Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Who Is the Rainbow For?

Who Is the Rainbow For? 
Genesis 9:8-17, 10:1-10, Mark 1:9-15

The Genesis story of Noah is a curious one for us to feature in the children’s Sunday School. Sure, it is cute to gather the animals together and put them on a boat. But the story of a wrathful God, intentionally wiping out life on the planet because that God is ticked off, well, I think that is a terrible lesson. 
Before I go any farther, let me be clear that as old as the story in Genesis is, evidence suggests that the story, with variations, exists in other literature from the region, some even earlier than the Bible. Dramatic flood stories also appear in the literature of other peoples in the world. We might want to argue about oral traditions, and which came first, the chicken or the egg, but the fact that multiple traditions share similar stories usually means that something actually happened, and there are multiple interpretations about what it might mean. It could also mean we are always comparing ourselves to others including their religions, and maybe ‘compete’ is a word closer to the truth than ‘compare.’ 
The story of the Flood becomes most important for our tradition because of how it is brought to a close. The story closes with God making a covenant promise that this will never happen again. The covenant is made with ALL of the living creatures who came out of the Ark. This undoes all the claims that natural disasters are God punishing the world for one thing or another. God keeps promises.  
I personally treat all of the stories of Genesis as legends. Legends are stories that are fundamental to the understanding of people in a culture, and structure their common approach to life. The truth of a legend is not best measured by evaluating the accuracy of the description to known facts, but rather, does it capture a truth of the human condition and the appropriate response in our time and place. Does the legend provide real people with a meaningful way to deal with the challenges of life? We honor Julius Caesar and other stories of Shakespeare, not because of its historical accuracy, but because it is true to human nature under stress. 
Oddly enough, this was the usual way of dealing with the most ancient of the biblical stories for more than 1500 years of Christianity. The fixation on literal belief in the text, is a relatively new movement. It is a logical extension of the western church’s preoccupation with believing the right thing, independent of living according to our beliefs. When the text is put on a pedestal, it creates a tension - where the written word becomes a God, indisputable, unchanging; that challenges the living, Still Speaking God.  
In addition, the story of the Flood is really two tellings of the story intertwined. Think of a person with long hair, where one side of the head is dyed one color, and the other side is died another. The two are weaved together in a ponytail braid into a single story, but the text has different numbers of animals, different flood durations, several of the details are different.  
In Lent this year, I want to invite you to contemplate the dual nature of humanity and the dual nature of Jesus the Christ. In the case of Jesus, we are awash in songs and poems and anthems, that celebrate the divine Jesus, dying to forgive the sins of humanity. This season, let’s allow ourselves to think of Jesus as a human being, faithful to God, but human enough to wrestle with the big issues. Let us permit Jesus to think, grow, and respond to the changes he sees in the world around him. 
At the same time, we like to portray ourselves as merely human, engaged in a struggle between the temptations of our flesh and blood existence, and our ideals and the force of our wills. This season you will hear me directly appealing to the gifts of your spiritual life, a life that is closer to God than your reason and your will. The eternal part of you that is most at home with the divine, and already alive and well. 
In the story of the Flood, it is easy to picture a God angry with selfish and sinful behavior, and sending a devastating punishment. We know powerful people who have punished entire populations, just because. Genocide is a real thing. Our human history seems to mindlessly repeat this vicious cycle. 
What is hard to envision, is that same God, contrite for overreacting, making promises to the whole of living creation, to never destroy all of the earth again. We carry forward from here, the image of a God of promises. We see a God of relationship. We see a God who is responsive. The end of the story promises an end to the vicious cycle of violence. 
It is hard to know the covenant God, because we are a suspicious people. We are reluctant to forgive ourselves. We struggle to bring ourselves to forgive those who have sinned against us. It is harder still, to go all the way through to reconciliation, building a trusting relationship with one who has done us wrong. But God presents us with a model of forgiveness and reconciliation, and a rainbow symbol thrown in for good measure. 
Jesus went into the desert following his Baptism. He was tormented by temptations by the devil. Mark does not detail those temptations, Mark seems to believe the devil is in the details, and it is enough just to name the tempter. 
Like David encountering Goliath that we talked about on Ash Wednesday (you know, you might want to read that reflection on the blog humsandwords.blogspot.com if you were unable to be here), David  confronts temptation by staying focused on the goodness of God and the strength of his faith. Our true nature is both flesh and blood physical, and spiritual beyond the reach of our will and reason. 
When Jesus says the Kingdom of God has come near, I believe that it is nearer than we think. Our access to the Kingdom is in us and among us. But the way to the door is clouded by our urgent need to force the conversation, to judge, and to control. The Kingdom might be understood by saying we listen for the Still Speaking God, by being still and seeking the presence of God. We might seek access, by looking for the light of God, in those people who have a glow of wisdom and understanding. Look to those who reflect the goodness of God, and seem to have positioned themselves in the light shining through a window to God’s Kingdom.  
On Ash Wednesday, we detailed the components of “active listening’” that constitute the practice quieting our inner judging monologue. It is a human sized task, that can teach us the skills for contemplative prayer. 
Who can be such a person? We were called to be that person, to be the living, anointed of God, in our time and place. There is only one true God, but many loving ways to know that God and share in God’s love. The rainbow takes the light, and as it passes through the water vapor, which sorts out the light in the visible spectrum. It is a natural phenomenon. Despite growing up in the church, my first thought of rainbows was always leprechauns and pots of gold. A child of today, might first think of Gay Pride Parades and people with their hair dyed and streaked with bright colors. 
The story this morning in Genesis tells us to think of God, and God’s promises. Consider how the light of God, washes over all of creation. That light can be reflected in ways that are true to God, in many peoples and many traditions. The light, passing through you, can invite others to see God as the God of forgiveness, the God of Welcome, the God of Promises Kept. 
So trusting that the Kingdom of God has come near, we quiet the little voice in our head, and we seek the presence of God in all that is genuine, in all that is generous, in all that reminds us of faithfulness. We intentionally get out of our mind, to see the world with the mind of Christ. 
Please consider coming on Wednesday evenings; for soup at 6:00, and a discussion at 7:00. It could be your introduction to a whole new way to engage God, and change the way you wear your Christianity. 
The rainbow is a natural apparition, that reminds God of the love God has for the world. The rainbow is the string tied around the finger of God, to be compassionate in the face of human sin or indifference. The rainbow reminds us to live like Jesus, who proclaims the Kingdom of God has come near. 


Like Mark’s Jesus, we are called to be love in action. The rainbow reminds us to break the cycle of violence in our personal lives, in our communities, and in our public actions. As live into our roles of sharing God’s good love: with the birds and the animals; with the planet choking on our exhaust; and with our combative human family, who are starving for the love of God; we find peace between our own bodies and souls, Amen. 

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