NEVER AGAIN
Mark 1:9-15

A sermon given by the Reverend Beverley F. Edwards
March 5, 2006 / 1st Sunday in Lent

How many of us have ever been parents or played a parent-like role in the life of a child?

How many of us have ever been children? (Trick question)

We call ourselves children of God . . . Our faith tells us that God created every one of us and breathes life into our nostrils. Without God’s blessing we would not exist. While most of us would admit we are dependent, by and large we don’t consider ourselves to be immature, or if so only in the adorably innocent way of a child who doesn't know any better or of a little one sweetly sleeping.

Yet, think about it. Like children, most of us regard ourselves as the center of our universe. We accept the blessings and nurture that keep us alive without much thought for the effort of the parent who provides them. We complain about what we have-not far more often than we say "thank you" for what we have. Some of us sport bumper stickers that say "The one who dies with the most toys wins". As individuals and as communities we are jealous that God might love our brother better than us or that our sister might have more privileges. We whine. We rebel against the rules, whether they involve eating and drinking what is not good for us, or resisting discipline, or pushing the limits of tolerance and respect. We tell on one another and smirk to see others punished. We fight. We run away. We beg. We are lazy, irresponsible, and exasperating.

As someone who is a parent and grandparent, I do not approve of, but do empathize with the urge to smack certain rebellious little bottoms from time to time. So, a part of me understands somewhat how God could say to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence...behold I will destroy them with the earth." (Gen.6:13) As a human being however, I repudiate God’s conclusion that this whole creation business was a rotten idea that should be washed away.

Appalled and with deep remorse, God came to the same conclusion. This primitive God who yielded to divine anger and abused the power of life and death promised "Never again." God decided, "I will set limits on my own power... I will control my passion... No matter how miserably these creatures behave, they are made in my sacred image. They breathe my divine breath. I will make a covenant with them, a promise to be only life-giving to them. From this time forth, I will commit myself always to act from compassion with their best interests at heart. My iridescent rainbow will be my sign. I choose to grow in relationship to my children and to teach them to love me in return."

And so it has come about that our divine/human relationship is rooted in God’s unilateral repentance. Ever since the flood, God has acted with controlled discipline and parental compassion. But because God had experienced the childish passions that drive human beings to sin, for their sake, God set limits to permissible human behavior and, with tough love, imposed negative consequences for disobedience.

We cannot know whether, as some theologians say, God is all knowing, all powerful and all good, or whether God’s divine powers have become more differentiated as God has interacted with the changing cultures and crises of human evolution. I like to think of God’s self-revelation as a prism offering different facets and reflecting various colors as our world turns and new needs evolve. Certainly, from a human perspective, this is how it appears.

The Bible tells us that through the centuries God established a special covenant with the people of Abraham. Centuries later, the protection of God which surrounded Joseph even in a foreign land made it possible for him to extend God’s blessing to the alien people of Egypt.

God gave Moses laws that would lead to harmonious relationships between God and God’s people, and among themselves. King David, for all his faults, sang God’s praises in psalms and built the model city, Jerusalem, to be a gathering place for God’s people as they related to God through worship and song.

When the people practiced injustice and worshiped idols, God sent prophets to preach repentance and to warn of devastating consequences not of God’s making, if the people did not listen. In the resultant Exile, God comforted the people and did not desert them. Upon their return, God once again consecrated the temple and gave the people new rituals and laws for righteous, harmonious living.

And so the relationship wobbled along through the centuries. God, like a parent teaching, comforting, challenging, caring... the people struggling, suffering, sinning, repenting and falling away once again.

Finally God thought, as long as I am considered to be a parent, even a benign one, the children will understand my ways to be "other." They will not understand themselves to be bound by the same limits I set for myself–to be wise, to be good and to submit myself to participating in the common good. My children will never understand unless I literally show them the way. Perhaps if I become Emmanuel, God with them, they will finally get the point that they have within themselves the power, the goodness and the wisdom to live life fully, free and unafraid.

And so the new story began. "John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." (Mark 1:4) and John preached "After me comes the one who is mightier than I,...I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

John’s baptism by water is the flood, tamed and tempered. While the flood brought death, John’s baptism purified and offered new life. Sinners still sinned but, when they repented, God washed away their transgressions and blessed them with another chance.

Jesus didn’t need John’s baptism to be purified, but he submitted in order to show his full and freely chosen participation in the limitations, the passions and the mortality of the human condition . Then, when Jesus emerged from the water, God finally got to affirm a human being so good, so wise, so compassionate that he embodied the Holy Spirit. God said, "Thou art my beloved , with thee I am well pleased."

Then there is the curious line, "The Spirit drove him out into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan." I wonder if God remembered God’s own temptation to evil, and offered to Jesus the chance to center his Spirit and to acknowledge what temptations he would face once his ministry began. Matthew and Luke’s Gospels report that the temptations Jesus faced, were the possibility of choosing to be all powerful, or all good and or all wise, in other words to become God...the greatest of all human temptations. Paradoxically, it is the mark of his divinity that Jesus resisted the offers.

Scripture says: afterward Jesus came into Galilee, preaching, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel."

This is still the message to us this Sunday, this beginning of Lent. Because of God’s self-imposed limits God cannot force obedience on us. But God offers us forty days of our own to face our own temptations and to grow in centeredness and faith. Through Jesus who we know as the Christ, God offers us the opportunity to be purified, to have our sins washed away and the opportunity to start clean, and go forward from here.

Our baptism is a sign and seal of God’s grace that pours out upon each one of us as God’s blessing surrounds us with love. This communion we share is at Christ’s invitation, offered to all who choose to come to God’s welcome table.
True, we are still children, imperfect, willful, impulsive, and in need of correction. Jesus showed us the way to live and the Holy Spirit gives us the strength to do so. God promises to walk with us all the days of our life, and shows us the way to move from regret to renewal, from sorrow to restoration.

So, in these forty days let us individually and together reflect and say our own "Never again", as we follow God in repentance and new beginning.

SHALOM