“Everlasting Covenant, Part II”

Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16

Rev. Dr. Marisa Laviola

First Congregational Church,

United Church of Christ

Morrisville, VT

 

             This, our second look at God’s everlasting covenant with God’s people, is no rainbow in the sky promise.  This covenant is not made with all of creation, every animal, bird, and sea creature.  This covenant is more personal.  This covenant calls intimately by name; this covenant speaks to two people.  This covenant also has far reaching blessings. But this covenant is more outlandish and improbable than any rainbow in the sky covenant can ever be.

             Abram is 99 years old!  And Sarai is not that far behind him!  God is telling them that as they approach the century mark, they have new names that signify a whole new level of maturity.  Abram becomes Abraham, meaning the father of a multitude.  Sarai becomes Sarah, meaning noble woman.  And then God tells them, in their newfound maturity at 99 years old, that they will be chasing around a toddler!  Outlandish!  Improbable!  What is God thinking? 

             This isn’t the first time that God has spoken with Abram.  God first speaks with Abram back in chapter 12 and has been traveling with Abram and Sarai ever since.  If we were to read the chapters preceding our lectionary text for today, we would read a story that begins with Abram and Sarai being called by God to leave all they know, all that is familiar, and all the security that goes with familiarity; to leave their home, their land, the gods of their forebears; and to follow this God who calls them by name and who speaks with them personally.  And they follow this God who is so intimately involved in their lives and who gives them such clear direction. 

             Nice story, but what does it have to do with us?  We certainly hope that God does not call us away from our homes and security and expect us to raise a child when we’re ninety something!  We certainly pray for a God who speaks to us intimately and personally, who calls us by name, who guides us wherever we go.

             It may help to put this story in context.  Most of the book of Genesis was written by several writers during the exile of the Hebrew people to Babylon in the 6^th century BCE, who brought together ancient traditions about the origins of God’s people.  The first eleven chapters of Genesis are referred to as the “Primeval Saga” or the story of the human family in the earliest age, beginning with the creation story and ending with the rainbow after the flood.  They are a prequel to the story of the people of Israel, which begins with Abram and Sarai.

             The writers of today’s story of Abram and Sarai were attempting to do something for these exiled people that all of us need when we feel lost and alone.  They were reminding them of their story, of their family and faith history.  A reminder that tells them, yes, in fact, God had made an everlasting covenant with the people, beginning with their forebears of faith.  That they had origins of a family of faith that began with God calling them by name.  That no matter how many difficulties their family had come through, no matter how much conflict, no matter how many squabbles, no matter how much loss, no matter what mess they’d made of their lives, God is still with them. They can recall their past; they can recall the promises made by God, even though their present circumstances tell them the opposite.  No matter how much conflict and struggle in their human hearts have brought them to the place of exile, their God is still with them.  That covenant is so very personal:  no matter where they are, God is there also.            

             So what does the covenant between God and Abram and Sarai have to do with us?  Can we ever imagine God calling us to outlandish improbabilities?  I can recall one such time back in 2001.  We were quite busy raising our very young daughters.  I was quite settled in as a psychologist.  And God came knocking.  “What, God?  Ordained ministry?  I thought we settled that years ago.”  Twelve years before I had thought that God was calling me into ordained ministry, but then realized that the call at that point was to lay ministry and clinical psychology.  But here God and I were again.  “But God, I have two little girls to raise.  I don’t have the money or the time“. . . .and here I am.

             Can we relate to the exiled people of Israel who needed the reminder of God’s everlasting covenant despite their feeling lost and alone?  When I miss my father, who died just 3 years ago, I am comforted by memories of him from childhood and throughout adulthood, and the rich culture of my extended Italian family--because no matter how challenging extended Italian families can be, they can also bring a rich blessing.

             Covenant.  It’s a promise.  And sometimes a seemingly implausible and outlandish one.  It’s timeless, eternal, everlasting.

             Covenant. It points to the past with remembrances of promises kept, footsteps shared, lives entwined in Godly grace and guidance.  As we look to the past, we can say, “aha, God has been with us. “ 

             Covenant.  It points to the future with promise into the unknown.  It’s hard to believe in, to keep living into.  Especially when the promise seems outlandish.

             Covenant.  It can be alive in the present, with the beat of every heart, living into every new promise, every call of a new name, every invitation into increasing faith maturity.  It’s alive because it is in the grip of past, present, and future; it is in the Divine grip of outlandish and improbable expectation. 

             What are your faith stories of Covenant?  How has God called each of us by name?  Personally?  As a church family? 

             How far back do we look back?  200 years?  10 years?  5 years? 1 year?  How do we share those stories of Covenant?  What helps us to recall?  What gets in the way?  What of God’s promises do we need reminders? 

             What gets in the way of holding onto these promises in the present?  What promises can we live into the present even now?  What gets in the way?

             What is God calling us into for the future?  What outlandish, improbable covenant is God calling us to?  To acknowledge gifts that God has given each of us that we don‘t imagine for ourselves?  To celebrate these gifts and to share them with the joy of gift giving?  To stretch beyond what we think is humanly possible?  Perhaps to deeper and wider ministry and mission for this church?  Perhaps to forgive those we cannot imagine forgiving? Perhaps to tolerate people and ideas we find intolerable? Perhaps to reconcile in areas we fear have no reconciliation? Perhaps to answer the call of God to healing and wholeness?   Whatever God calls us to in our present and into our future that seems humanly impossible, we can rest assured that all can happen through God’s outlandish possibilities.

             My friends, we are still early in the Lenten season.  We are coming into the heart of the Lenten season.  What does each of us need to do to examine the nature of our own covenant with God?  What faith practices do we need--to be intimately involved with God?  God spoke directly and clearly to Abram and Sarai so that they knew God intimately, heard God’s voice clearly, heeded God’s direction surely.  Can we dare to believe, can we dare to outlandishly believe that we can know God so intimately?  Hear God’s voice so clearly?  Receive God’s direction so surely?

             Such examination requires gentleness.  Such examination requires diligence.  Such examination requires meeting our hearts with the heart of God who seeks us with gentleness and diligence.  Such examination requires a seed of faith as we the family of God recall God’s promises of the past and celebrate God’s steadfast and eternal presence through every trial and tribulation.  Such examination requires a seed of faith as we the family of God live into God’s promises of the present, intimately with us throughout every human strain and struggle of daily living.  Such examination requires a seed of faith as we the family of God look ahead to God’s promises for the future, as sure as the rainbow in the sky; as sure as calling our names for sacred gift and untold ministry; as sure as resurrection on Easter morning

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everlasting Covenant, Part I

Genesis 9:8-17

Rev. Dr. Marisa Laviola

First Congregational Church,

United Church of Christ

March 1, 2009

 

             Covenant.  We’ve all made them.  We’ve made covenants with our spouses on our wedding day.  We’ve made covenants with our birth, adopted, or foster children when we have welcomed them into our family.  We as a church family have made covenants with children and adults alike during baptism and when these precious ones have joined as members of the church.  Covenants can be unconditional, like the covenant to love someone no matter what they say and do, even if we do not approve of their words or behavior.  We may have experienced such when a beloved child veers off the path that we envisioned for him or her.  Or when a relative or friend drifts away from us.  Covenants can be provisional; ones that say, I will do this for you if you do this for me.  Such is a mutual covenant, with spousal partners, for example.  Covenants help us to know who we are and to whom we belong.  Covenants help us to know of whom we are a part--to feel secure in our relationships.  We also make covenants with the earth and the creatures on it, to protect and to preserve, for our good and the good of future generations.  Covenants are made.  Covenants are sustained.  Covenants are broken. Broken relational covenants through abuse, divorce, or death bring much pain. 

             Many people have shared with me over the years that when relational covenants have been broken, new and existing covenants with friends, neighbors, family, and church families, can be the balm of soothing and healing.  When we break our covenant with the earth, we all suffer through pollution of water, land, and air; and the pain of species driven to extinction.  As we turn back to such covenant, we can again sustain the planet and the creatures upon it, for all of our good into the many generations yet to come.

             During Lent our readings will say much about the relationship, the covenant, between us and God. Today's story is the first example in our Scriptures in which God initiates covenant, not only with human beings, but with all creatures on the earth.  At first we may wonder about this covenant.  After all, as the story goes, it came just after God destroyed every living being on earth, save a handful of humans, animals two by two, birds that could gather on the ark, and sea creatures. Perhaps if we look at this story not so much for its historical accuracy,  perhaps if we look at this story as the faith story of our ancient ancestors of faith, we can glean some understanding of what God might have been offering here with this covenant. 

             These early chapters of Genesis have marvelously diverse images of a God who on the one hand tenderly walks in the garden with Adam and Eve at evening time, and yet on the other hand orders the destruction of practically all living things in the wake of sin and wickedness. It may help to know that most of the first six chapters of Genesis, from the creation story, to the fall of Adam and Eve, to the story of Cain and Abel, to the grieving of God for a people going wild in violence and wanton behavior, to the flood, were written many centuries later.  They were written during a time when the Hebrew people were in exile in Babylon.  They had no land, no nation, and believed very much that they found themselves in exile because God was punishing them for their sins.  Our ancestors in faith were a people without a home, believing that they were cut off from covenant with their God.  Our ancestors in faith believed very much that if they would have served God in the right way, they would have defeated their enemies in Babylon.  Our ancestors in faith saw themselves as a warrior people, and believed their God to be a warrior God who met violence with violence, who punished disobedience with banishment and violence. 

And yet, they struggled with this belief.  In our reading for today the first thought that occurs to God after the flood is a resolution never again to "curse the ground because of humankind...nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done."  They struggle with a God who creates humankind, walks with humankind in a garden and then casts out those same humans when they disobey.  They struggle with a God who is so grieved by human violence and wanton behavior that God just says, forget this experiment.  I might as well start all over, maybe.  In just a few verses we see a God of wide extremes:  destruction of practically every creature on the planet vs. a covenant to hang in there with every creature on the planet no matter what.  We could imagine that this God is a reflection of the human beings of faith who were trying to make sense of their existence in a large and scary world.  We could imagine that the actions of this God are reflections of these people of faith who were trying to make sense of the role of the Divine in their lives of violence, wanton behavior, and repentance and wanting to come back.  It is significant that in their faith struggle, they arrive at a God of forgiveness and unconditional covenant. The God to whom the psalmist cries in our psalm for today, "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul, O my God, in you I trust," "All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness." 

             The text for today is about unconditional covenant and about unconditional relationship. It is about God speaking to the people of Israel, even in exile, that God is still with them.  But it is much more than that.    This covenant, this beautiful moment of reconciliation and peace, is a universal one with all peoples and with nature itself, all living creatures. The blessing is for all, a renewal of the blessing at the time of creation. “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." 

             At the beginning of our Lenten journey, how does this God of covenant speak to us about covenantal relationship:  with God, with each other, with the earth and with all living creatures?  We could write our own faith story about creation, God’s intimate walk with us, our turning away from God through mistrust for God’s care and concern.  We could write our own faith story about trying to understand the violence and wanton behavior today that harms people and relationships, that abuses power, that ignores the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves, that ignores stewardship over the planet and its creatures.  We could write our own faith story about how we imagine God’s response:  as a punishing God, as a God who ignores our plight in this world, as a God who struggles with us.  I think what we see in our story for today is a God who struggles.  A God who is not sure what to do with the extremes of this world:  the extremes of human sin and human goodness, the extremes of love and indifference, the extremes of power over and power with, the extremes of creativity and destructiveness:  perhaps the same struggles that we experience deep within our own hearts.   

             God’s solution to the problem is to covenant with us unconditionally, to hang in there with us no matter what, to provide hope and reconciliation in the face of such struggles.  What is our response to God’s solution?  What do we need in order to be in right relationship with God, with the earth, and with all peoples? What vision of reconciliation might we hold out to the world, as people of faith?    

             And that may strike just the right tone for our time of Lenten ponderings, for our time of individual and collective prayer and discernment. The world does not encourage us to tend to our inner spiritual life, in fact, it does everything it can to distract us from such efforts. So such ponderings and prayer need to be intentional.  If Lent inspires us to focus our energy and attention on our relationship with God, perhaps we will indeed draw closer to God, and when Lent is over, we'll want to stay in this new place. Or perhaps we will discover that we have made room for God right where we are.

             Concentrating on the gift of covenant is a good way to begin. That's what the psalmist does: the psalmist remembers God's steadfast love "from of old," not just in the psalmist’s own lifetime. Such gift is a deep, inner-life, close-relationship love.  Because, after all, moments between us and God is where the heart of God’s covenantal love resides.  Let’s spend much time, let’s reside often, within the heart of God.

            

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