Sermon for Feb. 21, 2021, Lent 1B
Video is here.
Genesis 9:8–17
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “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.” 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: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 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. 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.” 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.”
Mark 1:9-25
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately drove him 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.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
In one of the daily emails I receive from theologian and activist Matthew Fox there was one of the most disturbing pictures I have ever seen. It was a photo of the lynching of a black man. I have seen pictures of lynchings before; we all have.
I have seen pictures of lynchings attended by crowds of white people. But this picture horrified me in a new way. In attendance, within five or six feet from the hanging body was a white family. They were all well dressed, as if to go to dinner.
One of the children, maybe eight or ten years old, was standing in front of her father, looking at the victim, and smiling. Other children, younger ones, looked on with fascination.
The victim at that time was Rubin Stacy. The lynching was done in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on July 19, 1935. There were no hoods or hiding; it was not nighttime, because no one feared reprisals. It was a family spectacle, children welcome. That was Florida in 1935.
We just read the Hebrew Bible story of the concluding scene of the account of the great flood. Noah and his family, along with the animals on the arc, were the sole survivors.
The reason given in the Bible for that genocidal flood, the author explains, was that when God looked at the wickedness of all the humans on the earth, besides Noah, the only conclusion God could draw was that:
“every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” .
(Gen. 6:5)
“Only evil continually”. From the mythology of ancient Mesopotamia to the reality of twentieth-century Florida, that conclusion seems consistent.
Learning in Black History Month
Netflix has been streaming videos relevant to Black History Month, and we have been watching a number of them. We watched the series on Malcolm X.
I have learned things I didn’t know before. I was too young at the time to understand much of what was happening or what it meant. I had no idea why someone would use an X instead of his family name.
Malcolm explained that his birth certificate displayed not his family name, but the name of the owners who had enslaved his ancestors. Their African family name had been stripped away and lost to history.
Those slave owners considered themselves good Christian people. Is it any wonder that Malcolm would eventually find a way out of a life of vice and crime by heeding the teachings of Elijah Mohamed and the Nation of Islam?
There, he was told that Black was beautiful; that his people could be respected, even be noble. He never experienced respect from the white community. He did experience the firebombing of his home, constant death threats, and eventually a public execution. That was New York, 1965.
The Black Church and Civil Rights
We have also watched the PBS series on the crucial role of the Black Church in the civil rights movement. In the Black Church people heard a strong counterpoint to the story told by many white Christians.
They spoke and sang of a God of liberation who set the Hebrew slaves free from bondage. They preached a gospel of good news to the oppressed. The same God who had concluded that the thoughts in the hearts of humans were “only evil continually” wanted to start over with people.
After the flood subsided, God even put away his weapons. He discarded his arrows and hung his bow in the sky, pointing away from the earth as a reminder. This was a God who could make all things new.
In the black church, they preached and sang about Jesus who, like them, was cruelly mistreated by the people in power, but who entrusted himself to God. God suffered as they suffered, and suffered when they suffered, never forsaking them.
Dr. King preached that Jesus’ weapon against violence was love. He turned the other cheek as a form of nonviolent resistance. Instead of demonizing his oppressors, Dr. King taught that only love could conquer hate. Only light could drive out darkness. He taught that out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope could be quarried.
That hope was based on the faith that God could and would do a new thing, even in America, even in the places where lynchings and firebombing went unpunished. Even in places where it seemed that all of the thoughts in the hearts of the people were “only evil continually.” That faith was based on Dr. King’s understanding of the message and means of Jesus.
Jesus-Inspired Hope
We just read the beginning of the story of Jesus from Mark’s gospel. Without the fanfare of angels, shepherds, wise men, or even a virgin birth, Mark simply presents Jesus as an adult.
In three rapid-fire events, Mark tells us everything he thinks we need to know. In just 130 words, we learn that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, tempted in the wilderness, and began proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom in Galilee.
Why are those three events all we need to know to understand the Jesus-shaped hope we have? First, Jesus’ baptism: as he came up out of the water, Jesus had a visionary experience. He saw the Spirit descend upon him. He heard a voice that named him God’s beloved child.
From this, we understand that in our baptisms we too have the Spirit of God empowering us. We too have been named as God’s beloved children. This is the source of our lives of faith, and nothing can change it. God has named and claimed us. Gods’ Spirit is upon us. Our true family is the family of God.
Wilderness, Beasts, and Angels
But the Spirit that came on Jesus is not like a passive and harmless silent dove. The Spirit, Mark tells us “drove” Jesus into the wilderness. He needed to learn something only wilderness could teach him.
In this eerie vision, Mark tells us that Jesus was out there with “the wild beasts.” What could that mean but that wilderness is dangerous? The dangerous temptation of wilderness is to despair. There are no road signs in the wilderness. There are no roads to have signs for. Wilderness is not knowing the way you should go, but knowing that your life is at stake.
Wilderness is Florida in 1935. It is Selma, Alabama in 1965, before the Voting Rights Act. Wilderness is a time in which everyone can see cell phone videos of the deaths of black men at the hands of the police. Wilderness is a time of global pandemic before we get the vaccines. Wilderness is the church facing an unknown future in a rapidly changing world.
But that is not the only thing true about wilderness. Mark says Jesus experienced the angels waiting on him, serving him. What can that mean but that despite the lack of certainty, despite the danger, he was cared for, upheld, ministered to by God?
This is what Dr. King learned. This is what we must learn, if we are to have hope: that God has not abandoned us, even in the wilderness of uncertainty. God was not absent from Florida or Selma or Ferguson or Minneapolis. God is actively present in the pandemic. And God is with God’s church, even in the midst of great change. God’s empowering Spirit is present, encouraging us and luring us toward the next right thing, giving us gospel-shaped hope.
The Good News
With those lessons learned from his baptism and from his wilderness experience, Jesus is ready to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of God has arrived. It is good news to the poor. It is good news to the oppressed.
The kingdom of God means that the kingdoms of this earth, whether they be racist, discriminatory, unjust, or oppressive will not have the last word. Pharaoh cannot keep the Hebrew children in chains forever. The floodwaters will subside. God can do something new. There is a rainbow reminder.
As Dr. King said, a rock of hope can be quarried from the mountain of despair. The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Love can conquer hate; light can drive out the darkness.
As we watched the videos of the black church in America we learned something else. After the impressive achievements of the 1960s and 70’s the church that inspired Dr. King and so many others with the gospel of liberation began to send a different message. The church struggled with the role of women as equals. It struggled to find a message of liberation to the LGBTQ community. As a result, it lost its prophetic voice for many young people.
The lesson for us is clear: the church must never take her eyes off the inclusive message of the kingdom. The church that proclaims all of us as people named by God, as beloved, cannot make some of its people feel that X is their real family name. The church that has the power to withstand wilderness must not drive anyone into exile or despair.
In fact, the opposite must be the case. The church, the “beloved community” must open its arms to everyone. We are the place of refuge, of welcome, of healing, and of loving community to everyone who has been wounded by the beasts in the world’s wildernesses.
We may not know what the future holds, but we know we will be upheld in the future, as long as we remain faithful, as long as we, in the Reformed church, keep reforming, as long as we keep listening, as long as we keep repenting, because the kingdom of God is at hand. That is indeed good news. That is Jesus-inspired gospel-shaped hope.
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