Sermons at Burke, 2/14/2010
“The Sign of the Covenant”
Genesis 9: 8-17
February 14, 2010
My sister had just picked me up from the Great Falls airport (Great Falls, Montana) and we were driving the two hour ride north to her home in Chester, population 900. This was back when I was still in seminary. It is rare as adults that we had spent much time together so we were chatting away when all of a sudden out of the cloudy drizzle I saw the most incredible rainbow. It was the first time I had seen in one panorama, a rainbow from end to end – not hard to see on these Montana prairies! I could not stop exclaiming “Look,” “Look!” I think my sister thought that her Manhattan sister had been cooped up in the city for too long! However(comma) not only did I see this vivid rainbow end to end but it was a double rainbow – Is it correct to say a reflection of a reflection since we know rainbows are refractions of light in drops of water? I think so. It was more beautiful than all the calendar photos I had ever seen! I sat in silence just full of gratitude as we rode along– It was like God’s blessing of our relationship.
Now, I might say that it was God’s sign for my ministry. You see my sister told her minister who was going to be out of town when I arrived that I was in seminary and that I could preach when I came to visit on my vacation! (You know vacations and preaching don’t really go together!) My first sermon ever was preached in the Methodist Church of Chester Montana to about seventy-five members and the Presbyterian church of Whitlash, Montana, twelve members. It was a two point charge: I finished one message and was whisked away twenty-five miles to do the next message.
It is interesting, but most of us often see a rainbow as a blessing or omen or sign for something, even our non-believing friends do too. Well, it IS God’s sign, sign of his covenant, his promise to us earthings and actually a promise to all creatures. We just heard the story as I told it to our children – how God was upset with bad behavior, violent behavior, adulterous behavior, that God decided to destroy all the humans he had made except for righteous Noah and his family and two of every kind of animal.
Sometimes what we don’t realize is how bad it got in just six chapters of Genesis. In fact sometimes I have searched for the story of Noah in later chapters in the Bible: I forget that it is in chapter 6- 9. Here it is just six chapters after God had created everything and called it good, “very good!” What happened ?– Well Eve and Adam had disobeyed God, Cain had killed Able in a jealous rage. God saw the wickedness of humankind and the evil of their hearts and God was grieved. “I will blot out the human beings from the earth…I am sorry that I made them.” Genesis 6:7. Whew!
So Noah was instructed to build an ark and the floods came and destroyed everything – everything that was not on the ark.
[We all know why Noah was called the greatest financier – He was floating his stock while everyone else was in liquidation! :>)]
When the rains stopped and Noah and his family went out of the ark on to dry land, he built an altar and made an offering to God. It was then that God made a promise to Noah and to all of us that he would never again destroy every living creature. Even though God knew there was evil in the human heart, that had not changed – would not change -- there would be David and his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, Jacob stealing the birthright of Esau, Abraham lying and pretending Sarah was his sister, Jonah running from God, Judas selling Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, Peter denying he even knew our Lord!
Yet even though God knew the human heart had not changed, would not change - God decided to change! GOD DECIDED TO CHANGE! God decided he was not in the destruction business but in the relationship business.
God made a covenant with us human beings. God wanted to be in relationship with God’s creatures. The covenant is a covenant of belonging, a promise that I will be your God and you will be my people.
That is why when we see a rainbow we see it rightly as a blessing. We are reminded that we belong to the God of our creation – that is a blessing. We are reminded that God will not forsake us – that is a blessing. And we are reminded that God will not destroy us by floods– and that is a blessing!
Yes, the rainbow was a sign for my ministry; I would not be standing here if it were not for the grace of God, supporting me when I felt weak or inadequate, encouraging me when the load seemed to heavy, surprising me when I put forth my best efforts. God is a God who wants to be in relationship with his creatures, and it is not just human beings but it is the aardvarks and donkeys that the children sang about. It is the tigers and dragonflies, the buffalos and the butterflies, it is the specie that is daily disappearing from our planet. God wants to be in relationship to all God’s creation. The covenant is a covenant of belonging. Even though God knows there is still evil in our hearts God has decided that grace, not retribution is the way of operation, that life not death is what God is about.
The rainbow is a powerful sign of life! It is a reminder of the belonging we need. It is a reminder of the relationship we need. It is a reminder that God changed God’s mind. God decided that he is not in the destruction business but in the protection business!
So every time we see the rainbow appear on a hot August day when we are discouraged because the ball game has been called, God pops out with a reminder – all is not lost, I am here – for you! Look for the blessing.
When you are stuck inside for days without end because of a snow storm or because you are sick, God surprises you with the small rainbow across the book you are reading, reflected from the glass dove dangling in your window. Remember I am with you; I will not forsake you.
This morning in my office I saw a rainbow fall across the paper on my table containing the list of names of the new elders to be ordained. The sun was coming through the glass cross hanging in my window. The rainbow whispered – “They are going to be a blessing. Call them to act out their blessedness!”
*****
Today is Valentine’s Day, a day when our culture tells us to remember our loved ones with a special gift, card, flowers, candy. Love relationships and spouse relationships are some of the most challenging relationships. Probably because we are close and we know each other’s foibles and we know how to push each other’s buttons, and we have greater expectations of each other. Disappointments are greater too. Well today, I want to call you each to see, not just the ring that is a sign of your covenant with one another, but to see the rainbow and remember God’s covenant with you – that you first belong to God, a God that has made you, chosen you as God’s beloved, a God who chooses grace over retribution, life over death, and who is the wellspring of your love for one another! Dip into that wellspring first and you will have all you need and you won’t be expecting way too much from your spouse today, or will you be disappointed with your spouse, because you have all you need and everything else today and each day will be gift from your loved one!
*****
Today is also the day we as a church ordain leaders as elders and deacons in the church. Members will make a covenant with us to serve us “with energy, intelligence, imagination and love.” They can only do that as they stay true to the first vow they make that “Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior who they follow.” If they keep the first covenant with God, the covenant with us, the church will follow more easily. (Interesting enough Burke Presbyterian Church has chosen to identify the current ruling elders with a rainbow ribbon on their name tag! How appropriate!)
Last summer for only the second time in my life I saw a double rainbow end to end. It was a rainy day down by the Chesapeake Bay when I was in conversation with a neighbor – just shooting the breeze as we say, when this glorious sight appeared before our eyes. – one end started out over the Bay and looped high over us to the land. I took picture after picture – of course I could not get it all in my camera view at once, so I took one end and moved my body and took the other end. I saw it as a blessing of God on our little cottage that has survived much and has been a place of peace for many!
God changed his mind! Not the first thing you think of when you think of the rainbow – But the covenant is about change, God changed God’s mind from destruction to grace, form death to life. There was no response required of human beings in this covenant. “I establish my covenant with you and your descendents after you.” (9:8) that’s it The sign of the covenant is a sign intended for God , not primarily for humanity. god’s bow is a symbol of God’s peace with the earth. When the bow appears in the clouds I will remember my covenant. We may get all excited in seeing a rainbow and think about the sign or blessing it is for us, but it is, in effect, a string tied around God’s finger in order that God will never forget the covenant. This covenant too, like the refusal of God to act only with justice toward the world, is a sign of the unmerited grace of God.i
God created us in God’s own image – should not our covenants too be ones that promise life and grace? I pray that your relationship with your loved one or spouse this Valentine’s Day will be grace – full! I pray that whatever scraps you have had with your spouse, may you see the sign of the rainbow as a reminder to you too to act with grace and not retribution.
And I pray that the leaders we are ordaining this day will see the rainbow as a sign to be grace full in their ministry– that as God changed his mind from death to life, that all you do be life – giving!
God destroyed all- all that God had made and God changes God’s mind and says, never again – the bow is my reminder.
Let the rainbow be a reminder to you too to choose relationship over retribution and be grace-full and life giving for all!
i Michael E. Williams, ed., The Storyteller’s Companion to the Bible, Vol. I, Genesis (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), p.58