March 5, 2006

Signs of God's Promise

by Julianne Stokstad

It's been raining all week, blustery, showery, rainbow weather. Looking for rainbows in something I love to do. Seeing a rainbow gives me a thrill not only because they are beautiful but also because they remind me of things present but not usually seen like the different colors of light. Tuesday was a four-rainbow day for me. Coming over the bridge around 8 o'clock, I saw one of the best rainbows of all time. The morning light was coming from behind me and I was driving into a storm front. The rainbow was just in front of the dark gray clouds. Usually rainbows retreat as you move toward them, but this one didn't. As I drove across the bridge the rainbow got more intense and bigger until I drove right through it into the rain.

The rainbow is a rich symbol. Ancient peoples imagined the rainbow to be a weapon of the gods who were up in the sky doing battle. The rainbow was the archer's bow and lightning bolts were the arrows. American Indians saw the rainbow as a ladder of access to another world. In China, rainbows were seen as the sky dragon uniting heaven and earth. The rainbow is a wonderful symbol with which to begin Lent.

In today's scripture, the rainbow is a sign of hope and of God's promise. God told Noah the rainbow was the sign of a covenant God made to never again destroy the earth. Scholars tell us the whole Noah's ark narrative is an inspired retelling from Hebrew perspective of the Sumerian epics. Written in the time of the Babylonian exile, the Priestly writers would have come in contact with Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish. The Hebrews have only one God and though He totally destroys the corrupt civilization, He is very different from other ancient gods. Not only does He communicate directly with Noah telling him what to do, God explains his actions. Then God creates a covenant and signs it with a rainbow as a sign of his faithfulness.

Covenants are profoundly important in our Judeo-Christian tradition. The Bible tells us of the covenant relationship of God and Hebrew/Christian peoples. Examples of covenant are rainbow covenant, the Ten Commandments, the Abrahamic covenant, and for Christians, the Last Supper where Jesus calls the shedding of his blood a sign of the new covenant of grace.

I think most people do not understand covenants very well. A covenant is not a legal contract or agreement written to protect those signing it from cheating. A covenant reflects a relationship, a holy relationship, initiated by God and based in God's grace and mercy. A covenant is defined by mutual accountability. Covenant promises are not to be made lightly, but prayerfully because they are deeply binding, knitting the partners together as one.

We are Covenant People in the UCC. Our Pilgrim ancestors in 1629 made the Salem Covenant, which states, "We covenant with the Lord and with one another and doe bynd our selves in the presence of God, to walk together in all his waies, according as he is pleased in his blessed Word of truth." As your minister, I am in a covenant relationship with you in this church, with God and the UCC. As a church we are in covenant relationships with the other UCC churches, with the Conference and the larger UCC. How we understand this is seen in how we live in relationship with our covenantal partners.

The covenant I am discussing today, God's first covenant, is a most unique one. First of all it is a covenant not only with Noah but also with ALL creation---all the creatures, the land, the waters, the air. Some call it the original Endangered Species Act. It is universal for all creation and for all time. Secondly, it is a unilateral covenant. God didn't even ask Noah's agreement. Imagine if a marriage covenant were made by just one partner, what kind of a relationship would that be?

Incomplete. It's a half a covenant and has been from the time it was made, especially in our Western cultures. This one-sided covenant of faithfulness is an invitation for God's people to join with God to protect all creation. That is why the rainbow is a perfect symbol, because it is a half of a circle. As humans, as religious peoples, we have not accepted with invitation yet. It is high time we do.

The reckless destruction of the natural systems we are seeing in our times is a sign of our extreme estrangement from God. We all know about Global Warming. News about Katrina, about mudslides in Philippines, about polar icecaps melting and the sea level rising and climate change that is occurring at an unprecedented rate is coming into our homes daily. We know the ecological consequences of the selfish, self-centered attitude that the earth is here for us to take and abuse. Protecting God's creation is a moral issue.

Climate change is a profoundly religious issue. Sally Bingham, Episcopal priest at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco writes, "It is time for every segment of our culture to integrate care for creation into its policies. Nowhere does it belong more firmly planted than in the foundation of Christianity."

The point is that it is critically important for us to realize that our way of life is throwing natural systems out of balance. Our addiction to growth is similar to another kind of unregulated growth we see in our bodies--cancer. Like cancer, left unchecked it will destroy us.

Peter Borrelli, writing in the Journal for the National Resources Defense Council says: "most bio-regionalists believe the trend toward ecological destruction will not be reversed until there is a spiritual awakening." Rabbi Michael Lerner in his book The Left Hand of God posits that America is in a spiritual crisis. Modern Americans, drowning in the empty promise of materialism, are searching for meaning. What we need is a relationship, a spiritual bond; between the natural world and ourselves. This relationship is one that could unite all the many belief systems and peoples of the earth.

How might we live differently being God's covenant partner in caring for creation? We have certainly discussed many things we can do, but have we thought of it as a religious responsibility of our covenant relationship with God? I want to encourage you to take on as a Lenten discipline some new way to move your life into sustainable balance. We must not tell others to do this until we are doing it ourselves. We must walk our talk and become a congregation that lives our covenant responsibilities. We must keep our ears open and continue to become informed. And as Christians we cannot remain silent, we must speak out each in our own way. No conversation is unimportant. If we begin talking about the coffee cups we use here, good. Let us seriously begin.

I think if we begin to look for ways we witness to the covenant God keeps with all creation, we might be newly inspired. I challenge you to look for God's grace, mercy and faithfulness in our natural world. God made God's covenant, a promise that will not ever be broken, from everlasting to everlasting, that God would never again destroy the earth. But we are destroying the earth. Let us stop!

We are the missing covenantal partner in caring for the earth. When we accept God's invitation to become covenant partners that puts us in closer relationship with God and puts God in the center of our lives. The covenant accepted completes the circle.

The rainbow is a symbol of the covenant of God's love and care for all creation.

A former parishioner had a sign on his door saying "Science meets philosophy in the following statement: You're always in the exact center of the rainbow you see." The rainbow seen from above is not a bow but a circle. Let us claim our place as full partners in this covenant. Then we will be the lens through which God's glory, love and faithfulness shines and the rainbow will be complete. Amen