"Rainbows and School Shootings" - Sermon for Lent 1, 2018
Sermon:
Text: Genesis 6, 9
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who calls us to honor covenants.
Today we start our Lenten Pilgrimage again, 46 days between now and Easter. With the 6 Sunday’s not counting as fasting days, we match the 40 days that Jesus spends fasting in the desert during his temptation as our Gospel today says. This Lent our focus will be on covenants. Before we really get into our texts today, we need to start with basics, what is a covenant, because it’s somewhat different than we think. And we’ll see throughout Lent how that is a very good thing.
We tend to think about covenants as contracts. A contract is an agreement between two or more groups that all parties agree to hold, and if one or more sides break the agreement or agree to stop the contract it ends and all promises made in the contract are null and void. Any promises or benefits from the contract are gone.
Covenants may seem like Contracts between God and humans. And in some ways they are, they are similar in that there will be promises made, with the majority of the work done primarily by God, and usually broken by humans. But the wonderful thing about covenants is that covenants are wonderful things, to paraphrase Tigger. Covenants are wonderful, because even though it seems like we as humans, since we constantly break the agreement, would void the contract, covenants don’t get voided. God keeps the promise even in the event that we break it. Each week we will see a different covenant and see the wonders of how God continues to keep God’s promises.
We start out with the story of Noah, I found this fun little comic. We read here the finale of the story. God makes a covenant with Noah, and all creation. Vs 9 through 11.
As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, 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.
This first covenant made by God, the first complete promise of God, to never again destroy the earth in a flood, is not just to humans, but to all creation, all living things.
It’s an amazing promise, never again will God destroy all, no matter what we may do, God will not hit the redo button again.
In our covenant rankings, that’s pretty high up there. The promise to never destroy creation again.
And our response to this covenant is, are we also willing to work towards the same? Do we strive to not destroy God’s creation? Can we make the same promise to God? The flood story and all it entails all started when God saw that the earth was full of violence. From chapter 6, God speaks to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.”
Luckily for us in the face of such accusation, God will indeed always hold to the promise to never destroy the earth. But, that doesn’t give us the excuse and reason to not also strive to hold up to the promise.
In the story of creation as God creates us, God designates us as co-stewards of creation. We are called to have dominion over what God creates, which does not mean to dominate, but to rule in the mindset of caring and being people who love and maintain God’s creation just as much as God does. Of being people who work to uphold covenants, to in this case not be people who resort to violence and seek to stop it wherever and however we can.
We had another school shooting this week. 15 youth and 2 adults killed at a high school in Florida. On Valentine’s Day. On Valentine’s day 1929 7 people were killed by Tommy Guns in a fight between two rival mobs, 7, that is referred to as the Valentine’s Day Massacre. This seems to be called simply another school shooting. It is another moment where we failed God’s covenant. We failed as co-stewards of creation. We sided again with the violent nature that God hated so much that God hit the redo button and destroyed the world in the flood.
Whenever an event like this occurs, We pray, we pray, pray, pray, we call upon God to be with the family and friends of those killed, we ask God to be with those who had to live through such tragedy, who now will find themselves haunted by sights and memories they had no opportunity to avoid. We pray for people whose lives are changed because of this instance.
And then, what will we do. Will we simply move on, and again ignore the covenant that God made with us? Or will we act, will we follow our prayer up with action? Will we actually listen to our prayers, or simply wait until we have to pray them again?
In the flood, the sign that God chooses to show that God will never destroy the world again is the rainbow. Why? The rainbow is God’s bow. As in bow and arrows. In the covenant God hangs up God’s bow, God in promising to never destroy the earth again, disarms God’s self.
We can hold tight to the promise that God will never destroy us, in fact, as we walk our pilgrimage through Lent, we will again see that God promises us eternal life through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection. But, will we work to not destroy God’s creation? Will we work to not see God’s beloved children killed by something we could work to end?
God is with us now, God weeps with those who now grieve, who comforts those who fear now, those who work and learn at schools and may now feel that panic and anxiety of could that happen here, and calls us to be the people of God who stand up to violence, and asks us to be beloved children of God who work to say, no more, this is not how we treat covenants. This is not how we treat each other.
Let us pray,
God of creation, you call all good, you call us to be stewards with you, and you hold us to your covenants. Help us to hold to them as well. Help us to love each other as you love us. Help us to be like your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who gave his life for our sake. Amen.
Text: Genesis 6, 9
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who calls us to honor covenants.
Today we start our Lenten Pilgrimage again, 46 days between now and Easter. With the 6 Sunday’s not counting as fasting days, we match the 40 days that Jesus spends fasting in the desert during his temptation as our Gospel today says. This Lent our focus will be on covenants. Before we really get into our texts today, we need to start with basics, what is a covenant, because it’s somewhat different than we think. And we’ll see throughout Lent how that is a very good thing.
We tend to think about covenants as contracts. A contract is an agreement between two or more groups that all parties agree to hold, and if one or more sides break the agreement or agree to stop the contract it ends and all promises made in the contract are null and void. Any promises or benefits from the contract are gone.
Covenants may seem like Contracts between God and humans. And in some ways they are, they are similar in that there will be promises made, with the majority of the work done primarily by God, and usually broken by humans. But the wonderful thing about covenants is that covenants are wonderful things, to paraphrase Tigger. Covenants are wonderful, because even though it seems like we as humans, since we constantly break the agreement, would void the contract, covenants don’t get voided. God keeps the promise even in the event that we break it. Each week we will see a different covenant and see the wonders of how God continues to keep God’s promises.
We start out with the story of Noah, I found this fun little comic. We read here the finale of the story. God makes a covenant with Noah, and all creation. Vs 9 through 11.
As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, 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.
This first covenant made by God, the first complete promise of God, to never again destroy the earth in a flood, is not just to humans, but to all creation, all living things.
It’s an amazing promise, never again will God destroy all, no matter what we may do, God will not hit the redo button again.
In our covenant rankings, that’s pretty high up there. The promise to never destroy creation again.
And our response to this covenant is, are we also willing to work towards the same? Do we strive to not destroy God’s creation? Can we make the same promise to God? The flood story and all it entails all started when God saw that the earth was full of violence. From chapter 6, God speaks to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.”
Luckily for us in the face of such accusation, God will indeed always hold to the promise to never destroy the earth. But, that doesn’t give us the excuse and reason to not also strive to hold up to the promise.
In the story of creation as God creates us, God designates us as co-stewards of creation. We are called to have dominion over what God creates, which does not mean to dominate, but to rule in the mindset of caring and being people who love and maintain God’s creation just as much as God does. Of being people who work to uphold covenants, to in this case not be people who resort to violence and seek to stop it wherever and however we can.
We had another school shooting this week. 15 youth and 2 adults killed at a high school in Florida. On Valentine’s Day. On Valentine’s day 1929 7 people were killed by Tommy Guns in a fight between two rival mobs, 7, that is referred to as the Valentine’s Day Massacre. This seems to be called simply another school shooting. It is another moment where we failed God’s covenant. We failed as co-stewards of creation. We sided again with the violent nature that God hated so much that God hit the redo button and destroyed the world in the flood.
Whenever an event like this occurs, We pray, we pray, pray, pray, we call upon God to be with the family and friends of those killed, we ask God to be with those who had to live through such tragedy, who now will find themselves haunted by sights and memories they had no opportunity to avoid. We pray for people whose lives are changed because of this instance.
And then, what will we do. Will we simply move on, and again ignore the covenant that God made with us? Or will we act, will we follow our prayer up with action? Will we actually listen to our prayers, or simply wait until we have to pray them again?
In the flood, the sign that God chooses to show that God will never destroy the world again is the rainbow. Why? The rainbow is God’s bow. As in bow and arrows. In the covenant God hangs up God’s bow, God in promising to never destroy the earth again, disarms God’s self.
We can hold tight to the promise that God will never destroy us, in fact, as we walk our pilgrimage through Lent, we will again see that God promises us eternal life through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection. But, will we work to not destroy God’s creation? Will we work to not see God’s beloved children killed by something we could work to end?
God is with us now, God weeps with those who now grieve, who comforts those who fear now, those who work and learn at schools and may now feel that panic and anxiety of could that happen here, and calls us to be the people of God who stand up to violence, and asks us to be beloved children of God who work to say, no more, this is not how we treat covenants. This is not how we treat each other.
Let us pray,
God of creation, you call all good, you call us to be stewards with you, and you hold us to your covenants. Help us to hold to them as well. Help us to love each other as you love us. Help us to be like your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who gave his life for our sake. Amen.
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