Christopher Thomas
Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent, Year B – 2/21/21
Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness God called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the very first day.”
– Genesis 1:1-5
You know how this story goes. You’ve heard it, we just read this passage, a few weeks ago, back on the first Sunday after Epiphany. I’d be willing to make wager that, like the 23rd Psalm, you can probably recite this along with me, or back to me. So, why am I reading this to you again? Why are we baptizing Jesus again? We just did all this six weeks ago. Are you not paying attention to the lectionary?
But this IS important, today.
Creator
In the beginning, God the Creator shaped, and molded, and created, and spirated, all these action-oriented fusions of element that motivated and catalyzed chaos and confusion and disarray into system and order and life, and then God, as a crowning achievement, breathed Holy Spirit into humanity, into that stardust, to steward all of this creation.
Chaos to order
And God said, “It was good.”
Well, humanity, not content with God’s good order, immediately set about trying to improve on the system and order and life, in effect, to move from being creation, into the driver’s seat, Creator.
Generations upon generations pass, as God witnesses, and works with humanity, from Adam and Eve on, as humanity struggles to disorder the order that God has so neatly arranged and pronounced good.
Order to chaos
This goes on, and on, and on, until finally, God has had quite enough of this struggle with God’s creation, and God sets about the process of a hard reboot, unplug everything and start over.
Except… (thank God for except, because that is where we find mercy, and grace, the mercy and grace that will ultimately fuel redemption, but I get ahead of myself…) God has a soft spot for the righteousness of Noah and Noah’s clan. Are they perfect? Probably not. But Noah, and the two-by-two that enter the arc, by God’s mercy and grace, to escape the flood, and to regenerate, repopulate the earth, represent the heart that God has for God’s people, even in the midst of their multi-varied attempts to continually move from order back to chaos.
Sustainer
God sustains, and provides, and guides, even in the midst of the return to chaos, God’s wrath on full display. God is with, throughout. Even when it seems as though God is not.
Seeds of creation emerge from the arc, happy, and thankful, knowing full-well they are blessed by God’s sustaining act of order in the midst of chaos.
And a new covenant is made!
“As for me (God), I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you (creation) and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, and the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
“I commit to hanging up my bow of wrath. As Creator, I make that covenant with you, my creation. I will not destroy you.”
And so, as a reminder, God hangs God’s bow in the sky, sign and symbol to both Creator and creation, of this newly established and ordained covenant.
“I will not destroy you.”
Chaos to order.
And God said, “It was good.”
What has God done, in God’s selfless act of binding God’s self to humanity, to creation, in this covenantal way? In God’s limiting God’s own actions of discipline and wrath in and across our lives, how is God, in fact, binding God’s self, in a new and revealing way, to our very outcome? What kind of self-sacrifice is involved in saying, “I give up my power and authority to correct the situation?”
And yet, God continues to sustain life. The sun comes up, and out, rain gives way to rainbow. And we know again and again, that God will not interfere with our attempts to take order and return it to chaos, to disrupt God’s systems and balances of dignity and justice within and beyond creation.
How quickly we are to say, “That was an act of God!”
Are some things acts of God? Maybe.
Are some things acts of our own neglect, or poor judgment, or our attempts to invent and create better systems than God would have created.
“We can tame nature in this way, or that.”
“Those people should not live in that earthquake-, or hurricane-, or flood- prone area.” (Never mind that we’ve hoarded all the resource so that “those people” can’t afford to escape those areas!)
“We must have our own power grid, because we do not share, or regulate, or stand in relationship with others in our own country, much less in others. Don’t touch what I have! I know order from chaos!”
Power plants chug out carcinogens that strangle and poison the very fiber of our own being, because we think we are creator, when in fact, we are creation.
And yet we ask, “Why does God let this happen?”
Turn to the rainbow.
Creator, Sustainer
Redeemer
Why is it so critical and so necessary and so appropriate to hear the baptism story again, Jesus’ baptism, this first Sunday of Lent, the Sunday that we begin our own Emmaus walk toward Calvary and the cross, the suffering and death of Jesus, as we are so deeply mired in our own suffering, and the suffering of those we love all around us?
God’s sacrificial act, God’s dedication of God’s self, in the form of God incarnate, humanity divine, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased,” is set forth on the path, with us, today, on that Emmaus walk. God is, in fact, with us, around us, through us, and stretching beyond us, lighting the way, and guiding our path, toward the cross. We reassert our own identities in Christ’s passion and death, with that ashen sign of the cross just days ago.
And the sun emerges. Texas begins to thaw. The rainbow is there. God is with us. And pipes burst, raining down hopes, and dreams, and signs of all life that has been. But the rainbow is still there. People give and act in ways that prove the rainbow is still there.
Folks, what we are living through now is not an “act of God.” What we are living through now is the failure of human policies, and what we are witnessing, and experiencing, is the outcome of failed human policies. When we make decisions, about power grids, and where people should live, and whatever else, and then we expect God to support those decisions, and we hold God responsible when they don’t work out, what we are doing is shifting ourselves into the role of creator, and God to the role of creation. And that is not the covenant represented by the rainbow. That is not the order that we attest to in Genesis chapter 1.
And so, where is the Redeemer? Where do we find redemption?
The Redeemer lives in you. The Redeemer works in and through you. When you emerged up through the waters of your own baptism, you took this identity on. It became part-and-parcel of your very DNA. On this Sunday, we begin the journey again, to Calvary and to the cross, to the way of suffering and death, so that we might know full redemption in Christ our Savior.
Don’t lose that in this moment!
What can you do to be part of the redemption story today?
Give. Give generously. Give from all that God has given to you. The resources to which we have been entrusted are God’s, not ours. That is part of our Christian identity. Give to organizations that are supporting relief efforts for all those who have been left homeless and destitute by this latest crisis. (I suggest Episcopal Relief and Development.)
Act. Do things that suggest that you are not the center of the universe, but a wonderful, beautiful, splendid part of God’s creation. Be a part of the rainbow that brings hope and light and life into God’s world. Be a part of the order that God has established out of chaos. Get into relationship with the radical other, those who are not us.
Vote. Remember this moment the next time you go into the voting booth. Vote as an educated voter. Know that your right to suffrage matters, and the policies that flow from your suffrage, from how you vote, matter deeply. Peoples’ lives are affected by how you vote.
Creator – Sustainer – Redeemer
“…and remember this, I am with you, always, to the very end.”
– Matthew 28:20
Amen!
