Sunday, February 22, 2015

February 22, 2015 - Lent 1B


In the name of God, who creates, redeems, and sustains. Amen.
            The story of Noah’s ark may be one of the most well-known stories from Genesis, or even the entire Bible. But after the two-by-two, the flood, and the dove, comes a very important part of the story. At the conclusion, God says to Noah “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants… that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood.” Then the covenant is enacted through the sign of a rainbow. This is the first covenant between God and Creation that is found in Scripture, but the idea of covenant will be reintroduced with Abraham and David, the prophet Jeremiah will write about the covenant, and at the Last Supper, Jesus will allude to the covenant. Over the next five Sundays of Lent, the idea of covenant will be present in our readings, so my Lenten preaching will focus on the idea of covenant and what it means for our life and faith.
            But first we should define covenant. When I preach at weddings, I almost always talk about the difference between a covenant and a contract. A contract has terms and conditions, has out-clauses, and tries to limit surprises. Contracts are also largely secular. Meanwhile a covenant is holy, a covenant doesn’t spell things out, but simply says “for better for worse, for richer for poorer,” and covenants are intended to be everlasting. Covenants were common in the Ancient Near East, but they were actually more similar to the modern day contract, in that they had conditions and could be broken- really, they were treaties. But God takes this human concept of a treaty and makes it holy. God’s covenant is defined by endurance and steadfastness, and instead of simply mediating a relationship as does a contract, God’s covenant is about binding people to God and to each other.
            And considering covenant is a great topic for our Lenten journey. In Mark, Jesus says “Repent and believe in the Good News.” “Repent” is a Greek word which means “to change your mind.” Today when we say “repent,” we think it has something to do with confessing our sins and saying “sorry,” but Biblical repentance is much deeper. When Jesus says “repent”, he has just announced that “the Kingdom of God has come near.” Given that a new Kingdom is present, it’s time to change the way you see the world. The call to repentance is a call to examine our foundation and reorient ourselves to God’s ways. During the Easter season, we will renew our vows in the Baptismal Covenant, so Lent is the season in which we prepare ourselves by self-examination and turning our minds to God. And considering the Biblical idea of covenant is a great way to do this.
            What is important to the idea of covenant is identity. Think about it, the way you probably define yourself is based on your covenantal relationships, not your contractual ones. When I introduce myself to someone, I don’t say “I have a mortgage at F&M Bank and a Verizon cellphone.” But I do talk about covenants- “I am a follower of Jesus, a husband, and a father.” Covenants change who we are. Consider the Baptism of Jesus that we read this morning. Jesus enters a deeper sort of covenantal relationship with God and is identified as “the beloved.” The covenant that was enacted between God and Abraham and his descendants came to define Israel as “God’s people,” and to this day this identity shapes Jewish identity.
            The covenant also defines God. Often we speak of “giving things up” for Lent, and some scholars have noted that in both our Genesis and Mark readings that God is giving something up. As the story unfolds in Genesis, humanity was wicked and God was lamenting that humanity had ever come along to destroy the beauty of Creation. It would be a whole other sermon in itself, but I find it fascinating that God is somehow surprised by what happens with humanity, which should make us reconsider what we mean by saying “God knows everything.” God’s response is a sort of vengeful cleaning of the slate. This seems to have deeply affected God; again, that would be another sermon- that humanity has the ability to stir the emotions of God. After the flood though, God, in the covenant says “I will never, never, never do that again.” And then God sets a bow in the sky as a symbol of the covenant. The bow is an unstrung weapon, pointed away from the earth. God’s identity will not be that of a vengeful God. God gives up divine retribution and effectively says “we’re in this together now, it was out of love that you were created, and it to love that I will lead you.” This covenant defines God as steadfast.
            And in Jesus, God also gives up some of the protections of being divine. God, in Jesus, knows what human experience is all about- the joys, but also the pains, the rejections, the sorrows, and death itself. Some people believe in the idea of God, but aren’t sure what that means, or what God is like. But by giving up the divine security that comes from the gap between heaven and earth, God makes God’s identity known. We no longer have to wonder and debate what God is like, because in Jesus was have seen that God is healing, grace-filled, honest, challenging, saving, and ultimately, loving. In the covenant, God says “I will be your God and you will be my people.” In Jesus, God shows us the depth of God’s commitment to the covenant by giving up all that separates us from God.
            The covenant not only gives God identity, but defines us as well. And this identity is crucial not only to understand, but also to embrace. In your creation, you were made in the image of God. In your Baptism, you were called “the beloved of God.” And in your other covenantal relationships, whether it be as a parent, as a child, as a spouse, as a neighbor, as a brother or sister in Christ, your identity is cemented as someone worth knowing, someone worth being around, someone worth loving. Nothing can change the fact that God created you in the image of God or that God loves you.
            And as we see in Mark, you’re going to need that identity. Maya Angelou wrote “to survive is human, to thrive is divine.” When Jesus says “the time is fulfilled… believe in the good news,” he is inviting us to thrive in the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. But what happens next? On the high of being baptized, the text says “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.” One Biblical scholar has noted that our struggle with Satan is often strongest after the exhilaration of a divine encounter. It’s something we all know to be true- exhibited by the fact that we often use the phrase “the honeymoon is over” to speak of the testing that often comes after the initial excitement and newness wears off. This happens a lot in spiritual renewal retreats, where you go for an intense weekend of prayer and then you come home and are soon lost. Life is not lived on the mountaintop nor in the waters of Baptism. Life is often lived in the wilderness, or at the very least, we often pass through the wilderness.
            A few notes on the words that are used in this sentence from Mark. First, “Satan.” Last Sunday, the Cherub Choir sang “This Little Light of Mine” and one verse was “don’t let Satan blow it out.” One parent said that their child came home asking “who is Satan?” And that’s a good question for us to consider. Satan is not the Devil, as we think of it. We are Christians, not dualists. We do not believe that the cosmos is the battlefield for the forces of light and the forces of darkness. We believe in one God. In the Old Testament, the character of Satan comes up a few times, but isn’t considered to be a demon. With apologies to you lawyers out there, Satan was considered to be a prosecuting attorney- someone whose job it was to accuse human beings. By the time the New Testament was being written, interest in demons had become more common, so you start to see a conflation of demons and Satan. But for the purposes of understanding this encounter, Satan is not a proprietor of evil, but rather someone who challenges us and questions our identity.
And the word that is used for what Satan does to Jesus is “tempted.” In English this makes us think that Satan was trying to get Jesus to do something that was against the rules, but really the word is more like “tested.” Satan wants to find out how serious Jesus is in his commitment to God. It really comes down to a question of identity. God’s covenant says that we are loved and redeemed, and the Accuser comes to say “do you really believe that?” God’s love makes you complete and worthy, but Satan tests us by saying “you’d be better if you lost a few pounds, you’d be more loveable if you had more money, you’d be more likeable if you’d have a few drinks and loosen up.”
I don’t know how you will be tested. I don’t know where your insecurities lie. But I know that none of us are perfect, and I know that the world can be a trying place to live. You will be tested. Your identity as the beloved of God will be challenged. Corporations value us for our spending ability, politicians value us for our vote, allies value us for our contributions, but God’s covenant values you for who you are. Jesus knew who he was, and that is what sustained him through his time in the wilderness.
God is in covenant with us. It is a covenant that defines us and saves us from being defined by what society and we ourselves think that we should be. You are worthy and you are loved. Period. God is steadfast to the covenant, and through the covenant, God chooses to be present with us in Jesus. Despite the fact that the satans of our world will challenge that identity, God will never, never, never forget God’s love for you. And if you ever need a reminder, just look for the rainbow.
Over these next weeks in Lent, we’ll continue to explore the idea of covenant, what our role in the covenant is, and how it affects our daily life. But for this week, know this- you are God’s beloved son and God’s beloved daughter, and with you, God is well pleased.