February 22, 2015 "Plan B and Plan Z"

Genesis 9: 8-17 Mark 1: 1-15 Of all the possible combination of Scripture passages, I never before put these two together. However, a few weeks ago in Confirmation Class, while considering the Trinity, one of the students asked “If God was prepared to destroy the Earth in the flood, why did he send Jesus to die on the cross, that seems like opposite extremes?” A great question, I had been working on, when suddenly the Lectionary gave us these two passages. When we hear the story of Noah, we recall the animals going on two by two, we recall the Arky Arky song of childhood, we may even recall the Cosby version of the 1960s, where a voice calls from heaven “Noah, Noah...” and Noah replies “What?” But ironically, in the Bible, Noah never sings or speaks. Connected to the beginning of Genesis, even before the Garden, when The Spirit brooded over the face of the waters, the Waters represented Chaos which kills and destroys, like Ocean waves crashing in upon each other. In Creation, God did not eliminate the waters, the chaos, God provided balance and order. Here, when the chaos within humanity takes over, God withdrew protections from chaos, allowing the forces of the world to destroy life. Hearing this story, our minds immediately jump to one of two conclusions: The world was so filled with sin and violence, God responded with violence. That is the nature of anger, sin and violence, we respond, we meet comment with comment, blame with blame, hostility with hostility. God's Rainbow may be God providing assurance never to unleash limitless chaos upon the world again. / OR / God saved a remnant, a consistent theme throughout Scripture is as evil as the Empires may become, there is always hope for an individual, a couple, a family, because God will provide. But the flood and the rainbow are not about Noah, or about Creation learning their lesson, because Noah and the animals and sin all exist after the flood just as before, what changes is God! Every culture, every people throughout history have had a story of a great flood. The Babylonians claimed there was a great battle between chaos and order, between dark and light, that was the origin of life. The Iroquois Nation believed that seeds of Creation were trapped in the shell of a great sea turtle, which grew as the turtle swims to form creation and life. Skaneateles Lake is proof of there having been a flood, for at one time, this area, as well as Northern Michigan, the Mediterranean sea and North Africa each were covered by great Salt lakes growing living corral, when glaciers froze and compressed every living thing, and as they melted fresh water flooded and the corral was fossilized into Stag Horn Corral, Stove Pipe Corral and Petoskey Stones. The Greeks following Aristotle believed the Gods were “Unmovable Prime Movers” forces of creation who set the cosmos in motion, then left uninvolved, uncaring, except occasionally to enter in to torment and play with peoples' lives. One of the great Hebrew Theologians of the 20th Century Abraham Heschel claimed that the God of Scripture is “The Most Moved Mover” of all, because in this passage, God mourns, God weeps, God changes. Telling this story to our children, we make it like going to the Zoo to see the animals, we would never tell this in the gruesome horror of all the dead people and animals floating on the waters. Like the destruction of Pharaoh and Egypt after the Red Sea, this is a story of the powers of destruction. But what catches my attention and surprises me about listening to this this morning is God's Covenant. What does it mean, if the rainbow in the heavens is not simply refraction of light into a prism of colors, but God choosing to live in relationship differently? I think first, is the ancient Hebrew understanding that as big as the rainbow is, this was God's weapon of war, which God has chosen to hang up rather than pointing at the earth. God chooses that it hurts too much to fight against Creation, to hunt life, so God will not respond to our violence with violence. Second, God is choosing to accept limits so as to be in relationship with us. No one would ever volunteer to immerse themselves in feces or vomit, or sacrifice their health and sleep; but for the sake of our child we would. There comes a transition between being pronounced as married and being married where one abandons aspirations and expectations, wants and dreams, for the needs of the other. That volunteering to self-impose limits is a piece of what the Rainbow as Covenant represents. But I believe also, and I find no documentation of this anywhere else, but from the point of Beginning through this passage, when Covenants are formed, when pronouncements are made, they each have been completely from God for God. God called life Good and it was. God called life evil and chaos was unleashed. God covenanted never again to destroy, and from this point forward Covenants require a reciprocity. God's Plan B is that God will be God and we will be God's people. Abraham and Sarah will follow God. Moses will lead God's people where God leads. David will be King of God's people Israel. Throughout the Bible God has had many different plans, many Covenants, many eras of relationship. One of the pieces to remember, is that God never breaks or abandons God's Covenants. God adds to them. God unveils a different twist that we had not anticipated, but God never breaks or abandons. The same elements we discussed in Genesis, at the Beginning, and in the Flood are also here Mark's Gospel at Jesus' Baptism and Temptation. There is Evil and Human sin, there is Water, Chaos which drowns, there is the Spirit from heaven coming down, and there is God working for salvation through a remnant, One. The first day of Seminary, Professor Louis Martyn gave us an assignment. Write what you believe, everything you believe about God in Jesus Christ. Write your creed, your Statement of Faith, your Covenant, but write this as telling the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the Gospel, individual believers just like us, writing what they believe, what we believe about God, through the life of Jesus. There is nothing inconsistent between those stories from Genesis and the life of Jesus Christ. What is different, what makes this plan Z instead of Plan A or Plan B, is that while God has limitless possibilities and all things are possibilities with God, Human beings are limited, we are mortal, we make choices, and this is the fulfillment, the last best choice for us. God loves us so much, God takes on human reality and enters in to be one with us. The Gospel of Mark does not go into the detail which Matthew and Luke do, of what the Temptations of Jesus were. What I hear and read in these words are three affirmations. First, that as Jesus was Baptized he saw and heard the barrier between Heaven and Earth Ripped Open. His reality, all the rules and authorities we thought we knew are for ever changed, because the barrier between Heaven and Earth between the physical and spiritual was opened, and ripped, it can never be put back together. In Heaven Ripping Open, the Spirit of God descended not upon him, but INTO him. Second, that he was driven by this Spirit to go into the Wilderness. There is a marvelous polarity throughout that Jesus was in the Water and went to the Desert, The Spirit came into him and he was Tempted by the Devil, he dwelt among wild beasts and angels waited upon him. But the point is not that he went into any retreat, just any desert, Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 cycles, just as Moses and the People of Israel had come through 40 years in the wilderness, facing temptations, living with wild beasts and discerning who is God, so did Jesus. But finally, that in his Baptism, Jesus received on behalf of all humanity “You are Beloved! You are the Child of God!” Plan Z is that God has chosen to rip open all the barriers between us and to love us unconditionally.