22^nd February 2015

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 1 February 2015

Lessons - Genesis 9:8-17; Revelation 4:1-8; Mark 1:9-11

God said to Noah and his sons: 'I have set my bow in the clouds as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.' (Genesis 9:13)

There are many stories of a great flood in ancient mythologies where gods battle for supremacy over nature and humans. None speaks of the God who is distraught at human wickedness and punishes the unrepentant (6:5,6) yet, in love for the earth and its people, preserves life. The covenant with Noah is established for the good of 'all flesh'. Despite the scale of evil, which offends the holiness of God, demeans our glorious God-created purpose and by rights should be utterly destroyed, God is merciful! 

We are well placed to listen to this story. Recent world events have unsettled our naivety about our innate goodness and our faith in reason alone to solve conflict. In the face of widespread atrocities, we are less likely now to ask, 'Why does God allow such things to happen?' and more likely to ask, 'Why does God, who has created us to be fully human, continue to put up with such appalling behaviour?' Why does not God end the misery we cause? 

This is a shocking thought!  Instinctively we recoil at a faith that believes in a God who sends natural catastrophes - like floods - to destroy people who do terrible wrong.  Jesus himself undermined this rigid cause-and-effect faith. Tragic deaths do not tell us anything about the faith of the victims.

But they do remind us that, as life is vulnerable, we should not delay responding to the Gospel of life (Luke 13:1ff). God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:43-48). 

Jesus also made it clear that judgment belongs to God alone. We are not to take matters into our own hands, but we are to love our enemies, seek reconciliation with those who have wronged us or whom we have wronged and look to our own shortcomings (Matthew 7:1ff). We are to rejoice that from the Cross, where the sin that resides in human hearts is laid bare, the One who embodied true humanity, says, 'Father, forgive them ...' (Luke 23:34).

Miraculously, despite the scale of evil that bedevils the world, God is merciful. 

What comes in fulfilment of Christ's costly-and-triumphant love for sinners is already glimpsed in the story of Noah.  Despite the destructive power of evil, God is merciful! God's covenant with Noah puts later covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in perspective. God's covenant, which is often restated and renewed in Israel's troubled history, is created by an act of grace, not because of her superior power, faith or virtue.  The Noahic covenant reminds Israel that she has been 'chosen' to make known God's covenant with 'all flesh' and the 'earth'.  

The rainbow symbolises the overarching love of God for all. Its natural beauty and brilliance, shining through storm clouds and stretching to ends that can never be reached, signifies the 'pure gold' of God's endless mercy for 'all' and God's promise to preserve the life of the 'world'. Through Noah, a glimmer of hope shines through where terribly dark deeds cloud our humanity.  

The magnificence of grace, which encompasses 'all flesh' and the 'whole earth', is also God's judgment on us when we give our ultimate loyalty to covenants that we make with each other as members of diverse national, religious, ethnic, community and protest groups.  This type of covenant is often the cause of great evil, as we see in the stories of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4),  Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25-27), Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37-48) and in current conflicts around the globe. 

No matter how necessary such groups are for social cohesion and a sense of belonging, none is capable of preserving the life of our deeply flawed world.

The rainbow reminds us of God's judgment on corruption and violence of every kind (Genesis 6:1-8) and of God's unbelievable mercy to the wicked. 

We must keep this in mind as we examine how the symbol of the rainbow is often used today. 'The Rainbow Nation' a term coined by Bishop Tutu to describe the vast array of cultures, traditions, languages and skin types that make up modern South Africa,  is consistent with (but not identical with) the Noahic hope 'for all flesh'. Elsewhere, however, 'The Rainbow Alliance' campaigns for legal rights for people with 'diverse sexualities', is at odds with the biblical sign of God's judgment-and-mercy on our diverse forms of sin. 

The use of the 'rainbow' to symbolise the virtue of every form of 'diversity' does not do justice to its significance in Genesis nor to future realities to which it points. Apart from the mercy that radiates from the Noahic rainbow to 'all flesh' and the 'whole earth' (Genesis 9:8ff) and which is brilliantly illuminated in the costly and triumphant ministry of the beloved Son of the Father (Mark 1:21ff) in whom the future is assured (Revelation 4:3; 10:1), none of us - whatever our nationality, colour, culture or sex - could escape the bracing realism of God's judgment. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! 

Despite this, the magnificent future that awaits us is foreshadowed in the Noahic covenant.  In rich symbolic language, John depicts a rainbow overarching God's throne as Israel and the Church (the 24 elders), and the whole human and animal creation (four creatures) glorifies God (Revelation 4:3ff). Eternity is pictured as a place where God's mercy is fully realised as hope for the world. 

To believe in the future of God's mercy would be an illusion if not for its embodiment in Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of God (Mark 1:9ff). In him, the New Covenant was brilliantly illuminated.  On the Cross, the depth of human evil and God's incomparable mercy for 'all flesh' and the 'whole earth' was starkly revealed. He bore the judgment which, by rights, should fall on us - as it did on Noah's contemporaries. In him, God's costly, forgiving and triumphant love, already glimpsed in the covenant with Noah and later confirmed in the resurrection, radiates to 'all people'.  

This is an occasion for great joy! Assured that the past, present and future of God's covenantal grace is the one reality that preserves the life of the world, we are encouraged to face the many forms of sin that spoil our glorious, God-given humanity. We may be bold to oppose those who cause such great harm by asserting their national, cultural, ethnic or sexual rights in the name of the One whose astounding mercy is a sign of hope for 'all flesh' and for the 'whole earth'.

Rev Dr Max Champion is Minister in St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia.

Dr Champion is a member of the Council of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.