Link to Lectionary Page for Lent 1, Year B
Let us pray: Gracious and loving God, creator of all things colorful and mysterious, seen and unseen, grant us courage to faithfully encounter the storms and vicissitudes of life, wisdom to guide us, hope to sustain us, and joy in the promise of your abiding presence. Amen.
Living here near the water, I suspect some of you have or maybe have had a boat. Weird random question: Have you ever had the occasion to hire a boat detailing company? If so, do you happen to recall the name of the company?
A couple of weeks ago, I was driving North on Ocean Highway to All Saints. I had just started working on this sermon. Pondering the significance of Noah’s Ark story, I had been listening to some songs about rainbows on Spotify. There are quite a few of them. It’s truly a gift to drive such a scenic route to work. I don’t take it for granted. At the entrance to the Indian River Inlet Bridge with that gorgeous vista of shimmering sunlight on water, I was feeling grateful and inspired to dive deeper into the story of Noah. As I ascended the bridge, a white van shows up in the lane next to me. In bright cobalt blue lettering, there were two words: Ark Details. You can’t make this stuff up!
The story of Noah is a familiar one - certainly, a Sunday School favorite. God warns Noah about the impending flood and instructs him in great detail to build a big boat, an ark. God gets very specific in Genesis 6:
“Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.” (Genesis 6:14-16, NRSV)
God is in the details, it seems, even architectural ones.
C’mon, all those animals! And that spectacular rainbow; a sign of God’s new covenant with God’s people.
I get why there are so many songs about rainbows.
They’re pretty incredible.
One day during the pandemic, I noticed some of my neighbors standing in the middle of the street looking up at the sky. When I went outside to see what was up, there was a gorgeous rainbow encircling our home. Our house was perfectly centered inside it. Our neighbors hadn’t seen one another much since the pandemic started. From a safe distance, we caught up as we stood awestruck, gazing upwards.
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky, also in the faces of people passing by. Thanks Louis Armstrong.
Here’s a little-known intro to perhaps our most familiar song about a rainbow. See if you recognize it:
When all the world is a hopeless jumble
And the raindrops tumble all around
Heaven opens a magic lane
When all the clouds darken up the skyway
There's a rainbow highway to be found
Leading from your windowpane to a place behind the sun
Just a step beyond the rain
(You know it! Somewhere over the rainbow…)
Songs, stories, images of rainbows can inspire hope when all we see is darkness. Like in a global pandemic.
Of course, some suffered more than others. Kids are still catching up in school. A lot of us are still grieving.
It was scary. Life changing. Death dealing. I might even go so far as to say it was like a flood. If you have lived through a flood, you know what I am talking about.
The ancient Israelites knew this kind of devastation. Their “flood” was losing everything that was beloved and familiar; their land, their community, their culture, their religion…
When we read the Hebrew Bible through the lens of exile, loss, and grief, through the lens of racism or refugee crisis, we can get a whole different picture. Scholars believe Genesis isn’t the only book of the Bible written during or soon after the Babylonian exile. (Think Daniel, Ezekiel, Esther, Ezra, portions of Isaiah...)
The ancient Israelites were a faithful people, living close to the Earth, whose land had been taken away. To process their losses and preserve the stories of their culture for future generations, even the difficult and violent parts, words, stories, histories, and poetry were shared and passed down. Jesus knew these words and the devastating trauma his Jewish ancestors had experienced.
In this week’s Gospel, the writer of Mark seems to use only the necessary words. Mark leaves out specific details, which we get in Matthew and Luke. Instead, we hear Jesus is driven by the Spirit to the wilderness. There are wild beasts and angels. We learn that John the Baptizer has been arrested and that Jesus goes right to Galilee to proclaim that the kingdom is near. Believe the good news!
Mark was writing for an early church under oppression. Mark’s sense of urgency may be showing up in his words, or lack thereof. Perhaps his intention was to encourage new Christians to quickly spread the good news. The kingdom is near. Repent (in Greek, meaning a capacity for change). For Mark’s readers, news of John’s arrest may have been a warning to be cautious. Perhaps we are to pay attention to what the Gospel writer is not saying about Jesus’ time in the wilderness. When under stress, our human tendency can be to focus on the negative. Have you noticed? Social scientists label this negativity bias.
Negativity bias can affect the way we think, act, and move through the world and, over time, can have less-than-desirable effects on our mental and physical health. After a while, it becomes a habit.
Did your focus land on the flood or the rainbow? Satan or the angels? Fear or good news? Did the wild beasts seem threatening or adorable?
For a seminary class, we are reading Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. In it, the authors share research about the importance of completing the stress cycle. We know chronic stress causes dis-ease. Paying attention to the physiological stress responses of our bodies is critical to our wellness. When chronic stress sends us into fight, flight, or freeze, the authors say, we must complete the cycle. The way to complete the cycle is instinctual. What do we do when we are being chased by a lion? We run! The authors say moving our bodies is the single most efficient way to complete the cycle – just 20 minutes a day can be enough.
But there are other ways. There’s breathwork. A six-second kiss or a twenty-second hug. I would add prayer. And I wonder if the physical act of writing down our stories could be another healthy way of completing the stress cycle. The ancient Israelites seemed to feel it was important.
We might meditate quietly on our psalm for today:
“Show me your ways, O LORD, and teach me your paths.”
Friends, God is in the details of our lives and our Lent. We are God’s beloved. Remember to look up.
I’ll leave you with this blessing from Psalm 25 vs. 3, Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation:
From now on every road, you travel
Will take you to God.
Follow the Covenant signs;
Read the charted directions.
