Lent 1-Feb. 21, 2021

 February 21, 2021 Lent 1 The Rev. Mark Pendleton Christ Church, Exeter 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 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. 11 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." 12 God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." 17 God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth." Genesis 9:8-17 Normally, you and I are probably pretty excited when we get an invitation in the mail. It is a usually a happy event. We may have been invited to a wedding, or baby shower, graduation ceremony or baptism reception. Especially now, it would be wonderful to get an invitation to something - anything - so we would have a happening to look forward to after months and months of not a whole lot going on. And then there is another kind of invitation that goes out each year that may be not be received with the same level of enthusiasm and expectation. It goes out each Ash Wednesday and begins: "I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church... to the observance of a Holy Lent." First, I would not be the first person to comment that because of the year we all have experienced, did we ever leave last year's Lent? It was one year ago when the world learned that Covid-19 was in fact a whole lot more serious than the flu. Borders closed. Lockdowns began. I remember our bishop mid-March last year urged us to fast from public worship - to give up gathering together - and we all know how long that has lasted to keep the most vulnerable safe. Easter Day I vaguely remember, for it was the early days of our Zoom worship. My wife Leslie decorated the room was brightly colored paper we brought back from our sabbatical in Mexico. But the rest of the days have been heavy on wilderness and exile to the point of almost wearing out those Biblical metaphors and states of being. Nevertheless, I believe God knows what God is directing for us to enter yet again a time and place of spiritual searching and longing. Back to the invitation: "I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church." The words are direct and formal. They have the ring of a royal or state proclamation: 'hear ye, hear ye." Then, what follows: that we are invited to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word." We might be forgiven if we thought: I'd rather have gotten any other invitation than a Lenten invitation. For this Lenten Invite sounds pretty serious and sounds like hard work. To pick up again on a theme for this year: we are pilgrims setting out for a destination that is measured more on how far we journey within our souls than the miles we might walk. The sacred place we long to visit may be right in front us: our lives, examined through God's eyes, leading us closer to loving and knowing ourselves as much as God does. That my friends, is a journey worth taking again and again. The work of Lent can be a gift and it can be hard: let's not sugarcoat it. After all, the model for these weeks is the wilderness we read about in the gospels. From Mark's gospel we hear: The Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. As you and I journey again through this season as a way to prepare for Easter Resurrection, we will be reminded again and again how God has promised to be bless creation and show up in the lives of those God has made. In the passage we hear today from Genesis, we hear again of this everlasting covenant. This is God doing some post-Flood clean-up with humanity. We know from the story that the first round of creation didn't turn out as God had hoped, with the Garden of Eden ending abruptly with Paradise Lost. In perhaps for the first Bible story children ever hear: God chose a massive world-wide flood as a divine Do-Over to set things right - saving Noah's family and all the animals who walked two-by-two onto the arc. That would be God's last act to punish on a global scale. God says: "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." (v. 10-11) 'Never again' were the words that God spoke. God would never take the destruction path again. A bow in the sky that followed the rain would be the sign of God's promise. We too can respond to God's 'Never again' as we live as people of hope -- to build up more than we destroy, to heal more than we break, and the lift up more than we ever tear down. 'Never again' can be spoken in response to war, poverty, refugee crisis, famine, and mass shootings - not to be naïve about the possibilities they may happen again, but to join with God to imagine and work towards a better way into the future. We can leave the judgment to God - what to do with the wicked and the corrupt and the evil and the fallen. Our work is not to judge but to live more fully into the promise of our lives. We respond to the Covenant by working, with God's help, to name and renounce what is evil, to overcome racism, to elect political leaders who speak out before genocide begins, and to once again listen to welcome with compassion and order those most persecuted who reach our shores and borders. For each person we encounter along the way is to us Christ: those who are hungry, those who thirst, those who are captive. What we learn from this story in Genesis is that unlike God, we don't have the power to wipe away all the things we don't like about the world and start over. We don't have the option of walking away, for this is the only life we have. Yet we are given a way to change. The church calls that repentance. And the 40 days of Lent is a pretty reliable way to try it on. When a number of our congregation gathered on Zoom in early June last year to process the events around the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, we accepted an invitation to do three things in no particular order. Learn. Pray. Act. If we are going to take something on this Lent that is good for our souls, I commend these three. Learn more about the faith that we have been called to. Find time to pray, even for a few quiet moments a day. You will benefit more than you know. And Act - using your gifts and voice. Do something that responds to the Covenant God has made with us. Even Jesus left the wilderness after 40 days. It does not last forever. After 40 days the rain stopped. The flood receded. And a rainbow appeared. There is always hope. 2