Lectionary Readings
Gracious and loving God, forgive the sins of
the preacher, for they are many, that only your truth may be spoken and only
your truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
What does it mean to be human? That is the opening question in the Catechism of the Prayer Book and it’s also a fitting question for us to consider on this First Sunday in Lent. And if you’re interested in going deeper into that question, I’ll plug the podcast that I started last May. It’s called Behold & Become, and you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or on our website. The intention of the podcast is to provide a weekly 10-15 minute episode that explores various aspects of our faith. I know we can’t meet right now for Sunday school – so this is something that you can do while you do errands, chores, or exercise. Right now on the podcast, I’m doing a series with a Lenten focus – considering the different ways of understanding the salvation of the Cross. Earlier this year though, I did a series on the human nature section of the Catechism and I’m going to also be roughly following this part of the Catechism for sermons in Lent. And so we begin today with that question of “What are we by nature?”
Easter
means so much in our faith that the Church in her wisdom figured out that
Easter has to be prepared for – and this is what Lent is all about. In order to
most fully embrace our Savior, we have to take an honest look at the fact that
we need a Savior. We need a Savior because we’re stuck with no way out. We’ve
all been there, whether literally or metaphorically; life is full of ditches
that we need to get pulled out of. And when it comes to the damage of Sin and
the finality of Death, we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves. By the
grace of God, this is exactly what Jesus does for us – he does what is
impossible for us in forgiving us our Sins and bringing us into Resurrection
life. But this only makes any sort of sense, either logically or emotionally,
when we have an honest look at ourselves. And this is what we do in Lent – we
look inward.
And
so the Catechism opens with the question of what it means to be human, to which
the response is “We are a part of God’s creation, made in the image of God.” We
must always start here, with the understanding that we are made by God and God
doesn’t make mistakes. We are made in the image of God – and God is good, and
so, at our core, we are good. If you were to ask Jewish scholars about
“Original Sin” based on Genesis, they’d say “Original what?” Generally, the
Jewish understanding is that we sin not because we are sinful at our core, but
because we are imperfect and idolatrous. Sin is less a part of our DNA and more
of the air that fills our lungs. The result is the same – we are sinners; but
it must be stated that before humanity was found to be in sin, we were named
“good” by our Creator and that goodness remains even if obscured by Sin.
Likewise, in the Orthodox Christian part of the Church where St. Augustine does
not hold much sway, Original Sin is not a mainstream doctrine. In that
tradition, it is not so much Sin that is passed from generation to generation,
but rather Death.
None
of this is to negate the seriousness of Sin or lessen the fact that we are all
sinners, but deeper than our sin is the fact that God made us out of, with, and
for love. And when we get to the story of Noah and Flood in Genesis 6-9 this is
so important. In Genesis 6:5, we are told that human wickedness was great and
that evil filled our hearts and minds. But in one Jewish translation, verse 8
reads, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”
In Noah, God was reminded of the goodness of humanity and has mercy upon the
family of Noah.
What
the Flood story shows us that while God has the power to create, God also has
the power to destroy. Because humans repeatedly chose idolatrous
self-centeredness over obedience to God, Genesis says that God lamented over
what had become of humanity. And so God was going to wipe out all flesh. But
God shows mercy to Noah, and through to Noah, to all of humanity. Though we
might give into “cancel culture,” God did not cancel all of culture, even
though that could have been how this story ended. To be clear, there was
nothing that Noah did to deserve being saved. Keep reading in Genesis and we’ll
quickly see that Noah and his family were not perfect people – far from it.
Almost as soon as they get off the ark, they continue the cycle of disobedience
and wickedness. Rather, there was something deep inside Noah that brought forth
the mercy in God. And what is deepest inside Noah isn’t a rotten soul. Noah was
not totally depraved. Nor are any of us. Rather, what God saw in Noah is what
God sees in you and me – a beloved child made in the image of God. Yes, we mess
that image up. We distort and defile that image in ourselves and one another,
but we cannot erase it. Noah is not saved by his righteousness, but rather by
the righteousness of the One who created him.
Once
God has safely ushered Noah, his family, and a representative pair of every
creature, the waters come down. In the cosmology of Genesis, the earth is
surrounded by waters. This isn’t what you’ll find in an astronomy textbook, but
Genesis isn’t trying to be a textbook. The idea is that chaos, manifest as
water, was split apart and a dry patch was created by God. This is the earth,
or maybe even the entire universe. And what surrounds us is chaos and God
creates a dome around the earth to hold back those waters of chaos. In the
Flood, that dome is removed and chaos and destruction envelop the earth. I have
no idea why people think this is a good children’s story. It’s actually one of
the most violent and scary passages in all of Scripture, but for some reason
we’ve decided that the near annihilation of all Creation is a good motif for
nurseries.
What
we see in the Flood is that same wisdom that Martin Luther King put into words
in his letter from a Birmingham jail: “We are caught in an inescapable network
of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one
directly, affects all indirectly.” In other words, we’re all in this together.
Humanity was wicked, humanity was condemned, and all of humanity, save Noah,
was destroyed. And, paradoxically, in saving Noah and his family, all of
humanity was saved. I’m not sure why we have such a hard time learning this
lesson – we’re all in this together. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said, “I am
because we are.” One of the worst heresies in our society comes from that sad
and flawed Enlightenment thought that “I think therefore I am.” That is one of
the most unfortunate lies that has ever been uttered. We are in this together,
that is how God made us, and from the Flood story, we see that together is also
how God will judge and save us. The pronoun of faith is always “we.”
And
it is with this “we” that God enters into a covenant with Noah, his descendants,
and every living creature. Now, even if you don’t think that we all are
biologically descendants of Noah, we are theologically. We are all included in
this covenant. And this is made even more explicit in Baptism. In the reading
from 1 Peter, we heard that just as God saved Noah from the waters in the ark,
so too are we saved through the water of Baptism. Just as Baptism is, truly,
this is a covenant of grace. Make a list of all the things that Noah and his
descendants are charged with doing in this covenant. Nothing. Not a single
thing. Rather, God bears the weight of this covenant and promises to never
again destroy all flesh. As a sign of this covenant, God points to the bow in
the sky. And more than thinking about a rainbow, we should think of a hunting
bow, as that’s what the Hebrew text says. The sign of the covenant is not “I’ll
put some pretty colors in the sky” but rather “The weapon of war is pointing
away from Creation.” In modern-day terms, the barrel of the gun is not pointing
towards us, but rather the handle. God is making it clear – the way of violence
is not the way of God and thus the rainbow becomes the sign of peace.
The
bow doesn’t point towards us, but presumably points towards God. And this is
the truth we will see on the other end of Lent. The violence that ought to
befall us for our disobedience is taken on by God. Noah is saved through the
flood of waters. In Jesus, we are saved through the flood of his blood. In
Genesis, God promises to never again flood the earth with chaos in order to
destroy it. And on the Cross God makes good on this promise by absorbing the
evil and chaos of Sin and Death in order to destroy all that separates us from
God.
God
is on our side, even when our sin separates us from God. God is on our side and
sees beyond our imperfections, beyond our shortcomings, beyond our mistakes.
What God sees is the divine image in which we are made, an image that is good.
God loves us and shows gracious mercy. Through the everlasting covenant with
Noah, God promises “never again” and on the Cross, God shows us how far that “never
again” extends as God is on our side, even to the point of death. And that God
who shows mercy and gives his only Son so that all might be saved, that is the One
in whose image we are made. That love is what is deepest in you and me. And so
even when the rains come, that love is what shall make all things well.
