March 1, 2009
Edwards (Knox) United Church
First Sunday of Lent
Genesis 9:8-17
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Mark 1:9-15
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson
We begin our Lenten journey with this story about Noah. It is a story that offers an understanding of God’s relationship - a covenant with all living things. It speaks of the nature of God as one who is continuously in the redemptive business. God seeks to bring creative love to every creature, to create the possibility of wholeness.
The story was for its time a new understanding of God. When we listen to this mythological story with depth, we are rewarded with a way of how to respond to destruction. It is a way to live in the reality of chaos and broken reality without becoming like that which destroys.
The myth of the flood is a story that deals with the reality of corruption and broken reality. In the text we hear that the world was filled with violence. That needs to be dealt with, and the flood is to wash away violence. Answering destructiveness with destruction, attempting to deal with corruption simply by erasing its effects, does not get at the root cause of corruption, nor does it heal the inclination toward violence. By covenanting to never again destroy all life with a flood, God is in effect promising to deal with the problem of sin and evil by more creative means than simply wiping it out. Destruction does not get at the root cause, though, humanity still acts in ways that bring disharmony. It is a reaffirmation that we live in paradise but even there the snake is still at work. It is to reject violence as redemptive, for violence only produces violence.
It is an important story for our understanding of the redemptive work of God and how we are to understand the role of Jesus in redemption and the meaning of the cross. It is a rejection of redemptive violence and this is important because the idea of redemptive violence still informs many and is a way we justify oppressive actions in the name of doing good.
In the story God promises to deal with evil in a more creative way than redemptive violence. The old idea of using scapegoating or blood sacrifice to do away with evil is rejected. God says God’s covenant is one of promise and beauty and hope - the rainbow. The righteousness of Noah, compared to the general violence and corruption of the world, reveals to God the possibility of working with the goodness of the creatures to heal the wound of earth from within as well as from above. Noah presents a new possibility to God, which God can then take up and actualize as a covenant relationship of non-destructiveness.
The story offers us a metaphor for our contributions to God’s lure. God works with the creativity that is within this world and enhances it. Creativity is the possibly for change that can enhance reality and the possibility of making it less. The God / human relationship is one where God’s aim toward our creativity will enhance it for good, and what we achieve will be a resource for God to use for further good outcomes. Our goodness is needed for healing. This goodness is valued up when we join ourselves to the rejection of the idea of redemptive violence.
Lent is an opportunity to reflect on our contribution to the well being desired by God. It is a time to reflect, and the word we often hear, is to repent. Repentance is not a matter of seeing ourselves as less but one of seeing how we can turn around and live those values that lead to well being. It is to ask what our habits of thought and actions that maintain destructiveness? Repentance is not a matter of wiping the slate clean for it is a matter of a new relationship with God that gets at the root causes of corruption. What are those values we have taken in and what are those actions we do that maintain our reality as broken rather whole?
Repentance is a constitutive process of change. It is rejection of the flood image where something is destroyed and remade, rather it is being redirected to use our creativity for the common good. And it is a process of redirection with the examination of those things that hold us back and an affirmation of those things that call us forward.
Mark gives us a understanding of the meaning of the cross that rejects dying for sins, a rejection of redemptive violence. Jesus is baptized and immediately, such a nice image, is driven into the wilderness. Wilderness was symbolic of God forsaken places. Yet Jesus is cared for by angels and the wild beasts. Symbolically this means there are no God forsaken places. God is there engaged in redemption that is not blood sacrifice. God is present with creative / responsive/ love. In a sense God shows up and is present.
This image is made even stronger for Jesus is tempted. Again it is an image of paradise with the snake in it. Yes we do experience a broken world with the creative love of God in it. It is a rejection of the world as completely hostile and negative, completely un-redeemable which demands some blood sacrifice to make it whole. It is the image that the world as it is, is where God is. The world is not a hopeless project for there are possibilities for creative redemptive actions- we can make reality better.
What is called for is a repentance of fear and negativity - of all ideas that it is hopeless. It is a rejection that what is need is some violent action to get rid of the broken reality. We reject destruction as a method of healing, rather we make reality whole by connecting to those ideas and actions that build on the strength of compassion.
This is the meaning of Jesus suffering - not in some sense of bearing our pain - it is the sense of being present in our reality and being a resource to overcome suffering - to suffer others in the sense of listening to their pain and finding the strength within the context to overcome the pain.
Sacrifice is understood as inclusion and letting go of those ideas that discriminate and create a broken reality. The letting go is to listen to God. We shape our community so we can listen for, and respond to, divine callings. Ideally, all corporate prayer in acts of worship will involve this kind of shared listening. Typically this occurs through imagination and intuition. We place ourselves in the situation of others and feel their feelings; and we simultaneously listen for ideal possibilities for response.
It is a matter of being present to reality and to find those hooks that allows us to continue to transform reality. It is the example of Jean Vanier who identified with those at the edge of society, learned from them and saw those who were mentally challenged as a location of God, and they also had a ministry to the world around them. This meant a repentance of attitudes where people were considered less worthy. This action of Vanier was to create L’ARCH which became a model for of inclusion of the mentally challenged in society. Along with Community Living programs it was a new meaning of sacrifice and repentance.
One purpose of worship, then, is not simply to praise God but to listen to the God, who so often speaks in the quieter recesses of the human heart, with sighs too deep for words. This communal shaping helps prepare a person for ordinary life. Community is shaped by corporate worship to create a kind of spiritual osmosis where people share in one another’s listening. Lenten reflection is the opportunity to create this spiritual osmosis. Their prayers become our prayers; their courage our courage.
George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com
