Coming Upon Lent

March 5, 2017 First Sunday of Lent Year B Coming Upon Lent Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 Easter comes a little late this year. But no matter how late Easter is, lent always comes upon my unexpected. I am never to start lent, and every year I am faced with that proverbial question, what am I doing for lent. What am I going to give up for lent. I was surprised that the host of Windy City Live were having this conversation on Ash Wednesday- about what to give up for lent. Each of them named a bad habit they were going to give up.they decided that whomever did the forbidden activity for the next 40 days had to put money in the jar. They even argued about how much money was appropriate. So apparently it has become a social statement to give something up for lent. But what struck me was that even though they were talking about it, they were all totally ignorant about the meaning and point on lent. Life is not so simple. Not one of them even made a promise to change their behavior. They all admitted that they would probably fail, so the charity that was going to get the money was going to do well. Because all they had to do was to put money in the jar. No reflection, no self discipline, and more importantly, no relationship to God. God doesn’t want our money, or our guilt. And giving up something for lent is symbolic. God wants our hearts. When Easter comes we should be changed, transformed but more importantly much closer to God. I was going to give up sugar for lent, but after watching that episode on Windy City Live – I decided that rather than worrying about a symbolic act – to open my heart and to invite the spirit to come and live with me for 40 days. To work with me, challenge me but to stay close enough for us to be friends in the days to come. So I thought that this morning I would have us look at the scripture from Genesis this morning. On the first Sunday of Lent I usually focus on the gospel of Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days as an example. But I thought that Genesis has a deeper message on who we are as people, why we have those bad habits, and important lessons about what lent is all about. If you are going to give up something for lent – have the power to give it up. Genesis teaches us about an important concept to prevent us from having to keep money jars around all month- it teaches us about temptation. Of course what tempts us is very different. But with the things that tempt us, we know that there is always a chance that we will give in, or else it would be a temptation. But our faith teaches us that we always have the power to overcome. Genesis starts with the story of God creating Adam, and teaching him to care for the rest of creation. God instructions were to Adam not Eve, It was Adam who passed the information onto Eve. I make that distinction because in our popular telling of the story – we blame Eve and think of Adam as just going along. But I digress. My point is that the story starts with Adam having a direct relationship with God, he was so close to God that they could have a conversation about life. About his purpose, and even about the consequences of his actions. He tells him that he is to till the land, that he is to enjoy the fruits of his labor, he is free to do whatever he pleases. God puts one boundary on that freedom – don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil or you will die. God wants us to be free, to be happy, to enjoy life. But in order to do that, God knows that in order to have true freedom, there has to be some boundaries around that freedom. There has to be some context around our freedom in order for it to have meaning. We have been hosting a class from Garrett at our church this semester, and one of the things that professor taught us was that the word religio – the word that religion comes from means to fence in. Religion fences in our freedom so that we can enjoy use it and enjoy it. It helps us to be in control of our lives, instead of our lives being in control of us. God put Adam in control of the land and creation. The first words of our text says that God took the human and settled him in the garden of eden to farm and to take care of it. God continues to order his creation. The text shows that God took man, God commanded, God said. God knew what God was doing and God did it. We know how the story goes, one day a serpent comes and talks with the woman and questions everything that God has done and said. Did God really say that? Did God really mean that? The serpent goes as far as to take the boundaries off of God’s freedom. You wont die! As a matter of fact, says that serpent, God knows that if you eat of the tree of knowledge that you will be just like God, knowing good from evil. And that has been our problem every since the beginning – once the boundaries have been broken down in our lives, we want what God has. We want to be God in our lives and in the lives of all of creation. There is an ancient story about the time God was confronted by a man who argued, “ It is easy for you God. You tell us we must do this and we cant do that. “What do you know of the struggles of people like me? You are God. It is easy for you. But God argued, insisting that being God was no picnic either. You only have to look after your own little self, said God. I have to look after the entire world, and it is not easy. As a matter of fact, just to show you, I’ll change places with you for 24 hours. You will see then. So God gave the man one day to see what a hard job it is to run the world. Twenty four hours later, God returned and said, You see? It wasn’t as easy as you thought. Then God prepared to be God once more. But the man wouldn’t give God back his power. He found he liked playing God. That is why the world is as it is today, so the legend goes. You will notice in this story the serpent did not have any power in this story. All he did was question God and that was enough to get Eve going. To tearing down those boundaries and wanting to be free from what God had taught her. God has already given them control of the land and creation, but she wanted to be in control of God’s commandments – do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. She didn’t eat the fruit because it tasted good- but because it would make her equal to God – or so she thought. Usually when we give in to temptation and do those forbidden things, we are not happier. We are more miserable. Eve and Adam did not die immediately, but life was a lot harder for them. There is a reason that God has put a fence around our freedom. It is not freedom that makes us happy, it is freedom in the context of boundaries. It is freedom that can be channeled, guided, informed, and used that makes us happy. And if we continue to look at the text. Eve and Adam did not die. As a matter of fact life went on for them. They even gained the knowledge of good and evil, but once they attained the knowledge, they were forced to use it. They put on fig leaves and were put out of the garden of eden forever to live their lives with the knowledge that they had been given. I believe that this is a story of life as it is, and not as it should be. In other words – Idont think that this is a story of what would have happen if Eve and Adam had lived in the garden forever. God knew that they would fail, God knew that they would not remain innocent forever, God knew that they would sin and have to live with the consequences of their decisions. No matter how familiar the story – there is always something that we can learn that will help us in our lives today. The lesson that I learned this lent season from the story of Adam and Eve is that alongside the tree of knowledge was also –planted right to it the tree of life. God did not forbid them from eating the fruit of the tree of life. The tree of knowledge God said brought death, but the tree of life bought life, strength, common sense, joy, fulfillment, true understanding. Everything that you needed in order to live the life God intended. God always gives us a choice, and life is about the choices that we make. If we decide to do wrong, we can also decide to do right. When we are faced with temptation we also have the tools we need to resist our temptation. We don’t need to put out money jars for lent- because if we can decide to do wrong, we have the power to decide to do right. As a matter of fact, the prophetic story was about man and woman making the wrong decision, the gospel story was about Jesus in the face of temptation having the power to so no. to resist temptation. To keep the boundaries of his faith, his connection to God, his focus on life – not death. That is our task this Lenten season, not to worry about giving something up. But to repair the fences in our faith that life has torn down. To look at our relationship with God and to shut down all those extraneous voices and to listen only to God. Let us turn now to the deeper meaning of this passage. At that level it is of course no longer speaking of something that happened long ago, but addressing life in the present. It shows us “man” confronted with a choice: “You may freely eat...”, “You shall not eat...” “Man” can either work for God and find happiness and freedom in serving him, or he can go his own way thinking he knows all there is to know, and live with the inevitable consequences. This is the most fundamental choice that any of us is ever called upon to face, the choice between God and ourselves, between real freedom and the illusion of it, between Paradise and Hell, between life and death. It is our choice and our choice only. God cannot interfere, otherwise it is not a genuine choice. But how anxious he is that we make the right choice, how devastated when we make the wrong one! There is an ancient legend of the cypress Tree of Life. It tells that when Adam was dying, he sent Seth to the Garden of Eden to fetch him some Oil of Mercy. Seth could not release the oil, no matter how much Seth begged, but the guardian angel gave Seth instead a sprig, or seed, from the Tree of Life, which he as told to plant upon his father’s grave. When Adam died, Seth did as the angel had said. From that seed grew a tree which, years later, gave Moses the wood for his wonder-working rod. Later the tree was cut down and cast away. As a rejected tree, it was picked up and used . . . to fashion the cross on which Jesus was crucified. It was truly the Tree of Life. He is truly the way, and the truth, and the life. There is something so very curious about the man from Galilee. He has captivated the imaginations of people throughout twenty centuries. He transcends time and place, culture and custom, race and language. Something there is in Him that always speaks clearly to us. We see it throughout the gospels, everywhere He went, in everything He said and did. Son of God and Son of Man, we know He became one of us. While He is the answer to all our struggles, we see Him struggling with the things He faced. And, as He finds the way for Himself He finds the way for us as well… Temptation: Just Don’t Look A pastor once told his congregation, "I learned a great lesson from a dog." He said, "His master used to put a bit of meat or a biscuit or some kind of food on the ground, and he'd say to the dog, 'Don't eat that,' and the dog would run over and eat it, so he'd hit the dog. And he put another piece of meat on the ground. He'd say, 'Don't eat that.' The dog would go over and eat it, and he hit him again. Well, after awhile, the dog got the message: eat meat, get hit. So the dog decided he wouldn't eat the meat." But the man telling the story related how that the dog never looked at the meat. The dog evidently felt that if he looked at the meat, the temptation to disobey would be too great, and so he looked steadfastly into his master's face and never took his eyes off him, and thus the temptation never caused a problem. John Macarthur, How to Overcome Temptation An overzealous preacher felt it was his calling to aggressively "make" people become Christians as they would ride on the city bus system. One day a man who was obviously intoxicated stumbled onto the bus that the preacher was on. The preacher sprang into action and shook his Bible in the face of the inebriated man and yelled, "Did you know you're headed for Hell?" And the drunk replied, "Oh, no, I'm on the wrong bus again!" Even worse, many of us are unwilling to take responsibility for our transgressions. And since we refuse to take responsibility, we make the same mistakes time and time again. We are like Adam blaming Eve for their transgression, and Eve blaming the serpent. Two men were watching a western on television. As the hero rode on horseback toward the edge of a cliff, one man said, “I bet you $50 he goes over the cliff.” “You’re on,” said the other man. The hero rode on straight over the cliff. Being a sportsman, the second handed over the money. The first man looked at it and said, “I feel guilty about winning this. I’ve seen this film before.” “So have I,” said his friend, “but I didn’t think that cowboy would be stupid enough to make the same mistake again.” The first step in dealing with sin is to take responsibility for it. Quit doing the same stupid thing over and over again. The lines have at last met. If when we try to restate the meaning of this story in modern terms, everything is not as neat and tidy as we would like, that is because of the story form. It is removing to the past and concentrating on an uncomplicated pastoral stage what is in fact the root cause of this whole complicated universe’s present misery. That root cause is the strange mixture of ability and arrogance, of success and failure, of hope and remorse, of knowledge and guilt which is human sin. It has set an unbridgeable gulf between the human race and its Father in heaven—a gulf at any rate unbridgeable from its side.

When We See Rainbows

“What do we see when we see rainbows?”
Genesis 9:8-17
1 Peter 3:18-22
Year B
First Sunday of Lent

My favorite song about rainbows is the Muppet movie – where Kermit sings, why are there so many songs about rainbows. The rainbow connection is a wonderful song about love, beauty, and a belief that one day we will all live in harmony. I think that is what rainbows mean for many of us – harmony and living together.

And Kermit was singing a question that people have asked since the beginning of time. What is it that fascinate about us about rainbows. Almost every culture in the world has created songs and myths of why rainbows are in the sky.

The aboriginal people in Australia believe that in dream time – the time of the creation of the world- that the rainbow serpent created everything. The native Americans believe that the great father used a rainbow to create the world.

The canannites believed that the rainbow was a sign of war. The rainbow was God’s bow that he laid in the sky to signify that he was prepared to fight and that there would be war and fighting somewhere in the world.

Actually this is the story that Noah and his generation would have grown up with. Their God Yahweh was a war God, and he protected them by winning battles. The bow was a sign of his strength and his ability to defeat others.

Rainbows did not give you a warm fuzzy feeling of harmony – but it scared you, worried you . In those days,you took it as a sign that things were about to get serious. And you needed to be prepared.

Perhaps it was this feeling of something bad to come that made Noah start building the ark. We know the story from here – of Noah building the ark and gathering his family and all of the animals and sailing the world – as God destroyed everything in a great flood.

We tell that story on the first Sunday of lent because our theme for the next six weeks will be the promises of God. God made some very important promises to the fathers of faith in the Hebrew bible. His first promise to us was in the form of a rainbow.

I think it is interesting that the Noah story is in the book of Genesis. In the scheme of things, this is a part of the original creation story. As soon as the world was created and man came to understand their place in creation, man started to ruin creation with sin. Within a few years, man was out of control, doing what we wanted, destroying what we wanted, totally oblivious to ourselves and to the world and to the one who created us in God’s image.

Not knowing what else to do, but to kill us and start all over again. We get the story of Noah and the flood. Since this story has come up already twice in one year – I want to save this story to tell you for another time, but there is a wonderful midrash about Noah having to leave his friends behind, and crying as he had to watch them die in the flood, while he and his family was safe in the ark.

Obviously, after the flood was over, - Noah must have shared his grief with God. He must have defended his friends, even though they did not care about their relationship with God- they were still people, they still has a life, they still were wonderful friends, and they did not deserve to die – without a chance to know why they were being destroyed, and particularly without a chance to change.

God agreed – and put a rainbow in the sky – explaining that what was once an ominous sign – is now a sign of hope. God’s promise was not only to Noah, not only to people, it was a promise to all of creation. Scripture says “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and all your descendents after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals.

Speaking of rainbows, we have all heard that leprechauns had access the pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow. I bet you didn’t know that the legend actually says that the only person who can get the gold at the end of the rainbow is a man in the nude. Not relevant to the story - but I thought it was a story that would wake you up.

But anyway – the big point of our scripture is that this promise is not just to us – to all flesh. God does not care about us, but about all of flesh.

Lent is about us learning to love the things that God loves, and getting in touch with all of life, to not be so concerned about our needs, but the needs of all of the things that are important to God.

I think that is the importance of this story of destruction being so close to the story of creation. The sin that God was concerned about eliminating was us developing our lives outside of nature. We have developed and eat foods which are made in a laboratory and not in the ground, we drive cars, and live in houses which are destroying the environment. We use everyday products with no regard for how others are affected by those products. I learned this year that there is a garbage heap the size of Texas swirling around in the Altantic Ocean – this heap is filled with water bottles and other debris that people just carelessly through away with no regard for where they end up.

How does God get our attention, and help us realize that our actions are wrong, hurtful and need to be changed? God’s first promise to all flesh was that we would never be destroyed for our wrongdoing.

Lent is a chance for us to think about our actions and how they affect others. A chance for us to put our relationship with God first again, and to remember to care about the things that God cares about. To think about how we are connected to all flesh, and all nature. And even in our modern day living - to take that relationship seriously.

God made a promise to us – what promises have we made to God in return.

On Ash Wednesday, I talked about lent in tough times. The economy is forcing many of us into a period of self denial and reflection already – that goes far beyond the 40 days of lent.

If we are in self denial – how to we impose even more self denial? Lent is about self denial – but it is also about relationship, about promises, about grace, and about our response to grace.

Lent is a promise that darkness will turn into light, that death will turn into life, that winter will turn into spring, that tough times will turn into happy times.

It is God’s ways of getting our attention, of reminding us that our lives have been spared, a request that when things finally do change, that you change too. It is God’s request that you not return to the old habits, the hurtful ways, the insensitivity to how you actions were affecting others. That when good times return – that you will be a better person because of it.

I don’t know what you have planned for the lent season- whatever you do – all God asks is that you learn something. Something about yourself, something about the world, something about God, Something about God’s plan for you.

My favorite rainbow story is the Norse belief that a rainbow is the bridge between heaven and earth. The only ones who can cross the bridge are the righteous. I also bet you didn’t know that no one can see the same rainbow. A rainbow – a reflection is only visible in the eye of the beholder – it is not something that you can reach out and touch in reality.

So the rainbow that I see if not the rainbow that you see – or you see. It is God’s gift to each of us, and God speaks to each of us in many different ways.
During this Lenten season – look for your rainbows, and know that God’s words for you are not far behind.

Let us pray….