Genesis 9: 8-17
Psalm 25
1 Peter 3: 18-22
Mark 1: 9-15

“The Truth About Rainbows”

On Wednesday we entered a time of penitence and reflection. Ash Wednesday is the first of the 40 day season of Lent. Now I know if you did some quick calculating you would come up with 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. Why? Sundays are not counted in these 40 because even in Lent Sunday is seen as a “little Easter” a day to celebrate the resurrection, albeit in a more subtle way.

Lent is an example of liminal, or “borderline” time. Liminal time is filled with uncertainty, transition and change. Like being engaged to be married, like pregnancy, like the time between harvesting a crop and sowing the next, liminal time is both a waiting time and a preparation time. When a liminal time is over, life will never be the same again; life as we knew it will be over. A new life awaits us.

I don’t really know why but there are a lot of 40's in the biblical story. There were 40 days and 40 nights of rain to cause the great flood. The people of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years. The prophet Jonah was commanded to preach, “40 days more and Nineveh will be overthrown”. In the modern world age 40 seems to be more significant than most others.

Lent is often seen as a time of self-sacrifice and penitence. Sundays are not counted in the “40 days” because each Sunday, even in Lent, is seen as a “little Easter”.

We all know the basics of the story of Noah and how there was this rainbow at the end. Rainbows have long fascinated human beings. They are, by their very nature, mysterious, fleeting things, impossible to tie down, capture or truly re-create. You have to be there at the right time, or they are gone. Oh, of course, we can buy crystals for our windows that make scores of mini rainbows on our floor and walls, but that is not the same thing as catching one in the eastern sky after an early evening rainstorm, or seeing one over a massive waterfall.

I am told that a rainbow is the shape it is because of the curvature of the earth and that in the right conditions while flying in an airplane it is possible to see a rainbow as a complete circle.

As I was working on this sermon I kept hearing Kermit the Frog sing the song about rainbows: “The Rainbow Connection”. You know, it’s not easy to write a serious sermon when Kermit the Frog keeps popping into your head! I looked up rainbows on Wikepedia but when the explanation sounded too much like a high school physics textbook, I gave up. I was never that great in physics as Mr. Wynne my high school physics teacher could attest. Now, chemistry, there was a subject I liked! As far as truths about rainbows, the only one I can tell you with certainty is that there is no pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, not even a box of Pot of Gold Chocolates as the box implies. Disappointing, I know.

The story from Genesis has been seen as an explanation of things as they are: it as a “this is why there are rainbows” story, but it has much more depth and meaning to it than that.

The people of Israel were not the only culture to include a flood story in their sacred scriptures. Ancient people often felt that the natural elements were the “playthings of the gods”. They would have had no trouble believing the explanation sometimes given to frightened children, that thunder is the sound of the angels bowling (that is if bowling had been invented). Early cultures believed that the gods sent flood and plague for no reason at all, other than their having a bad day, or fighting with another of the gods, and the only thing they could do was to try and influence them with sacrifices of various kinds. Many of these flood stories also have rainbows. I studied a number of these stories when I was in university but I had a hard time keeping the details of each of them straight back then; and the more than 25 years since hasn’t helped my memory at all !

The story written by the people of Israel offers some startling contrasts to those of other cultures. First there is only one God in this story and secondly, there is a quite specific reason for the destruction for the flood; that of human sin. Third and perhaps most strikingly, at it’s conclusion, the story asserts that the God of Noah has changed and will not be the kind of God who destroys creation to “teach people a lesson”. In this story the bow of the hunter, hung in the clouds as a warning of divine power, is transformed from a symbol of destruction into a symbol of hope and promise.

I’ll be on the phone during a raging blizzard or a cold snap and invariably the person to whom I am speaking will ask me, “Can’t YOU do anything about this weather?”

“No, sorry I cannot.”

Or I will be asked, “What did we do to deserve this?”

At this point I will likely say something along the lines of,“We live in PEI, and we didn’t buy that ticket for that resort vacation in Cuba!

In the flood story from Genesis the rainbow covenant is God’s offering to the earth, it is not a contract. We have nothing to do with this promise except to live as its beneficiaries; it depends only on God.

Yet, our lives are greatly diminished when we do not live in the light of this covenant. Its like starving when the cupboards are full of food we don’t know how to cook.

When I first began in ministry over 20 ears ago the attention of the scientific community was not focussed as much as it is now on the problem of global warming. For many generations humans believed that nothing we could do could possibly change the way the planet functions; earth was so big and we were so small. In addition, the presence of the rainbow was used by some as “proof” that the world would never be destroyed again, so “don’t worry, pollute and waste away” became their mantra.

The best scientific minds tell us otherwise. Greenhouse gasses are playing havoc with the relative predictability of weather patterns and major changes that used to take thousands of years are now happening in decades.

There is a reason and we know what to do. God is not picking on us or even punishing us; we are doing it to ourselves. The planet simply cannot it take anymore; we need to learn how to walk more softly on the earth.

There are a lot of places these days where it is very difficult to see the stars because of the amount of artificial light we send into the sky. In many places the amount of pollution in the air makes the formation of rainbows much more difficult; the light and the water droplets do not react in the same way any more.

Yet, instead of limiting this story to the scientific explanation of millions of tiny prisms or the rather literal view of “God will not destroy the earth”, let us look at the rainbow in the much larger context of God’s promise to be with us in the midst of chaos.

Every year there are floods in various parts of the world, even in the Maritimes and a flood can be a very scary thing.

But there are many things that happen to us that are like a flood in that they are overwhelming and frightening and have the potential to destroy us - metaphorically or literally speaking.

The story of the flood tells us that we will not be defeated by the powers of chaos. The chaos of broken relationships, or financial distress or other kinds of difficulties that threaten to defeat us or define us as failures are not the things that have the last word. We are not a people who are to go around defined by our defeats but a people who are to celebrate the liberating presence of the God of heaven and earth.

God’s people, God’s church has often faced difficulties and trials, but as we enter the season of Lent we are given the promise that God’s will is life in abundance and great blessing.

To those who feel overwhelmed bu chaos, the message is, look for the rainbow. The message is “don’t look at the flood, look at the signs of hope and promise and presence and joy and life.” To the person overwhelmed by an addiction to alcohol the rainbow of an AA group can be the very presence of the holy. To those drowning in grief the presence of a support group can be the sign of that divine presence.

To the family living in substandard housing, the promise of a Habitat Home is the gift of life and hope.

To us all there are signs of rainbows. For us all there are opportunities to be rainbows for others.

The truth about rainbows is that they speak of the presence of a God who promised to never leave us or forsake us. It is both promise and call.

Amen!

Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22
Romans 4: 13-25
Mark 8: 31-38

To Dream The Impossible Dream!

I seem to be stuck on popular songs this Lenten season!

After I had chosen the hymns for this week, I began to think about sermon topics and I took another look at the passages from the book of Genesis and the Gospel of Mark and for some reason the song, “The Impossible Dream” came into my head and would not leave. Sure enough, I looked it up and it was sung on the Muppet Show by comedian John Cleese, with an audience made up of “Sweetums”, “Miss Piggy”, a few muppets whose names I have forgotten and, of course, Kermit the frog. (It’s hard enough writing a sermon with Kermit the Frog singing in your head but just add John Cleese, Sweetums and Miss Piggy!!!)

Then I thought of a children’s book I read many years ago, “The Incredible Journey”, by someone by the name of Sheila Burnford, and also made into a movie, twice I think, which is an improbable tale about two dogs and a cat finding their way home, across a desolate part of Northwestern Ontario, a journey of some 300 miles.

Can a leopard change his spots? Impossible! Can Edith Bunker come up with a simple and short explanation for anything? Impossible! Can your recent stock market losses be completely erased? Unlikely! Can a couple of senior citizens have a baby? Impossible? Can we find something by giving it away? Impossible? Hum!

The season of Lent marches on to bring to us stories of the impossible becoming possible.

The story of the people of Israel -4- beings in earnest with the calling of Abram and Sari. The calling involves both a mission and a name change. We know that names are important. We may know of many children who, when they grow up, insist on being called a more grown up version of their name. My friend Jim looked at me oddly and said, “that was a long time ago”, when I called him “Jimmy” which is the name everyone called him when I first met him. Even though my oldest brother prefers Fred, it’s hard not to call him “Freddie”.

A child often knows he is in trouble when the mother employs a certain tone of voice and all of his given names: “Robert John Mark Edward” you come here right now!

So Abram and Sari, a childless couple who are getting on in years are called to embark on a journey, an impossible dream and it is accompanied by a name change; for both of them. Like the modern tradition of a couple BOTH taking a hyphenated surname upon marriage, this journey will require faithfulness on the part of both of them and will affect both of them deeply. Let us not make the mistake of assuming that Sari is “just along for the ride”, just as Rebekah and Rachel are integral to the journey of their own husbands, Isaac and Jacob.

So this couple, this CHILDLESS couple is promised that they will be the parents and grandparents of a great nation, and Abram a multitude of nations. That is certainly a tall order for a 99 year old man and his wife.

We know that the faithfulness of Abraham also involved moving away from everything that was familiar, in an age where everyone lived in clan groups, and where there was security in numbers. Today it is common, particularly in towns and cities, that many people have no relatives nearby at all. In Abram’s day a couple just didn’t “move away” and go to an unfamiliar place.

In that age they moved into the unknown. They moved in faith. We know the rest of the story and from what the text says and from reading between the lines we also know that it was not an easy journey. There were mistakes made and there were times of doubt but the story is also about the faithfulness of God to the covenant promise. The impossible dream, the impossible journey, would not have been possible without God who was its author and who was with Abraham every step of the way.

Jesus called his disciples and all who would seek to follow in his way, on a journey of discipleship. To begin to follow Jesus was, in the initial years, to embark on an often dangerous and difficult journey. To proclaim that Jesus was Lord was to say that Caesar was not and it was to align oneself with the community of believers. The proclamation of this community was eventually, to bring it into conflict with the status quo. To profess that Jesus was Lord was to live life dangerously, it was to signify that one was no longer a part of one's own human family, but rather, a part of the family of the Christian church. It was, like Abraham, to journey out on your own.

To name oneself as Christian was to take a big and life changing step. When I meet with people to discuss their own baptism or the baptism of children I make the point that at baptism we are not so much naming children (we do that on government forms we send to Charlottetown) but we are accepting our other name, the name of "Christian" and we are accepting the mission that goes with that name.

In the Old English it was "cristnian" and meant ‘to make Christian'. It is at baptism that our decision to follow God's way in Jesus is sealed with the water of life. It is in baptism that we make the promise to take up the cross and follow. To take up the cross is to respond with all that we have and all that we are, to the name we have been given.

In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus tells the disciples that his is a journey to the cross and he is giving them fair warning that they too may suffer the same fate. No doubt Peter thought that God should protect the faithful. No doubt Peter thought if Jesus, or any of them had enough faith, that they would be protected from suffering. Jesus knew better. Jesus knew that instead of a protection against suffering, righteous and faithful actions sometimes, brought on suffering. Yet Jesus also knew that his earthly suffering, freely chosen, would bring other people into a relationship with God. He knew that his earthly suffering could change the hardest of hearts. He knew that in the midst of the suffering and beyond, that God would be with him, and that he would have the deep and sure knowledge that he was fulfilling his calling, and being true to his name; the name of God's precious child.

As we continue in our lenten journey we are called to take a hard look at our identity conferred upon us by our baptism. We are called to take seriously what it means in our lives to follow in the way of Jesus. We are called to decide, in the world in which we live, whether we will chose the easy way, or the way we know to be right. We are called to choose whether we will serve our own interests or broaden our perspective to work and give to the well-being of more that just our household, or our friends.

Taking up your cross is often equated with the attitude we take toward the trials and tribulations that life thrusts upon us, but as I understand the phrase, the “cross” is something we take up intentionally. Those other things are referred to elsewhere; God cares for us and is present in those times too; this passage is just not about those kinds of things.

The “cross” refers” to those burdens we choose to bear. These are the trials and difficulties we choose to accept because it is where our journey takes us.

It seems that every time I turn on the radio (I listen only to CBC) there is a report on the deepening recession. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better folks”, the reports seem to indicate.

In our tough economic times we are tempted to circle the wagons, and to think only of those closest to us. In times like these we are tempted to look at life from the perspective of scarcity rather than the perspective of abundance. Of course we are called to wise management of our resources but we still live in a world of need - a world crying out for the healing response that can be offered by a people willing to journey in faith, by a people of God able to live out a trust in God and not just in our own abilities and resources.

We need to embrace the truth that Abraham eventually learned to trust, a truth that the disciples learned to live by; that we are called to live by grace. It is this love and this grace that enables us to continue the journey despite the pitfalls and despite our own fears and reservations. The message of the gospel is that we will be strengthened to continue the journey of faithfulness, no matter what tradition may tell us, no matter what causes us to stop or pause from it, no matter what common sense may tell us. We will be enabled to continue on with Jesus as our companion, guide, friend, and window to the power of Almighty God.

We are here today because we have accepted the call to journey in faith. We are here because we have responded to the new names given to us by God: the name of Christian, the name of faithful servant; the name of disciple. May we live up to our high calling as we journey toward Jerusalem.

Amen

Exodus 20: 1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1: 18-25
John 2: 13-22

In keeping with the theme of the popular songs I happened to think about as I was preparing to write this sermon - I did dome up with one for this week - rest assured - this week the song has nothing to do with Kermit the Frog. However, you and I both might prefer something sung by Kermit! The song that came into my head is a rather violent one: “If I had a rocker launcher”. Sung by Bruce Cogburn, this song speaks of doing some serious damage to those who have caused hurt or harm to innocent people through war and engineered starvation.

Before we recoil from associating this song with the Gospel I ask you, “Is there something that you have seen that irks you so much; something that so offends your view of God’s intention for the world, that you want to break stuff, to punch someone in the jaw, or worse!” Now, be honest.

Jesus anger on the day he cleared the temple of the money-changers was very clear. We are used to “Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild”, not the “throwing things around and driving people out of the market with a whip”, Jesus.

What we need to remember first and foremost about this passage is that the behaviour to which Jesus took offense took place in the temple. Now to be fair there were some very good reasons for all of this commerce and it all probably developed very innocently.

Jewish law called for perfect and unblemished lambs and doves for the sacrifices. After all you were supposed to give God the best, not the leftovers, not even the ‘second best’. In addition, Jewish law demanded that the religious taxes be paid with money that did not bear blasphemous images. It made sense that the temple provide a suitable coin or token for this purpose.

For people who lived at a distance and for those who did not raise their own, the provision of certified sacrificial items in the temple itself made a lot of sense.

I just won’t pay what a movie theatre asks for a bottle of pop, so I usually take my own with me, but in an airport, I have little choice since airlines have had to become really strict about taking liquids in carry on baggage. Airport concessions inside of security must be doing very well, now that is not possible to take many things with you, in order to save money. These stores can ask almost any price they want and desperate hungry and thirsty travellers will buy it. Perhaps the cost of doing business in an airport security area is higher, but I sometimes think that buying shares in one of these companies would be a good way to boost my retirement savings.

Back to the temple of Jesus day. Were they gouging the customers? I don’t really know for sure. What about it offended him? That is probably more difficult to say, but I have some theories, based on some recent writing and scholarship. I know of some folks who used to get worried that selling church plates, calendars or supper tickets at the back of the sanctuary was like the “money changers in the temple” and insisted that it should not be taking place! I doubt that Jesus would have much problem with that kind of thing.

The first thing we need to know about this system was that it was taking place, not on the street but in the “court of the gentiles”. This was the only part of the temple to which non-Jews had access and it was transformed from a quiet oasis with people walking quietly by, to a noisy market. There would be shouting and haggling and the noise of animals.

I remember well the Christmas Eve in Rexton when we had 2 live lambs in the manger scene. When the service started there was just one lamb in the little pen at the front, and everything was fine but when the shepherds brought in the second they started calling out to one another with increasingly plaintive bleats. Put two live lambs bleating loudly into a wooden church with little carpet and very good acoustics and it was impossible to hear the readers. Then, on that occasion, the congregation started to laugh. It was a great moment but hardly quiet and contemplative. I think the next year we limited it to one lamb.

In this market there was more open air but there would have been many more animals and birds to be sold for the sacrifices. According to some modern scholars this commerce had gotten oput of hand. Far from the days of providing a service it had become a monopoly which gouged the customers and lined the pockets of those who made the rules about the animals to be sacrificed.

Jesus wanted people to be able to worship according to God’s intention of giving one’s best to God and not see the merchants and the religious elites who were in cahoots, earning a handsome profit at the expense of those who could least afford it.

There are many modern scholars who view this cleansing of the temple incident as a critical one in convincing the religious and political elites that Jesus had to be silenced once and for all.

But for Jesus it was a call back to the original intentions of Judaism; that of being a light to the nations; that of bringing people into a closer relationship with God.

Over time it had become clogged by rules and practices which overshadowed the original intentions.

When my oldest nephew was a toddler I thought we should re-name him, “William Don’t”. Like many toddlers he was very curious and it seemed that he was always pulling at something, climbing somewhere he shouldn’t have been or generally placing himself, or the things he touched, in danger.

All too often we think of the ten commandments as a set of rules which tell us NOT to do certain things; and unfortunately that is the way they are phrased. If all that we are concerned about though is NOT breaking them, we are losing our focus and missing their true intention.

When we are young most of us are convinced that our parents and other adults have nothing better to do than think of rules to impose on us in order to make our lives miserable. When we grow older we realize that most of those rules were put in place with our best interests in mind. Our parents were not trying to ruin our lives, but to keep us safe, healthy and happy. (Most of the time, at least!)

Living a mature life is not about trying to “not break any rules” but rather to live in a positive way, in God’s way - seeking to do what is good and right and faithful rather that simply avoiding wrong.

Jesus caused a lot of raised eyebrows because he sometimes broke some of the rules cherished most by those in power; such as the rule about always, always washing your hands before eating. That is easy in a modern home with hot and cold running water, but what if you are out in the hayfield it is another matter. There were rules against working on the Sabbath but Jesus did not hesitate to heal a sick person on the Sabbath. Yet, here he is getting quite upset about the outer courts of the temple no longer being a place of prayer.

Jesus was not attacking the Jewish religion, of this we must be quite clear - he was attacking what it had become, in the temple, in the eyes of those who saw rules as more important that the faith they were meant to promote.

Lent is a time for all of us to think deeply about our faith and to resolve to live a thoughtful and intentional life. Following rules is easier than principles that require thought and discernment, but we cannot always find a rules that meets all situations and we need to think and pray and then act in faith.

We are not called to cast all rules to the four winds, neither are we called to a slavish devotion to the following of rules for their own sake. We are called to seek a religious devotion and practice that is open and that draws all people to it. We are called to proclaim the good news in all that we say and do.

Let us seek the will and mind of Christ as we do so.

Amen.

Numbers 21: 4-9
Psalm 107
Ephesians 2: 1-10
John 3: 14-21

Staring Fear In The Face

Many years ago I went out to do a pastoral visit and as I pulled into the family’s yard I was greeted by their two dogs: a dachshund and a simply enormous Doberman. They were a comical sight, especially because of their similar markings and their vast difference in size - comical that is, until the larger dog with teeth that looked to be about six inches long started to bark and put his dripping jowls against the car window which I was hastily closing. The woman who owned the dogs called to me from the steps “Just get out of the car and pretend he’s not there!”

I just could not ignore a dog who seemed to want a piece of me for his afternoon snack and she had to put a leash on the larger dog before I dared to venture out of the car.

My brother’s children have a dog that has trapped more than one person in their vehicles - people unwilling to face down a barking chocolate lab with a bad limp- unsure if he would actually bite.

Where barking dogs are concerned discretion may be the better part of valour, but actually facing the object of our fears may be a better strategy in helping us to conquer them; it certainly seems to be part of the plan in the story from the book of Numbers.

First though, let us take a closer look at this story. What is going on here?

The people of Israel are in the midst of what will turn out to be 40 years, or an entire generation in the wilderness. Once again the people were complaining. Nothing was right and they wanted Moses to know it.

Moses must have been sick and tired of listening to them. It seems clear they weren’t actually starving, but no doubt they wanted more variety in their diet. Like the proverbial prison diet of bread and water - a steady diet of manna was getting to them! Who could blame them? However, I imagine that they were seeing their past through rose coloured glasses; it could only be wishful memory that they had the best of food in Egypt; no slave population ever has the best of food. They were probably fed just enough to keep them from starving and yet enable them to do a day’s work.

It is human nature though, in the midst of uncertainty to long for what they had known, even though they had wished for its end, each and every day. The wilderness was certainly a scary and uncertain time.

The poisonous snakes that came and killed many of them were seen as God’s punishment for their griping, which was, in and of itself, seen as a lack of trust in God. When people started dying, we are told they realized the error of their ways. At God’s prompting Moses had a bronze snake on a pole fashioned so that the people would be cured of their snake-bites by looking at the bronze snake and once again trusting in the God who had called them to their journey of faith and promise.

This is not a well know passage but it’s remanets survive in our culture. We see the snake on a pole symbol fairly often; sometimes we see it on the sides of ambulances (usually superimposed on a blue “I” and “X” combination). I am not sure if Island EMS has one on theirs or not; I keep forgetting to look. Another similar one, called a caduceus is made up of two snakes entwined around a pole and is the symbol of the medical profession.

While we may be largely unaware of this incident in the life of the people of Israel, it is clear that Jesus was well aware of it. In the Gospel reading for today Jesus refers directly to it and he equates his lifting up on the cross as a means of salvation with the effect of the snake on the pole.

Some scholars tell us that this artifact was preserved for many years but was destroyed when it was discovered that some people were regarding it as an idol.

It seems to me that the story of the people of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness is also our story. In many ways we are just like the people of Israel.

If you took out a map and a ruler you might discover that the journey from Egypt to the promised land should only have taken a few weeks. We may wonder why it took them more than 40 years, or an entire generation?

In Egypt they were slaves; in the promised land they would need to be the people of God; the children of Jacob. The generation in the wilderness was a generation of transition; a time that served to transform them from slaves to a people who could live freely under God’s law.

As individuals and as people we need to cope with many changes in our lives and we must continue to redefine ourselves as we grow and change.

I read a story recently of a man who was mis-diagnosed with a terminal illness. He came to define himself as someone who was “dying”; and when the diagnosis was changed and he was found to be suffering from a serious but non life threatening illness; he had a hard time learning how to embrace life once again.

Parents must redefine themselves and their role as their children grow and mature. As they become grandparents they must stop seeing their children as children and see them as capable, if inexperienced, parents in their own right.

Teachers need to see their former students not as they were when they were their students but as the people they have become.

One of the things the people of Israel needed to learn how to do during their time in the wilderness was to learn how to live in trust; to trust in the promise even when it was not being fulfilled according to their schedule and their ideas of how that should happen.

Sometimes in our lives we become stuck and the behaviours to which we have become accustomed and with which we are familiar come to be death dealing and not life giving. We need to learn new behaviours and new responses to life’s situations if we are to be healthy and whole once again.

An alcoholic needs not only to stop drinking and overcome the chemical dependancy to alcohol but also change the patterns of behaviour which have led to or enabled the addiction in the first place. The entire family often needs to be involved in that kind of healing and recovery.

When Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus in today’s gospel passage he uses this story from the book of Numbers to connect to his own death on the cross.

Yet, as strange as it may sound some people do not want to see the light. The darkness, as bad as it is, is familiar, and in a bizarre way, safe.

The challenge of both the book of Numbers and the Gospel is that we are called to look at the light; we are called to look to the God who is walking with us into the future; the God who wishes for us life and health and the God who wishes to show us all the love that it is possible to show. This great love is not just for us; not just for the people like us; not just for people; but for the entire world.

This love involves all who seek the wholeness and life that God intended for all of creation. This love is offered to all who risk opening themselves to its changing and transforming power.

Part of what we need to accept in our journey in life is that although God loves us as we are; God wishes for us life and health and wholeness and abundance and healing. The Good News is that we are not alone as we walk toward the life that God intends for us.

God is calling us to life and wholeness and healing - are we willing to leave what is safe and comfortable - and embrace this Good News.

God is with - Thanks be to God.

Amen.