s Beloved Son?
What might it been like for Jesus out there in the barren hills? Perhaps he had taken a knapsack with him. Well before forty days were past, though, he would surely have run out of the food he had brought with him. The caves might have provided shelter but little comfort, even if he had a blanket with him. Could he have bathed or washed his clothes? Unlike those of us who make retreats with others, Jesus was utterly alone. Perhaps he was also spiritually bereft. Perhaps he was experiencing a “dark night of the soul.” Perhaps he felt that God had utterly abandoned him. Perhaps he felt paralyzed, unable to discern what lay ahead and what might be demanded of him.
Mark provides no detail about what Jesus actually experienced on his wilderness retreat. Matthew and Luke suggest that, in this exhausted state, Jesus grappled with three deep questions, three temptations, if you will. The first question was whether he should be a miracle worker. Should he use his God-given powers to create food and other material objects? Should heal everyone who was sick? Should he exorcise all the demons that plagued people? The second question was whether he should call on God’s protective power to keep him safe from all harm. And the third question was whether he should seek to defeat the powers that be through exercise of superhuman political power. In other words, was Jesus really willing to be fully human? As Debie Thomas suggests, “If those forty days in the wilderness was a time of self-creation, a time for Jesus to decide who he was and how he would live out his calling, then here is what the Son of God chose: deprivation over power. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honor. At every instance in which he could have reached for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous, he reached instead for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane.” This is the paradox of Easter, she reminds us: that “Jesus’ ‘free gift’ to humankind is rooted not in his power but in his sacrifice.”1
Perhaps, just perhaps, Jesus didn’t come to an understanding of his vocation all at once. Perhaps it took him forty – or more – days of wrestling with it for him to understand his vocation and truly embrace it. However, the Gospel accounts tell us that, once his initial time of discernment was completed, he emerged from his retreat willingly embracing his human limitations and his vocation, and ready to follow God’s lead wherever it took him.
We are on retreat. We have not physically removed ourselves from our ordinary lives. We have not come away to a retreat house, although I heartily recommend the experience of extended retreat for anyone who has the chance to do it. We are not in silence, although silent prayer and contemplation are always commendable. But we do have the gift of Lent to go on a kind of retreat. We can perhaps let go, for a time at least, of those things that distract us from God. We can think about how we might simplify our lives. Even if all you do is clean out a closet or a drawer, or say no to some obligation that no longer feeds your spirit, or say the short form of prayer at the end of the day, you have come closer to a simpler life. We can take advantage of the opportunity to grow in faith together, through our Lenten study sessions. Most important, we can attempt to discern more clearly where God might be leading us.
So here’s my invitation to you. Go on a virtual retreat. Follow Jesus into the wilderness. Take some time today to think or pray about what you might want to discern during this Lent. What question do you want to ask of God? What do want to request from God? With what decision do you seek God’s guidance? Write down somewhere, perhaps in a journal, your question, request, or object of decision. Find some extra time in your day or week to pray about it, and to deepen your trust in God’s leading. At the end of Lent, see whether you have any clarity about what is on your heart. If you need any special help with discernment, there are many different materials out there, which I’ll be happy to recommend. I can also provide, or direct you to, appropriate sources for spiritual direction and retreat centers. If it is helpful, use this prayer, perhaps even daily. Let’s pray it together.
O Lord
I do not know what to ask you.
You alone know my real needs,
and you love me more
than I even know how to love.
Enable me to discern my true needs
which are hidden from me.
I ask for neither cross nor consolation;
I wait in patience for you.
My heart is open to you.
For your great mercy's sake,
come to me and help me.
Put your mark on me and heal me,
cast me down and raise me up.
Silently I adore your holy will
and your inscrutable ways.
I offer myself in sacrifice to you
and put all my trust in you.
I desire only to do your will.
Teach me how to pray
and pray in me, yourself.2
Most important, accept God’s gift of Lent. Let God’s gift of Lent draw you into fuller acceptance of Jesus’ humanity and your own. Let God’s gift of Lent lead you into a deeper understanding of the One whom we profess to follow. Let God’s gift of Lent draw you closer to God’s heart and more deeply into God’s love.
1. “My Flannel-Graph Jesus,” Journey with Jesus, March 9, 2014, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/
2. Vasily Drosdov Philaret, c. 1780 – 1867, http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/special/discern.html
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Why Fast?
Are you fasting? If so, from what? On Ash Wednesday, our liturgy reminded us of our mortality. The church then invited us, both individually and corporately, to begin a forty-day retreat, a retreat in which we are called to devote ourselves to “self-examination and repentance; prayer, fasting and self-denial; and reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” While all of those actions are important elements of the spiritual life, fasting is perhaps the most perplexing one for modern Americans. Fasting from what and why? Our poorer neighbors, those who depend on food stamps, the Outreach Center, and Loaves and Fishes, may know something about fasting. But for most of us, with our overflowing supermarkets, refrigerators, and pantries, and with fast food outlets everywhere we turn, we’re more likely to overindulge than to feel the pain of waiting for the next meal. So why might we consider fasting, and what does it really mean for us?
Like throwing ashes on one’s head and wearing rough, plain clothing, the call to fast has long Scriptural roots. Moses, David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, and many others fasted as a way of purifying themselves. Even today, observant Jews fast on the Day of Atonement. For those of us who dare to call ourselves disciples of Jesus, the main reason to fast is so that we may follow his example. All three of the synoptic gospels tell us that, after Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days. Mark gives us no idea of the trials that he endured but notes that the wild animals and the angels waited on him. Following a somewhat different tradition, Mark and Luke provide details of the physical and spiritual struggles that Jesus experienced in the desert. Whether we understand the source of Jesus’ struggle as interior or exterior, i.e., in his mind or orchestrated by an external agent, in both accounts Jesus clearly struggled to understand who he was and the nature of his identity as God’s chosen one.
In the simplest terms, then, we fast for forty days during this time, as a way of identifying with Jesus, in preparation for walking with him to Jerusalem. In the ancient church, these forty days became a period of preparation for baptism, in which both those to be baptized and those already baptized joined in prayer and fasting. In the medieval church, the Lenten fast was especially rigorous. “Lent” is the Old English word for spring, i.e., the time when the days get longer. Some have suggested that in northern Europe food stocks were low at this time. Hence a religiously sanctioned fast made sense. Be that as it may, in Lent people typically ate only one substantial meal usually at mid-day, with a light “collation” in the evening. People also abstained from strong drink and from meat, milk, cheese, butter, and eggs. This abstinence is the source of Mardi Gras (“fat Tuesday) and the Carnival (“carne wale,” good-bye to meat). People generally went to confession the day before Ash Wednesday and were “shriven,” i.e., absolved from their sins, hence Shrove Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday also became the day for pancake dinners, i.e., meals to use up the butter and eggs before Lent.
Many of these practices continued in our church well into the twentieth century. Turn to page 17 in the Book of Common Prayer. There you will see that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are fast days, and that Ash Wednesday, the other weekdays of Lent, Good Friday, and all other Fridays of the year, with some exceptions, are days of special devotion. So if you want to give up meat on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, you will be in good company! Traditionally, too, Christians have “given up” something for Lent. Unlike our medieval forbears, many of us give up things that may or may not impact our lives significantly: chocolate, ice cream, music, or comic books were common. Are all these quaint customs? The truth is that any of these observances, even abstaining from chocolate, could have real spiritual meaning if done with the intention of pleasing God and strengthening our self-discipline, but they could just as easily devolve into meaningless “feel good” gestures.
So what does fasting really mean for us? What is the church calling us to do, either in our Ash Wednesday liturgy or the instructions for days of “special devotion?” The call to fasting could mean literally fasting, not eating anything, say, for twenty-four or even thirty-six hours. When my husband and I were younger we would fast from Maundy Thursday dinner through Good Friday, then break our fast with friends with a simple meal of what might have been eaten in the holy land, dates, fruits, nuts, cheeses, bread, and a little wine. Might we consider trying such a meal here at St. Peter’s? Eating less meat and more plant food during Lent might be a valuable way to begin taking better care of our bodies. We might donate the savings from eating less to a food pantry, to Outreach, to Loaves and Fishes, or to an organization that combats hunger like Bread for the World or Episcopal Relief and Development. During Lent, you might consider the two-cent challenge: put two cents in a jar for every person at the table, every day, say at dinner. If you live alone do it at every meal as you say grace. At the end of Lent, donate the money to an organization that fights hunger.
Are there other things we should fast from besides food? Jesus’ stripped down experience in the desert enabled him to gain a deeper understanding of his vocation as God’s chosen one. Cheryl Strayed’s mother died when Cheryl was only twenty-two. In the wake of that tragedy, she hiked the entire eleven hundred miles of the Pacific Coast trail, a trek she recounted in her book Wild. In the mountain wilderness, Strayed put her life back together and regained her soul. What are those aspects of our life that we need to leave behind so as to have a deeper sense of God’s reality and demands on us? What do we need to give up that distracts us from God? What impedes our transformation and growth in Christ? TV? Facebook? Texting? Shopping? Could we at least scale back on our purchases and entertainment during Lent and increase our donations to organizations serving the poor or our participation in ministry to others? Could we simplify our lives, clear out our calendars, create our own wilderness time, so that we might stand open to God, ponder our own spiritual identity, and let God get a word in edgewise?
What might this parish fast from, besides “alleluias” and the contemporary-language service? Might we fast from our comfortable isolation as a Christian community? We proclaim that our mission is to share “the joy of God’s grace with the community and the world.” It’s right there on your service bulletin and on our sign out front. What does that really mean to us? Are there people who should be here, and might be here through your invitation? Can we pray more intentionally for them, or for those who come to Loaves and Fishes? What else might we do to take God’s love outside the red doors?
And here’s yet another kind of fasting. We might call it a spiritual fast, although, in a sense, all our fasting can potentially be spiritual fasting. I invite you to consider fasting from all those attitudes, fears, worries, distractions, and sins that keep you from following Jesus’ example. Please take out the sheet in your bulletin. We’ll read each sentence responsively. Put the sheet on your fridge and look at it every day this Lent. Go through the fasts and feasts day by day, one fast and feast at a time. During the day, ask God for grace to help you truly live into that fast and feast. For example, for the first one: ask God to strengthen your willingness to not judge anyone and to see everyone whom you meet as someone in whom Christ dwells. Are you ready? Let’s read them. Then commit yourselves to them.
Fast from judging others. Feast on seeing all as Christ’s brothers and sisters.
Fast from emphasis on differences. Feast on the unity of all life.
Fast from thoughts of illness. Feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from cursing. Feast on blessing.
Fast from discontent. Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger. Feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism. Feast on optimism.
Fast from worry. Feast on God’s providence.
Fast from complaining. Feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives. Feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures. Feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility. Feast on peace-making.
Fast from bitterness. Feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern. Feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety. Feast on trust in God.
Fast from discouragement. Feast on hope.
Fast from lethargy. Feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from thoughts that weaken. Feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow. Feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from idle gossip. Feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm. Feast on prayer that sustains.1
My sisters and brothers, as we travel the road to Jerusalem, to the Cross and beyond, may the fast of Lent draw you closer to God.
1. Adapted from Synthesis, February 17, 2013, p. 3.
Like throwing ashes on one’s head and wearing rough, plain clothing, the call to fast has long Scriptural roots. Moses, David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, and many others fasted as a way of purifying themselves. Even today, observant Jews fast on the Day of Atonement. For those of us who dare to call ourselves disciples of Jesus, the main reason to fast is so that we may follow his example. All three of the synoptic gospels tell us that, after Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days. Mark gives us no idea of the trials that he endured but notes that the wild animals and the angels waited on him. Following a somewhat different tradition, Mark and Luke provide details of the physical and spiritual struggles that Jesus experienced in the desert. Whether we understand the source of Jesus’ struggle as interior or exterior, i.e., in his mind or orchestrated by an external agent, in both accounts Jesus clearly struggled to understand who he was and the nature of his identity as God’s chosen one.
In the simplest terms, then, we fast for forty days during this time, as a way of identifying with Jesus, in preparation for walking with him to Jerusalem. In the ancient church, these forty days became a period of preparation for baptism, in which both those to be baptized and those already baptized joined in prayer and fasting. In the medieval church, the Lenten fast was especially rigorous. “Lent” is the Old English word for spring, i.e., the time when the days get longer. Some have suggested that in northern Europe food stocks were low at this time. Hence a religiously sanctioned fast made sense. Be that as it may, in Lent people typically ate only one substantial meal usually at mid-day, with a light “collation” in the evening. People also abstained from strong drink and from meat, milk, cheese, butter, and eggs. This abstinence is the source of Mardi Gras (“fat Tuesday) and the Carnival (“carne wale,” good-bye to meat). People generally went to confession the day before Ash Wednesday and were “shriven,” i.e., absolved from their sins, hence Shrove Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday also became the day for pancake dinners, i.e., meals to use up the butter and eggs before Lent.
Many of these practices continued in our church well into the twentieth century. Turn to page 17 in the Book of Common Prayer. There you will see that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are fast days, and that Ash Wednesday, the other weekdays of Lent, Good Friday, and all other Fridays of the year, with some exceptions, are days of special devotion. So if you want to give up meat on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, you will be in good company! Traditionally, too, Christians have “given up” something for Lent. Unlike our medieval forbears, many of us give up things that may or may not impact our lives significantly: chocolate, ice cream, music, or comic books were common. Are all these quaint customs? The truth is that any of these observances, even abstaining from chocolate, could have real spiritual meaning if done with the intention of pleasing God and strengthening our self-discipline, but they could just as easily devolve into meaningless “feel good” gestures.
So what does fasting really mean for us? What is the church calling us to do, either in our Ash Wednesday liturgy or the instructions for days of “special devotion?” The call to fasting could mean literally fasting, not eating anything, say, for twenty-four or even thirty-six hours. When my husband and I were younger we would fast from Maundy Thursday dinner through Good Friday, then break our fast with friends with a simple meal of what might have been eaten in the holy land, dates, fruits, nuts, cheeses, bread, and a little wine. Might we consider trying such a meal here at St. Peter’s? Eating less meat and more plant food during Lent might be a valuable way to begin taking better care of our bodies. We might donate the savings from eating less to a food pantry, to Outreach, to Loaves and Fishes, or to an organization that combats hunger like Bread for the World or Episcopal Relief and Development. During Lent, you might consider the two-cent challenge: put two cents in a jar for every person at the table, every day, say at dinner. If you live alone do it at every meal as you say grace. At the end of Lent, donate the money to an organization that fights hunger.
Are there other things we should fast from besides food? Jesus’ stripped down experience in the desert enabled him to gain a deeper understanding of his vocation as God’s chosen one. Cheryl Strayed’s mother died when Cheryl was only twenty-two. In the wake of that tragedy, she hiked the entire eleven hundred miles of the Pacific Coast trail, a trek she recounted in her book Wild. In the mountain wilderness, Strayed put her life back together and regained her soul. What are those aspects of our life that we need to leave behind so as to have a deeper sense of God’s reality and demands on us? What do we need to give up that distracts us from God? What impedes our transformation and growth in Christ? TV? Facebook? Texting? Shopping? Could we at least scale back on our purchases and entertainment during Lent and increase our donations to organizations serving the poor or our participation in ministry to others? Could we simplify our lives, clear out our calendars, create our own wilderness time, so that we might stand open to God, ponder our own spiritual identity, and let God get a word in edgewise?
What might this parish fast from, besides “alleluias” and the contemporary-language service? Might we fast from our comfortable isolation as a Christian community? We proclaim that our mission is to share “the joy of God’s grace with the community and the world.” It’s right there on your service bulletin and on our sign out front. What does that really mean to us? Are there people who should be here, and might be here through your invitation? Can we pray more intentionally for them, or for those who come to Loaves and Fishes? What else might we do to take God’s love outside the red doors?
And here’s yet another kind of fasting. We might call it a spiritual fast, although, in a sense, all our fasting can potentially be spiritual fasting. I invite you to consider fasting from all those attitudes, fears, worries, distractions, and sins that keep you from following Jesus’ example. Please take out the sheet in your bulletin. We’ll read each sentence responsively. Put the sheet on your fridge and look at it every day this Lent. Go through the fasts and feasts day by day, one fast and feast at a time. During the day, ask God for grace to help you truly live into that fast and feast. For example, for the first one: ask God to strengthen your willingness to not judge anyone and to see everyone whom you meet as someone in whom Christ dwells. Are you ready? Let’s read them. Then commit yourselves to them.
Fast from judging others. Feast on seeing all as Christ’s brothers and sisters.
Fast from emphasis on differences. Feast on the unity of all life.
Fast from thoughts of illness. Feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from cursing. Feast on blessing.
Fast from discontent. Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger. Feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism. Feast on optimism.
Fast from worry. Feast on God’s providence.
Fast from complaining. Feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives. Feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures. Feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility. Feast on peace-making.
Fast from bitterness. Feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern. Feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety. Feast on trust in God.
Fast from discouragement. Feast on hope.
Fast from lethargy. Feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from thoughts that weaken. Feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow. Feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from idle gossip. Feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm. Feast on prayer that sustains.1
My sisters and brothers, as we travel the road to Jerusalem, to the Cross and beyond, may the fast of Lent draw you closer to God.
1. Adapted from Synthesis, February 17, 2013, p. 3.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Everlasting Covenant
Why do we think of the story of Noah and the flood as a children’s story? In our old Sunday school room here at St. Peter’s – as in many churches – there’s that charming mural showing the ark and several pairs of animals. Children’s books and toys depicting the story abound. We know that kids like animals. Is that what makes us think that this is a children’s story? Actually, if you think about it, the story of Noah is a very frightening story. Noah and his family and all the pairs of animals were saved, but what about the rest of creation? Can you picture all those people and animals drowning in the torrential rains, their bodies floating on the water? Something like the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans after Katrina? And what must have confronted the survivors as they gingerly made their way off the ark? A soggy, bare earth? Is this really a children’s story? Or is it a story for adults, adults who seek good news as they travel the road to Jerusalem?
Are there any surprises in this story, surprises that the pretty murals and children’s books don’t prepare us for? Perhaps we are shocked that God might be so disgusted with God’s creation – for that’s where the story actually begins – that God would want to destroy it all, in effect start all over again? The opening verses of the book of Genesis remind us that God brought creation into being by breathing over chaos and nothingness. Unfortunately, humanity seemed intent on returning to chaos, lawlessness, and nothingness. We have only to look around us, open our newspapers, turn on the radio, or check our news web sites to see that humanity hasn’t changed much. Wars, rape, riots, greed, lies, cruelty to animals, environmental destruction – we’re still at it. Just as God said in the story of Noah, God could easily say of humanity now, “Yahweh saw the great wickedness of the people of the earth, that the thoughts of their hearts fashioned nothing but evil ….”
Even so, perhaps we not surprised that God couldn’t bring Godself to actually go through with God’s intention to completely destroy creation. The ancient Hebrews certainly had a strong sense of God’s desire for justice and righteousness. However, they also trusted in God’s mercy and compassion. On Ash Wednesday, we heard again, both from the psalmist and the prophet Joel, that God is “quick to forgive and abundantly tenderhearted.” So, yes, God did save at least a remnant of God’s creation, so as to be able to recreate and repopulate the earth, starting with Noah’s family and the representative animal pairs.
What is truly surprising about the story of Noah is the promise that God makes at the end of the story. As the survivors of the flood come out of the ark and survey the destruction around them, God promises that God will never again visit this kind of destruction on creation. The God of justice, righteousness, and peace vows not only to show mercy and compassion on occasion, or to forgive those who are penitent. The God of justice promises even to give up the possibility of destroying creation forever. God has surrendered God’s power to destroy the earth forever!
Indeed, God has made a covenant with Noah and his family. In his declaration to Noah, God uses the word “covenant” six times. Now covenants have a long history in the ancient world, and many other peoples besides the Hebrews made covenants with each other. Often covenants were made between parties who were more or less equal to each other, e.g. two merchants, or two kings, or a group of tribal chieftains. The parties in the covenants could also be of unequal status. In both cases, both sides promised to do or refrain from doing something, and the covenant spelled out the consequences if the parties did not keep their promises. As it happens, in our Hebrew Bible readings for Lent, the Revised Common Lectionary, which sets our Scripture readings for worship, gives us a unique opportunity during the five weeks leading up to Palm Sunday to look at some of the most important covenants that God has made with God’s people. During this and the next four weeks, we will look more closely at all of them, and we’ll have a chance to ponder them together in our Eucharists on Wednesday evening. As we ponder God’s promises made to the ancient Hebrews, perhaps we will also gain a deeper understanding of God’s mighty acts in Jerusalem.
The covenant that God made with Noah is actually the very first covenant, according to the Hebrew Bible, that God made with God’s people. The story of Noah came together from two different sources – as you can easily see if you read the whole story in the Bible – after the Israelite community returned to Jerusalem from Exile in Babylon, about the 4th century B.C. As such, the story must have been a great comfort to the returning exiles, who themselves confronted destruction in Jerusalem – and later also to the beleaguered community addressed by the writer of today’s Epistle lection, what we call the First Letter of Peter.
In emphatically stating God’s covenant, God’s promise irrevocably to bind Godself to creation, the Hebrews reflected a different understanding of God’s nature from that of other ancient peoples. The ancient Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, even the Greeks, mostly depicted their gods as vengeful, capricious, and generally unconcerned with the fate of creation. The ancient Hebrews understood God differently. They show us that God was willing to make a self-limiting promise to creation. Not only that, God’s covenant, unlike other ancient covenants, was one-sided. God made all the promises: all Noah and his family had to do, as we learn from what precedes our lection, was to have children, not eat blood, and not kill each other. Moreover, God made God’s covenant not only with human beings, but with all creation. And God’s covenant is “for all future generations.” Indeed, it is an “everlasting covenant. The rainbow in the story is not only God’s post-it note to Godself – as if God could forget God’s promises – but, what is more important, it is a reminder to us of God’s wonderful promises.
And they are wonderful. By virtue of God’s covenant with Noah, God has become the “God who remembers,” to whom the psalmist rightly pleads. God is now invested in us. God is deeply committed to us. God is not only just and righteous – the ancients already knew that – but God is also totally self-giving. Through the story of Noah, the Hebrews tell us that God has willingly given up part of God’s power and now intimately shares our lives and our fortunes with us. Even before the Word became flesh, the Hebrews proclaimed God’s abiding relationship with humanity.
As we begin our journey to Jerusalem, to the events of Holy Week and Easter, why does the church ask us to hear again about this ancient covenant? Quite simply, this surprising covenant reminds us of God’s willingness to limit God’s power and freedom to act. Are we astonished that God would identify with our weakness and vulnerability? How else are we to understand that God in Christ willingly accepted the limitations of becoming human? How else are we to understand St. Paul’s reminder to the Christian community at Philippi, that, “Christ, though in the image of God … became completely empty and took on the image of oppressed humankind?” How else are we to understand that in Jesus God sealed God’s relationship with humanity through death on a Cross?
My friends, this is the God to whom we have committed ourselves. Becoming more like this God is what we have committed ourselves to in baptism. Can we follow through on that commitment? The psalmist asks God to “lead me in your truth and teach me.” As we join the Lenten retreat of the church, perhaps we can ask God to help us model more closely God’s self-limiting and self-giving. Perhaps we can examine and reconsider our relationships with each other, and with all the rest of creation. If God was willing to enter into covenant with all humanity, all creation, can we do anything less? Can we get beyond our own needs? Can we forego any part of our self-indulgent, self-centered lives, to look more closely at the needs of others? Can we see all whom we encounter as members of the same human family that God has promised to protect and cherish? Can we reach out to others in love and compassion? Can we ponder our relationship to the rest of creation? As we travel to Jerusalem, might God be asking us to see God’s world in a new way?
Might we also be ready to pray this prayer? O God of wild beasts and angels, of waters and wilderness, remember us; remember all whom we remember; remember the covenant you made with every living creature, for that is our bond with you now and forever.
---------------------------
With thanks to David J. Lose for suggesting the basic thrust of this sermon in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 27-31.
Are there any surprises in this story, surprises that the pretty murals and children’s books don’t prepare us for? Perhaps we are shocked that God might be so disgusted with God’s creation – for that’s where the story actually begins – that God would want to destroy it all, in effect start all over again? The opening verses of the book of Genesis remind us that God brought creation into being by breathing over chaos and nothingness. Unfortunately, humanity seemed intent on returning to chaos, lawlessness, and nothingness. We have only to look around us, open our newspapers, turn on the radio, or check our news web sites to see that humanity hasn’t changed much. Wars, rape, riots, greed, lies, cruelty to animals, environmental destruction – we’re still at it. Just as God said in the story of Noah, God could easily say of humanity now, “Yahweh saw the great wickedness of the people of the earth, that the thoughts of their hearts fashioned nothing but evil ….”
Even so, perhaps we not surprised that God couldn’t bring Godself to actually go through with God’s intention to completely destroy creation. The ancient Hebrews certainly had a strong sense of God’s desire for justice and righteousness. However, they also trusted in God’s mercy and compassion. On Ash Wednesday, we heard again, both from the psalmist and the prophet Joel, that God is “quick to forgive and abundantly tenderhearted.” So, yes, God did save at least a remnant of God’s creation, so as to be able to recreate and repopulate the earth, starting with Noah’s family and the representative animal pairs.
What is truly surprising about the story of Noah is the promise that God makes at the end of the story. As the survivors of the flood come out of the ark and survey the destruction around them, God promises that God will never again visit this kind of destruction on creation. The God of justice, righteousness, and peace vows not only to show mercy and compassion on occasion, or to forgive those who are penitent. The God of justice promises even to give up the possibility of destroying creation forever. God has surrendered God’s power to destroy the earth forever!
Indeed, God has made a covenant with Noah and his family. In his declaration to Noah, God uses the word “covenant” six times. Now covenants have a long history in the ancient world, and many other peoples besides the Hebrews made covenants with each other. Often covenants were made between parties who were more or less equal to each other, e.g. two merchants, or two kings, or a group of tribal chieftains. The parties in the covenants could also be of unequal status. In both cases, both sides promised to do or refrain from doing something, and the covenant spelled out the consequences if the parties did not keep their promises. As it happens, in our Hebrew Bible readings for Lent, the Revised Common Lectionary, which sets our Scripture readings for worship, gives us a unique opportunity during the five weeks leading up to Palm Sunday to look at some of the most important covenants that God has made with God’s people. During this and the next four weeks, we will look more closely at all of them, and we’ll have a chance to ponder them together in our Eucharists on Wednesday evening. As we ponder God’s promises made to the ancient Hebrews, perhaps we will also gain a deeper understanding of God’s mighty acts in Jerusalem.
The covenant that God made with Noah is actually the very first covenant, according to the Hebrew Bible, that God made with God’s people. The story of Noah came together from two different sources – as you can easily see if you read the whole story in the Bible – after the Israelite community returned to Jerusalem from Exile in Babylon, about the 4th century B.C. As such, the story must have been a great comfort to the returning exiles, who themselves confronted destruction in Jerusalem – and later also to the beleaguered community addressed by the writer of today’s Epistle lection, what we call the First Letter of Peter.
In emphatically stating God’s covenant, God’s promise irrevocably to bind Godself to creation, the Hebrews reflected a different understanding of God’s nature from that of other ancient peoples. The ancient Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, even the Greeks, mostly depicted their gods as vengeful, capricious, and generally unconcerned with the fate of creation. The ancient Hebrews understood God differently. They show us that God was willing to make a self-limiting promise to creation. Not only that, God’s covenant, unlike other ancient covenants, was one-sided. God made all the promises: all Noah and his family had to do, as we learn from what precedes our lection, was to have children, not eat blood, and not kill each other. Moreover, God made God’s covenant not only with human beings, but with all creation. And God’s covenant is “for all future generations.” Indeed, it is an “everlasting covenant. The rainbow in the story is not only God’s post-it note to Godself – as if God could forget God’s promises – but, what is more important, it is a reminder to us of God’s wonderful promises.
And they are wonderful. By virtue of God’s covenant with Noah, God has become the “God who remembers,” to whom the psalmist rightly pleads. God is now invested in us. God is deeply committed to us. God is not only just and righteous – the ancients already knew that – but God is also totally self-giving. Through the story of Noah, the Hebrews tell us that God has willingly given up part of God’s power and now intimately shares our lives and our fortunes with us. Even before the Word became flesh, the Hebrews proclaimed God’s abiding relationship with humanity.
As we begin our journey to Jerusalem, to the events of Holy Week and Easter, why does the church ask us to hear again about this ancient covenant? Quite simply, this surprising covenant reminds us of God’s willingness to limit God’s power and freedom to act. Are we astonished that God would identify with our weakness and vulnerability? How else are we to understand that God in Christ willingly accepted the limitations of becoming human? How else are we to understand St. Paul’s reminder to the Christian community at Philippi, that, “Christ, though in the image of God … became completely empty and took on the image of oppressed humankind?” How else are we to understand that in Jesus God sealed God’s relationship with humanity through death on a Cross?
My friends, this is the God to whom we have committed ourselves. Becoming more like this God is what we have committed ourselves to in baptism. Can we follow through on that commitment? The psalmist asks God to “lead me in your truth and teach me.” As we join the Lenten retreat of the church, perhaps we can ask God to help us model more closely God’s self-limiting and self-giving. Perhaps we can examine and reconsider our relationships with each other, and with all the rest of creation. If God was willing to enter into covenant with all humanity, all creation, can we do anything less? Can we get beyond our own needs? Can we forego any part of our self-indulgent, self-centered lives, to look more closely at the needs of others? Can we see all whom we encounter as members of the same human family that God has promised to protect and cherish? Can we reach out to others in love and compassion? Can we ponder our relationship to the rest of creation? As we travel to Jerusalem, might God be asking us to see God’s world in a new way?
Might we also be ready to pray this prayer? O God of wild beasts and angels, of waters and wilderness, remember us; remember all whom we remember; remember the covenant you made with every living creature, for that is our bond with you now and forever.
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With thanks to David J. Lose for suggesting the basic thrust of this sermon in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 27-31.
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