Of floods and rainbows

Lent 1 year B Sermon 

Title slide

In every life… there is a flood…sometimes more than one…
a time of crisis…when it feels like we’re drowning
in despair …or loneliness or tears…

Sometimes we bring these floods on ourselves…
through our own carelessness… or selfishness…
and sometimes the deluge… is entirely outside our control…

Others abuse or abandon or betray us

Or death takes the ones we love

Or as we remembered this week…the destructive forces of the earth’s crust…flood our cities with liquefaction and lost dreams…

Blank slide

If we’re blessed with loving parents…
when we’re young…those who look after us
will want to protect us from the crises of of life’s floods
as long as they can…

But one day we will find… the waters rising around us…
because these floods are an inevitable part of life…

And when they happen the question arises for us…
what will we cling to…how will we keep our head above water…keep on breathing…what sort of emotional and spiritual life raft…do we have…
where we can find the strength to hold on

One of the privileges of ministry… is that I get to go through these floods with people…death and dying…financial difficulties…relationship problems…

nine years ago right after we called her to  Eldership in this church…Lynda Gregg went through two great floods one after the other…first her brother committed suicide and then a few months later Lynda’s husband Johnny was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. Johnny died a year later.

I told her that today I’d be asking her to share how she kept from going under at that time…so Lynda come up here for a moment and lets talk about it.

What did you cling to at the time…

How did you handle doubt and disappointment

Thank you Lynda [Lynda goes back to her seat]

Rainbow slide

We know that the account of Noah’s flood…
is an ancient story shared by the peoples of the middle east. First appearing in the ancient creation myths of Babylon gathered in what they called the Enuma Elish

These stories like their creation poem and their version of the great flood…would have needed careful reinterpretion…
by the Jewish exiles in captivity in Babylon…

in light of what they knew… of a loving a faithful God.

I imagine there were many devastating natural events… floods and earthquakes
which people thought would truly destroy the world they knew. But the stories of the Hebrew people always served to reassure them… the bad times would not last forever …God’s rainbow would remind them God’s promises could be trusted.

Mt Damavand near Tehran in Iran

I imagine the original Babylonian story teller was a mountain climber who lived a few thousand years ago… in what became the Persian Empire

One day in the clear thin air near the top of beautiful
Mt Damavand about 2 hours northeast of Tehran
our ancient climber is kicking little stones off the path

up the mountain as you do… and notices a few cockle shells lying around…Curious…he picks one up….

Shell slide

Holy maloly… the only thing the climber can think of
is that this mountain he’s standing on
has once been underwater! Good grief!

When the mountaineer’s discovery…becomes hot news on the Babylonian bush telegraph…
some explanation has to be found.

Of course they know nothing about the upward movement of the earth’s crust and the grinding of techtonic plates
that causes mountains to form…where once were only shallow seas

our storyteller begins to weave a tale consistent with the regions beliefs  about the god’s…
and their attitudes to human beings.

Gilgamesh slide

And what we know as the
Epic of Gilgamesh is created…

Once upon a time the story goes…the gods found they couldn’t sleep …because of all the noise… created by human beings… so looking down in anger from their lofty heights the gods decide to drown every last human on earth!

But one guy named Utnapishtim is warned by a god who likes him…this god suggest he lies to his neighbours…
so they’ll help him build a boat.

The lie works a treat and finally Utnapishtim is able to bring his family… all their valuables… and many animals onto the boat… to keep them safe when the water starts to rise.

When they rain stops they send out a dove which returns, then a swallow which returns, and finally a raven which does not return…

The survivors make an offering of some wine and a sheep and the gods argue about what to do next. In the end the gods decide to bestow immortality upon Utnapishtim and his wife who become like the gods create fourteen completely brand new human beings to repopulate the earth…

But there’s no reason to suspect this whole catastrophe couldn’t happen again…
so for heaven sake keep the noise down!

Well naturally the exiles from Israel have to come up
with a version of the story which is true to their understanding of a loving God –


who created the earth and all that’s in it…to be good… and wishes no harm to humans and beasts.
 

Ark slide
And this is where Noah comes in…

The ancient Hebrew people also have no idea about the way in mountains are created and how long it takes…

and they do have to acknowledge that there are shells up there on the mountains…

but in their adaption of the story …
it’s human lies and human violence and human greed
that brings God to the end of his tether…

In the Hebrew attempt to understand how sea shells got there…God says decides to start the whole creation project over again with the one righteous man God can find
and his sons and their wives…

secure in their boat…the rains come and the waters rise…
and eventually when the sun starts to shine…they send out a raven which returns, then a dove which returns the second time with an olive branch, and flies away…

Noah and his family make an offering of clean animals and birds…and God makes a covenant with Noah and the animals and promises never to destroy all life again
with such a flood…

Rainbow slide

You see the ancient Hebrew people say…
we don’t know how to explain those sea shells either
except but for a flood …
but you can bet  your boots on one thing…it’s never going to happen again… because of God’s covenant with us!

And the sign of that covenant
the sign of hope we can cling to…
when we fear the worst is upon us…
the sign of hope is the rainbow.

God doesn’t want us to fear him. Yes human beings
continue to be dishonest and violent and greedy…
but we know one thing…for sure…
our God’s promises never fail!

Our God’s promises never fail!  Not only is God with us…God is for us…

Cross and Rainbow

Today you and I live in the Messianic Age…
and we have seen in Jesus Christ…
just how much God loves us…

enough to suffer and die
rather than strike back and destroy us…
when the foulest provocation…the worst pain imaginable
couldn’t make the Son of God retaliate…

and so for us as Christians
the cross is just as much a symbol of hope… as the rainbow.

Signs that give oppressed and suffering people all over the world…the strength to dream…of the Shalom of God.
A time when every tear shall be wiped away there shall be peace and wellbeing for all humankind.

It’s coming is God’s promise and God’s everlasting covenant with every living creature on the earth.

It is this hope to which we cling…
in the floods and the earthquakes of life… [pause]

A hope…which must shape everything we do and say.

This hope is what really matters and the world is waiting to hear it proclaimed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Mount Iron slide

And here beneath the shadow of Mt Iron
as we journey toward Easter through the forty days of Lent
we enter a time in the church calendar
which calls us to confession and repentance
of every affront to the Shalom of God in our own lives and in the life of our nation

A time to expose our values and our beliefs and our attitudes
to the light of the rainbow and the empty cross…

A time to set things right with God and with others

And in our own turn… to be beacons truth and courage…for our community…to be signs of resurrection life…

living symbols of
God’s promised future… coming toward us.