covenant – pastorsusan

A New Covenant: A New Heart

Lent 5 March 21, 2021 Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 12:20-33

When is the last time you made a promise? “I promise I’ll have that work done by tomorrow.” “I promise I’ll clean my room.” “I promise I’ll love you forever.”

When’s the last time you broke a promise? One of my pet peeves is when a character on TV or in a movie says, “I promise I you I will catch the guy who did this” or “I promise you are not going to die.” I want to scream, “Don’t make promises you don’t know you’ll be able to keep.” Because even though we don’t set out with the intention of breaking a promise, unfortunately it does happen. And it causes disappointment, pain, heartache, and sometimes even anger. There are consequences.

Now let’s get a little more legalistic. When’s the last time you entered into a contract? That’s a kind of promise, too, right? Two parties make a binding agreement, such as an employer promises to pay a certain amount to the employee for specified work. Or a church signs a contract for the installation of new carpet. There are consequences there too if one side or the other doesn’t fulfill their part of the deal.

Now let me ask a different way – when’s the last time you made or broke a covenant? We’ve been spending the Sundays in Lent on a tour of the covenants that the Bible tells us were made between God and God’s people. Still ‘covenant’ isn’t a word we use very often in everyday conversation. I know it’s a legal term used in finance and real estate. And the United Nations has an International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Maybe where we’re used to hearing it most is in reference to marriage. A covenant is a pledge, a formal and serious promise or agreement. But it’s not a word we hear or use a lot – except in the Bible, where there are covenants all over the place.

So, to review. First, there was the covenant with Noah, with the rainbow as the sign of the promise made to all of creation to never again flood the whole earth.

The second covenant was with Abraham and Sarah, with the beautiful, poetic promise that their offspring would be as innumerable as the stars in the sky and grains of sand on the seashore.

Then came the covenant given to Moses on Mount Sinai. This contract, often known as “the Law” and included the Ten Commandments, was more fully developed than ever before as the way to live both in covenantal relationship with God (I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me. Don’t take the name of God in vain. Honor your father and your mother) and with our neighbors (You shall not kill, etc., etc). This was the way to live in right relationship, in covenant relationship with God and with one another.

So how are we doing with these promises? If we go by Martin Luther’s explanations of the 10 Commandments, we have to admit that we fall far short of keeping up our end of the deal. For example, for the 5th Commandment Luther says that not only should we not kill our neighbors, we should also help them with all their physical needs.

And concerning the 8th Commandment, not only should we not bear false witness or lie about our neighbors, we should defend them, speak well of them, and always put the best construction on what they say and do. On those two alone, we have a lot of work to do. If we’re honest – and Lent is the season of honesty – we’ll admit that we continually play a part in breaking covenant with God. We do it in our personal lives in the choices and mistakes we make as individuals – those things for which we offer our confession and our intention to repent and do better.

We also have to admit that we participate corporately in breaking covenant with God. This is what Jeremiah was talking about in his day. He was writing his prophetic proclamations in the midst of colossal failure in ancient Israel. The city of Jerusalem had been conquered and burned, the temple destroyed, the monarchy terminated, the leading citizens deported into exile. This all came about, said Jeremiah, because Israel had broken the covenant, disobeyed the commandments of Sinai, did not take justice seriously, and did not ground its life in the God of the Exodus. And so, he said, came the judgment of God.

Now we would not say that it’s God sending punishment. Covenant is not a quid pro quo deal: you scratch God’s back and God scratches yours. No, it’s about living in harmony in the body of God. But there are consequences when we don’t.

In 2014, Old Testament scholar, author and prophet Walter Brueggemann brought the brokenness of ancient Israel into our present day:
We see that in our society the fabric of human community is almost totally broken and one glaring evidence of such brokenness is the current unrelieved tension between police and citizens in Ferguson, Missouri (after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer). That tension is rooted in very old racism . . .

This is one frontal manifestation of ‘the covenant that they broke, as referred to in the Jeremiah text: a refusal of neighborly solidarity that leads, with seeming certitude, to disastrous social consequences. Of course the issue is not limited to Ferguson but is massively systemic in US society. We have, like ancient Israel, been on a binge of narcissistic self-indulgence.

Of course it was not limited to Ferguson. It boggles the mind to consider all the ways since 2014 that our corporate life – as neighbors, communities, as a country – has been broken. Brueggemann again:
. . . we know that a sustainable social life requires attentiveness to neighbor. Torah obedience is not a narrow moralism. It is rather realism and readiness about what is required for society to work in life-flourishing ways.

This is exactly what Jeremiah is addressing in his stunning oracle that we read today. The admission of the brokenness of his society allows him to anticipate a “new covenant,” a new beginning, a new possibility. He imagines a time when all of us will naturally “know” God. We’ll instinctively know how to be a good neighbor to all people. Our relationship with God will automatically define attitudes, actions, and policies.

That sounds really good, doesn’t it? This text is so beautifully hopeful; we love to read it and believe that we are recipients of such a covenant. Make no mistake, though, and think that Jeremiah is talking about a covenant that will replace or surpasses the previous ones. All the covenants we’ve read throughout Lent are still in place. Jeremiah isn’t speaking of a new law, but rather of an upcoming era in which God enables human beings to follow the existing law by way of a transformation of the heart: “I will put my Law in their minds and on their hearts.” This is a Jewish idea picked up by Jesus and the early Jewish-Christian communities that followed him. It is an extension of the longing for intimacy and Divine guidance already present in earlier covenants.

We can relate to that longing today. Like our Jewish siblings, we yearn for an inner transformation that would render sin obsolete and teaching unnecessary. Of course, even though the prophet says the day is “surely coming,” we’re quite aware that, to put it mildly, it’s not yet here. As a people, we are broken in so many ways. My taxes support our state of perpetual war. My fuel consumption poisons the planet. My government is gridlocked. My relationships with people who think differently from the way I do have been strained or broken. I don’t think I’m alone in this condition. We have much truth telling and repenting to do in Lent.

The pandemic has exacerbated societal inequities that have been festering for a long time. The killings of eight people in Atlanta has put a spotlight on yet another way that racism rears its ugly head – not only in the actions of the shooter, but in the ways our national attitude has long been one of closing our eyes and turning our backs. Even the discussion of whether or not this was a hate crime is telling. Even if (and it’s a big if) the shooter did not target those of Asian descent, he definitely primarily targeted women. The controversy shows us how poorly we see the interconnections of race, gender, class, sexual identity, orientation and expression, and other communities that are often oppressed or marginalized.

I’m part of a group in our synod that is dedicated to promoting awareness of intersectionality. Now let me explain that – because this is a big part of our mission. These days, it is very easy to become embroiled in a battle over who is more oppressed, like there’s a hierarchy of oppression. In fact, when we recognize that oppressed groups are not in competition but are all part of an overarching system of domination, we are in a better place to stand with and support one another, not just in our own silo, but across the board.

It can also get carried into our own considerations of oppressed groups. In a conversation with a good friend a few years ago, she expressed her frustration with the Black Lives Matter movement. Her struggle came from the fact that she herself had been marginalized and her career as a pastor had been threatened because she is a Lesbian. But it’s not an either/or matter. And the fact is that many people belong to two or more groups, like the Asian-American women who were killed, like gay African-American men, like a disabled white man.

This is how it’s explained in the latest ELCA social statement, Faith, Sexism, and Justice:
The experiences of individuals and groups are shaped and complicated by intersecting factors. These include race, ethnicity, national origin, nationality, religious identity, immigration status, sexuality, marital status, economic means, age, ability, embodied experiences, and education.

Unfortunately, many people on the conservative side of the divide have come to understand intersectionality as a new hierarchy of oppression, one in which minorities are now at the top and white people at the bottom. This could not be more false, at least from everything I’ve read and from the standpoint of living out our faith. It is all about bringing the un-hierarchical nature of the realm of God a little closer to fruition. It is recognizing the brokenness of our society and bringing covenant living to bear in whatever way we can.

When we live mindfully of our covenant with God, we know we’re not yet living in the fullness of the Divine will for us. But this magnificent oracle from Jeremiah is a vision of what can be, what God desires it to be. It’s the vision that was written on Jesus’ heart. Coming, as he did, out of the history and tradition of covenant of his study of the Hebrew scriptures, he longed to bring that vision to fruition in our own hearts.

But as we well know, that beautiful vision, that Divine-infused heart would not prevent him from being killed by those who had a vested interest in thwarting the fulfilment of that vision. There’s no way to sugar coat the reality of Jesus’ crucifixion at the hands of the Roman empire. There’s no way to sugar coat the reality of the ongoing crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of empire today. This far into Lent, it is hard to see Easter light at the end of the journey.

And yet, Lent is preparation for Easter. It’s planting the seeds of radical, inexplicable new beginnings. In this oracle, the admission of his people’s brokenness permits Jeremiah to anticipate a “new covenant.” It allows Jesus to go to death in expectation that the vision can still be true. It hopefully enables us to live, as Martin Luther called it, in the “now and the not yet” realm of God, in which we can operate “as if” the new covenant is already in place, “as if” it’s written on our hearts and embedded in our minds. It enables us to take seriously the promises of our baptisms, to serve all people following the example of Jesus; and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. If Good Friday is to have any meaning, there has to be the promise that God can take what is broken and make it whole – that applies to us, it applies to our world.

But a covenant is never just one-sided. Are we willing to seriously live in covenant relationship with God, with God’s people and all of creation? Because it means commitment, accountability, neighborliness, community, hospitality – not good descriptors of our society today. It means taking action, operating out of the covenant in our hearts – not because it’s been programmed in us against our will, but because we have chosen to live in relationship with the Divine Presence, which can make broken things new. Why would we not want to abide in the heart of God?

Yesterday, taking a break from writing, I turned on the news. MSNBC weekend host Joshua Johnson had a commentary called “Losing loved ones to ‘the culture war.’ It was a moving call to acknowledgement of the loss that so many of us feel these days due to the political divide – loss of relationship with a family member, with friends; he even acknowledged splits in churches. And far from stoking the fires of our differences, he encouraged recognition of our losses and offered some ideas for beginning to get beyond our current gridlocked divisiveness. It seems that there is some movement from some quarters in reclaiming our covenantal bonds with those from whom we’ve been estranged. And I think Johnson had it right – by appealing to our universal feelings of loss, our common humanity, we might be able to find a way forward out of the wilderness.

Imagine how our world would be different if we really did take seriously Martin Luther’s explanation of the 8th Commandment: to defend our neighbors (which means everybody), speak well of them, and always put the best construction on what they say and do. I’ll be honest, I need help. I need a new heart, a renewed heart, an infusion of Divine Presence within me to be able to do the work that is required of us in these trying times. And I believe we are coming into a time of new imagination, new creativity. New pathways are being opened through the wilderness and our broken hearts are being infused with Divine Love – much too much to be kept inside and in need of spilling out into the world.

Next week is Palm Sunday, then it’s Holy Week. The cross looms large. Jesus tells us that unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest. Yes, he’s talking about his own death and resurrection. But he’s talking about us, too. “If you love your life, you will lose it; if you hate your life in this world you will keep it for eternal life.” Or as Matthew and Mark have it: “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

To die to our self-centered ego-driven ways and live into the heart of the covenant into which we’ve been baptized, is to find those places where we can take an active part in the commitment, accountability, neighborliness, community, hospitality, compassion of the realm of God. The way is already written on our hearts – not because it’s been programmed in us against our will, but because it speaks to our deepest longings.

Some days, many days lately, the brokenness of our world seems intractable. As I’m sure it did in Jeremiah’s day. Yet he tells us to look up, to look ahead. Because God loves making and keeping covenants.

As I’m sure it did in Jesus’ day, too, especially when the powers of the Roman empire and the religious establishment conspired to quench the flame of love in that Divine heart. Except they couldn’t do it. Jesus also tells us to look up, the cross looms ahead. Jesus also tells us to look ahead, not in denial of the pain and suffering of the world, but in trust that to follow in the way of Jesus is to enter eternal life – now. That’s the promise. Cross my heart.

Amen

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Behold, the days are coming, says Yahweh, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them up out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke, though I was their spouse, says Yahweh. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days: I will put my Law in their minds and on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they need to teach one another or remind one another to listen to Yahweh. All of them, high and low alike, will listen to me, for I will forgive their misdeeds and will remember their sins no more

John 12:20-33
Among those who had come up to worship at the Passover festival were some Greeks. They approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and put forth this request: “Please, we would like to see Jesus.”
Philip went to tell Andrew, and together the two went to tell Jesus. Jesus replied, “Now the hour has come for the Chosen One to be glorified. The truth of the matter is, unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest. If you love your life, you will lose it; if you hate your life in this world you will keep it for eternal life. Anyone who serves me must follow in my footsteps, and wherever I am, my servant will be there too. Anyone who serves me will be honored by Abba God. Now my soul is troubled. What will I say: ‘Abba, save me from this hour?’ But it was for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Abba, glorify your name!” A voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowds that stood nearby heard this and said it was a clap of thunder; others said, “It was an angel speaking.” Jesus answered, “It was not for my sake that this voice came, but for yours. Sentence is now being passed on this world; now the ruler of this world will be overthrown. And when I am lifted up from this earth, I will draw all people to myself.” By these words Jesus indicated the kind of death he would die.

Sarah & Abraham: Standing on the Promises

Lent 2 February 28, 2021

There’s an old hymn called “Standing on the Promises.” I thought of it the other day when I saw the typo on the sign on a little grocery store in my neighborhood. It says, “No loitering is allowed on these promises.”

Well, thankfully we are still allowed to stand on the promises that God has made to us. and today we continue our Lent exploration of some of the most important promises in the Bible. Last week, we sailed off in the ark with Noah and heard God’s covenant with all of creation to never again destroy the world with a flood.

This week we have part of the story of Abraham and Sarah, patriarch and matriarch of both Judaism and Christianity. Their son Isaac and his wife Rebecca follow in their lineage; then their son Jacob, with wives Leah and Rachel follow them. When we hear God referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – or to be inclusive, the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob, Leah, and Rachel – we’re hearing about the covenant that God made to make a great nation from these people: “I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars in the heavens. All the nations of the world will be blessed through your offspring.” Of course, Abraham is also the patriarch of Islam, through his relationship with Sarah’s slave, Hagar. God promises that their son Ismael will also be the beginning of a great nation.

That’s a pretty cut and dried summary of the start of what we call the Abrahamic religions, the continuation of the covenant with all of creation has now focused in on these people. We could say that in these covenants, God has chosen to go “all in” with humanity. Some of the best stories in the Bible revolve around these ancestors. These are the heroes of our faith. But the thing I love best about their stories is that the Bible doesn’t leave out the messy parts. All of them are flawed human beings. In spite of knowing about God’s promises to them and promising themselves to be “all in” with God, they make mistakes, they have doubts, they try to make things happen on their own instead of following God’s way, they fail, they repent, they turn around and doubt again.

Sarah’s response to the promise that she’ll have a child (kind of a necessity if you’re going to be the mother of a great nation) is to laugh out loud in disbelief.
Then, as Abraham and Sarah journeyed to the place God said they would be shown, Abraham passed his wife off as his sister to King Abimelech of Gerar. The motivation for this rather odd act is fear. As Abraham says to Sarah, “Look. You’re a beautiful woman. When the king sees you, he’s going to say, ‘Aha! That’s his wife!’ and kill me. But he’ll let you live. So say you’re my sister. Because of you, he’ll welcome me and let me live.” So that’s what they did. But God appeared to King Abimelech in a dream to warn him about Abraham’s deception – and Sarah was saved.

Many years later, their son Isaac, proving that sins can be passed down through generations, also tried to pass Rebekah off as his sister. In the next generation, Jacob cheats his brother Esau out of his inheritance.

Let’s just admit it, these people are sinners. In spite of knowing that God has been and promises to always be all in for them, they succumb to fear, doubt, anger, jealousy, and every other kind of human failing. In other words, we can relate to them. So this notion of covenant, while perhaps not an idea we often think about in our own relationship with God, is actually pretty important. In a life of covenant, every moment of our lives exists at the intersection of God’s “I will be” and our response of “We shall do.”

The spiritual life is living within the naturalness of our natural lives,
as creatures of the earth who work and eat and labor and die,
but to try to turn these occasions into markers of praise and thankfulness
before God, the Life of all life. – Walter Brueggemann *

Of course, we know that standing on the promises of God on a daily basis in the midst of all our daily challenges is not always easy. How are we able to find a way to avoid at least the most egregious failures to follow on the right paths?

I don’t believe that I have ever quoted Ronald Reagan on anything, but this seems to apply here. When dealing with the former Soviet Union, Reagan used the phrase “trust, but verify.” He had to find a middle way between those who were pressing for some restraint on the arms race by leading with trust. But he didn’t want to appear too soft, so he qualified trust by requiring inspections, evidence, and verification. That combination might help us here as we continue in our Lenten journey into covenant faith.

It helps us to be reminded of both the promises of God and the fulfilments. That’s what Paul did in his letter to the church in Rome. He wrote to them as they were trying to decide how to move forward into the future. We can pick up some hints that they were getting bogged down in squabbles about what was required for faith and conduct and about who was most qualified to be in leadership. They also seemed to have had some divisions between the Jewish Christians, steeped in the past, who kept all the requirements of Torah and the Gentile members, who liked to brag about their freedom from the past.

But Paul wasn’t having any of it. He tells them that no one is really qualified because of their past, because all have sinned and fallen short. He also tells them not to absolutize requirements for faith in the present tense – because we are being summoned into the future that God is creating right now. We are required to trust that future and walk into it. In order to convince them that their trust wouldn’t be in vain, Paul reaches back to Abraham and Sarah. Despite having no heir and too old to get one, which in their world translated to being “as good as dead,” God enters into this dead-end existence and announces a future that required incredible trust: “I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”

“In other words,” God says, “I’m all in with you and yours from now on.” The ones with no future will have a full and rich future, all because of a gift from God. Paul then transposes this old memory onto the church’s future, a future that rests on grace, the unfathomable gift of God’s generosity that can shatter all our expectations. All it requires is faith, trust, and readiness to receive.

That depth of trust is not an easy matter. We hold ourselves back. We’re suspicious. We want to wait and see before we take such a deep plunge of faith. But that’s what’s required in covenant living with the One who has promised to always go all in for us. To go all in is to give ourselves over to the inexplicable power for life that breaks all of our defenses of fear, anger, anxiety, and despair. It’s the plunge into bottomless love that appears at the intersection of God’s “I will be” and our response of “We shall do” – the intersection when God tells Abraham and Sarah to pick up and go into the unknown to a place that God would show them and (as all Genesis says in stunning brevity) they went.

But Paul says more:
They never questioned or doubted God’s promise. They grew strong in faith and gave glory to God. They were fully persuaded that God could do whatever was promised. Did they make mistakes along the way? Of course they did. There was that “my wife is my sister” incident, after all. But the main point of their story is the story of walking into the future given by God. And we can read the same point in the stories of so many other biblical heroes, as well as those of people throughout the ages who went all in trusting the future given by God.

But what about verification? Trust but verify. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m comparing God to the former Soviet Union, as if we need to keep a watchful eye on a possibly untrustworthy covenant partner. But the truth is that we can verify God’s reliability. There is evidence of God’s responsibility to following through.

The stories are many. The birth of Isaac to Sarah and Abraham. From them, descendants were born, as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. The reconciliation of brothers Jacob and Esau, the formation of a people, the liberation of that people from slavery and again from exile.

The stories of faith in the time of Jesus: from Mary and Joseph to Paul in 1 Corinthians, “Jesus appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

And of course, the story of Jesus, in whom we see the flesh and blood manifestation of the “all in” nature of the covenant. Although it’s hard not to think of those disciples, who had been drawn to this charismatic teacher and spiritual guide, only to be told that being his follower would be much harder and more all-consuming than they could imagine. They would be required to “take up their cross” in order to be part of the deal. Talk about all in! Wouldn’t you think Jesus would have found a way to describe discipleship that isn’t so off-putting? Who is able to be so fully, completely committed to upholding our end of the “I will be”/“We shall do” covenant?

In spite of their flaws and mistakes, the disciples were. They discovered their ability to take up the cross, to live sacrificial lives of love and service. Their stories are verification of the power of that plunge into bottomless love where anything and everything is possible.

We could say the same for disciples today. The definition of carrying a cross can change in every time and circumstance. Certainly today, we could ask, “What does taking up the cross mean right now, for us, in this pandemic? What does it mean for us to be “all in” – for God and for each other. Perhaps at no other time have we been so aware of how closely we are connected to people we don’t even know. But we know we need to be in solidarity with one another, to help each other stay alive. The threat is so universal that our response to it must be all in – we need to bear one another’s burdens not only for our safety but for that of others.

We take up our cross when we help one another get through this long slog to a day of greater security. This is but the latest response of “We shall do” to God’s promise of “I will be.” And we don’t have to look very far to find the stories of sacrificial love and service: from parents and teachers making sure children are cared for and education is continued; health care workers literally putting their lives on the line, generous donors to food pantries and shelters, volunteers staffing vaccination centers, chaplains tending to sick, dying, and grieving.

Verification of the goodness to be found in God’s creation can be found all around us – even in the midst of trial and tribulation. Verification of the never-ending source of love and spiritual renewal can be found in the stories of today’s heroes of the faith.

Verification can be found in a church brave enough to try new technologies in order to remain in community, ready to go all in and imagine a new future, to hear God’s call to go to a place it will be shown, and willing to go. The stories of trust and verification continue to be written.

If we pay attention, we’ll find that the world teems with verification: life in the midst of death, hurts that have been healed, estrangements that have been reconciled, bondage that has turned to freedom, it’s all around us. Perhaps your story is one of them. I know that some of mine are verification enough for me. God has promised to be there. God has been there. I can trust that God will always be there. And when times get tough, I remember. And live my life accordingly.

And yes, just as Ronald Reagan’s “trust and verify” policy was, in fact, a complex, complicated, partial accomplishment, so our invitation to “trust and verify” is also complex, complicated, and partial. We are human after all, and despite our best intentions of being all in, there will be times when we fall off. Thank God for the promise – and verification – of grace. We never fall completely and are always welcomed back. The covenant is more than a contract that can be broken and discarded. Even if we try to break it, God never will.

In this Lenten season, as we contemplate what it means to live in covenant, to stand on the promises, what it means to live at every moment at the intersection of God’s “I will be” and our response of “We shall do,” we can look to the future – beyond the pandemic, beyond anything that threatens our life or well-being, to a place that God will show us. And even though we don’t know what that will be, we rest in the promise of the covenant. Hope, resurrection, new life, a new future of gospel possibility!

Amen

* Walter Brueggemann, “The Future: Trust but Verify” https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2012/030412.html

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared and said, “I am El Shaddai. Walk in my presence and be blameless. I will make a covenant between you and me, and I will increase your numbers exceedingly.” Abram fell on his face before God, and God said, “This is my covenant with you: You will be the ancestor of many nations. You are no longer to be called Abram (“Exalted Ancestor) but Abraham (“Ancestor of a Multitude)” for you are the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you most fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and rulers will spring from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you, and your descendants after you for generations to come. I will be your God, and the God of your descendants after you.” God continued, “As for Sarai (“Princess”), her name will now be Sarah.* I will bless her, and I will give you a child by her. I will bless her, and she will become nations; rulers of peoples will come from her.”

Romans 4:13-25
The promise made to Sarah and Abraham and their descendants did not depend on the Law; it was made in view of the righteousness that comes from faith. For if those who live by the Law are heirs, then faith is pointless and the promise is worthless. The Law forever holds the potential for punishment.

Only when there is no Law can there be no violation. Hence everything depends on faith; everything is grace. Thus the promise holds true for all of Sarah’s and Abraham’s descendants, not only for those who have the Law, but for all who have their faith. They are the mother and the father of us all — which was done in the sight of the God in whom they believed, the God who restores the dead to life and calls into being things that don’t exist.

Hoping against hope, Sarah and Abraham believed, and so became the mother and father of many nations, just as it was promised. Sarah and Abraham, without growing weak in faith, thought about their bodies, which were very old—he was about one hundred, and she was well beyond childbearing age. Still they never questioned or doubted God’s promise; rather, they grew strong in faith and gave glory to God, fully persuaded that God could do whatever was promised. So their faith “was credited to them as righteousness.” The words, “was credited to them,” were not written with them alone in mind; they were intended for us, too. For our faith will be credited to us if we believe in the One who raised Jesus our Savior from the dead, the Jesus who was handed over to death for our sins and raised up for our justification.

Mark 8:31-38
Then Jesus began to teach them that the Promised One had to suffer much, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and religious scholars, be put to death, and rise again three days later. Jesus said these things quite openly. Peter then took him aside and began to take issue with him. At this, Jesus turned around and, eyeing the disciples, reprimanded Peter: “Get out of my sight, you Satan! You are judging by human standards rather than by God’s!”

Jesus summoned the crowd and the disciples and said, “If you wish to come after me, you must deny your very self, take up your cross and follow in my footsteps. If you would save your life, you’ll lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you’ll save it. What would you gain if you were to win the whole world but lose yourself in the process? What can you offer in exchange for your soul? Whoever in this faithless and corrupt generation is ashamed of me and my words will find, in turn, that the Promised One and the holy angels will be ashamed of that person, when all stand before our God in glory.”

Lent 1: Noah and the Rainbow Covenant

The Great Flood of 1972

It was 1972 and Hurricane Agnes had made landfall in Florida and was moving quickly up the East Coast. By the time she was done, there was extensive damage all the way from the Caribbean to Canada. Damage was heaviest in Pennsylvania, not from high winds but from severe flooding. Most media attention was on the Susquehanna River, which is the longest river on the East Coast and cities along it – like Harrisburg, the state capital, where some buildings were under 13 feet of water.

My hometown, Pottstown, is not along the Susquehanna. It’s further east, along the Schuylkill River, a much smaller waterway. But the stories that are still told about the flooding there have an additional feature. 6 million gallons of used crankcase oil were washed into the river by the flood waters that swept over the storage lagoons of a company that reclaimed dirty oil. The flood carried the oil over 14 miles of the Schuylkill, spreading oil for acres in all directions, causing the worst inland oil spill in US history at the time. As the flood waters receded, houses and trees were covered with oil as high up as 20 feet. I wasn’t living in Pottstown anymore by that time; I was actually part of a church group that helped clean up houses after the flood up in Portville, NY along the Allegheny River. But the pictures and stories of the flood and oil spill of 1972 continue to this day. I recently saw a bunch on the “Good Old Days of Pottstown” Facebook page.

As you can imagine, epic events like this are forever woven into the fabric of the history of these places. That’s true for any disaster, natural or otherwise. People in Texas will forever remember the freezing winter of 2021. Questions about ERCOT’s culpability for the failure of their power grid reminded me of similar questions about PG&E’s role in the pipeline explosion in San Bruno and in some of our devastating wildfires. We want to know who or what was responsible. But some catastrophes need a bigger framework, a way to tell the story in a way that it speaks to bigger issues. Karen Armstrong, author of “A History of God” says, “If you witness a terrible natural disaster, yes, you want a scientific explanation why this has happened. But you also need to something that will help you to assuage your grief and anguish and rage. And it is here that myth helps us through that.”

THE Great Flood

Now, the book of Genesis wasn’t written until the 5^th or 6^th century BCE, possibly during the time of exile. But the story was evidently seared into the collective memory of the people, passed down orally from generation to generation, and eventually written into the story of Noah – not as a history lesson but as a theological message about their relationship with God – who was very different from the gods of the Babylonians.

Water was a very important part of the way the ancient Hebrews understood the world and their God. In the beginning, Genesis 1 depicts pre-creation as a watery chaos, a formless void. The Hebrew creation story portrays God bringing order out of this chaos. And it was all very good.

By the time we get to the Noah story, we’ve seen how humanity has messed up God’s beautiful garden. The great flood was interpreted as God’s way of reversing creation and returning earth to its previous state of chaos and nothingness. You can see what a profound theological concept this was. God, creator of everything, had had it with us. Humanity had gone too far and there was nothing worth saving. Well, not quite. God was not completely done with us. There was Noah.

And so, the rainbow. When the flood was over and Noah and his family were back on dry land, God makes a to covenant with them to never do that again. And as a sign of this promise, God sets the rainbow in the clouds and says, “Whenever my bow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living things on the earth.”

We love this story. It’s a favorite motif for children’s books and toys. There are Noah’s Ark themed Bible school curricula, Noah’s Ark Precious Moments characters. But we might want to take a closer. I’ll never forget the lesson our Sunday school teacher had prepared one Sunday. I didn’t hear about it until after, or I might have intervened. She brought in a big metal tub filled with water and proceeded to tell the Noah’s Ark story complete with drowning people and animals. She was distraught as she told me the horrified reactions of the children. The thing is she was literally correct in her telling of the story. According to the Genesis writer, God did that. The problem is the literal details are not the point. The point is the covenant that God makes.

Covenant-making is something that God does a lot of in the Bible This one with Noah is one of the first. During Lent this year, our Old Testament readings will lead us through the story of God’s saving purposes in human history by way of God’s covenants. And the interesting thing is that, taken as a whole, they make it a little difficult to pin down exactly what a covenant is. The easiest definition is that a covenant is a contract: if you do, this, then I’ll do that. The problem with that is that it’s transactional. There’s quid pro quo. That’s not how we want to think about God any more than as someone who kills innocent people and animals.

But the reality is that throughout the Bible, there are contradictory definitions. Abraham and Sarah are given a unilateral, unconditional covenant: “I will make of you a great nation. . .” There’s no quid pro quo; it’s all about what God is doing. On the other hand, Moses is given a bilateral, conditional covenant: “If you obey my commandments, then you will be my people.” Even the covenant with Noah gives God an “escape clause,” promising never again to send a flood, but silent about other disasters. So what are we to make of this seemingly contradictory God. And how does this idea of covenant help us as we navigate through this season of Lent.

The Lentiest Lent We Ever Lented

As an aside, on Wednesday I talked about how last year there was a meme going around that said “Lent was the Lentiest Lent we ever Lented” because we were in the first stage of the pandemic, sheltering in place, sacrificing human contact, scrambling to find hand sanitizer and toilet paper, and thinking it would be all over by Easter. This year, we know better. The Lentiest Lent has become our new normal, at least until another new normal can be established. The pandemic is an epic disaster. Last summer, the wildfires were epic disasters. Texas is in the midst of an epic disaster. Climate change is an epic disaster.

Thankfully, we don’t blame God for creating them – at least not usually. I do find it interesting to note that those who claimed that God caused the 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina because of the sins of New York and New Orleans have been silent about Texas. It seems for some God is selective in which sins to punish. If we want to hold to only the punitive interpretation of the Noah story, we’d better be prepared to be included in the indictment. Many disasters – like the one in Texas – can be attributed to human sin.

OK, so we’re not going to take these stories historically or literally. But unless we believe that God is out there somewhere, uninvolved with us, then we do still want to try to make sense of how God does work with us in our world today. And this messy concept of covenant can help – as it would help Jesus as he continued in this tradition and we continue in this tradition through the sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism. It’s no accident that we hear Jesus say in the Words of Institution, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood . . .” or that we speak of the covenant we make with God in our baptism. It’s no accident that the passage from Genesis is paired with Mark’s version of Jesus’ baptism today as we take our first steps into the Lenten wilderness.

It may sound trite, but covenant is all about relationship. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann defines covenant as
“the deep and pervasive affirmation that our lives in all aspects depend upon our relatedness to this other One who takes the initiative in our lives and who wills more good for us that we do for ourselves.” *

Keep that definition in mind as we go through the five covenants before us this Lent. Don’t be thrown off by contradictions – because the biblical tradition is saturated with deep contradiction. Brueggemann’s theory is that “God possess a rich internal life . . . that is always processing, adjudicating, and reengaging God’s people in a covenant that is unsettled,” flashing back and forth between “punishment and pathos, judgment and mercy.”

We may be uncomfortable with a God whose mind can change and can feel remorse. That idea is threatening if we demand certitude from an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent God. But remember further along in Genesis when Abraham dickers with God over how many righteous people there would need to be in the city of Sodom for God not to destroy it?

Abraham challenges God: “What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? You won’t forgive it for those fifty?”
“OK,” God says, “if I find fifty, I’ll forgive them all.”

But Abraham’s not done: “What if five of those fifty are lacking? You’ll destroy the whole city because of them?’
God says, “No, I won’t destroy it if I find forty-five righteous people there.”

Abraham again: “What if there are forty?”
God: “For the sake of forty I won’t do it.”

Abraham: “Oh, please don’t be angry if I speak. What if thirty are found there?’
God: “I won’t do it if I find thirty.”

Abraham, “Just one last time, allow me to speak. Suppose twenty are found there?” God: “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.”

The last verse says, “After speaking with Abraham God departed and Abraham returned home.”

Do you get the impression that God might have finally just gotten exasperated with Abraham’s persistence and just gave up? But on the other hand, God was willing to listen to Abraham.

Or consider how in the Noah story, God sets the bow in the clouds as a reminder to God’s self: “When I bring clouds over the earth, my bow will appear in the clouds. Then I will remember the covenant that is between me and you and every kind of living creature, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all flesh. Whenever my bow appears in the clouds, I will see it, and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature on the earth.” The rainbow is indeed a wonderful sign and symbol to us, but it is God who admits the need for the reminder.

When we think of covenant as a contract, it’s too easy to see it as an uneven deal. One party has power over the other. One party can punish the other. In fact, some of the Old Testament covenants are modeled on Near Eastern suzerain/vassal treaties between a greater and a lesser party. The greater party, the suzerain, provided benefits such as military protection and land grants to the lesser party, the vassal. In response, the vassal owed the suzerain financial tribute and fidelity.

But taken all together, what we find in these stories is a way to go beyond the ancient models to in order to embrace a covenantal existence that is always a two-way conversation, a biblical faith in a God who is always reaching out to us and calling us to reach out to each other.

Fidelity is the hallmark of covenant with God, but not based on coercion, but on love, compassion, and truth. The biblical witness can be messy and contradictory, but is ultimately about God’s commitment to being with us through all the messiness and contradictions of our lives. As Christians, we see this commitment to us, personified in Jesus, that carries God beyond punishment to a love that will not let us go.

Covenantal living then is recognizing this “love that will not let go” in every circumstance of our lives. It is entering into the conversation with God and with one another both in order to mutually support and nurture the body of Christ, but also to move outward into the world in ways that are faithful to our covenant.

My first congregation was a covenant church. That is, it was a church that had drawn up a covenant when it was formed that outlined the responsibilities of church members. Each year at the annual meeting, members would sign the covenant and recommit to those responsibilities. I don’t know how that practice found its way to a Lutheran church. It’s usually associated with the Baptist church. Anyway, by the time I got there as their third pastor, the board with the covenant written on it with signatures of members had been relegated to the back of a closet. When I discovered it and asked about it, I felt sad that the tradition had died. That congregation no longer exists. I don’t claim to think it was because they broke their covenant, but I wonder what would have been different if we had taken it out, dusted it off, and renewed it.

Actually, though, we don’t need a board with a covenant and signatures. We are in covenant already by virtue of our baptisms. Remember I said that water was a very important element of the way the ancient Hebrews understood the world and their God? And he Genesis creation story depicts God as bringing order out of the watery chaos? And the Noah story is a myth signifying a return to that chaos, the undoing of the goodness of creation through the waters of the flood? Fast forward to the Jordan River with God pronouncing Jesus “my beloved” at his baptism.

At our baptisms, we entered into a covenant community. If we were baptized as adults, we took on the responsibilities of Christian life for ourselves. If we were infants or small children, adults made the promises for us. In either case, it is the responsibility of the community to remind ourselves and one another what we signed on for. We did that not long ago in January on the day we celebrated the Baptism of Jesus. But it’s meant to be a daily awareness and commitment to this covenant that, as Walter Brueggemann defined it, “is the deep and pervasive affirmation that our lives in all aspects depend upon our relatedness to this other One who takes the initiative in our lives and who wills more good for us that we do for ourselves.”

On Ash Wednesday we made a sign of ash on our foreheads, the same place where the cross was traced at our baptism. We recognize the messiness, the ash-iness, the contradictions of life – and we take heart because we are created in the image of the One who created us out of the earth and water and who has redeemed us through water for our life on this earth. Everything we do should come from this foundation. It’s our contract, our covenant, the best deal we could ever have.

Amen

*LentWalter Brueggemann, “Neither Absolutist Nor Atheist Be”

Genesis 9:8-17

God said, “Here is the sign of the covenant between me and you and every living creature for ageless generations: I set my bow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, my bow will appear in the clouds. Then I will remember the covenant that is between me and you and every kind of living creature, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all flesh. Whenever my bow appears in the clouds I will see it, and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature on the earth.”
God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all living things on the earth.”

Mark 1:9-15

It was then that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan River by John. Immediately upon coming out of the water, Jesus saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. Then a voice came from the heavens: “You are my beloved, my Own. On you my favor rests.”

Immediately the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness, and he remained there for forty days, and was tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him. After John’s arrest, Jesus appeared in Galilee proclaiming the good news of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Change your hearts and minds and believe this good news!”