A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, March 1, 2009
Genesis 6:5-8
Genesis 9:8-17
“Can we be honest for five minutes — even though this is Chicago?” So begins one of Carl Sandburg’s poems. Based on the stream of news reports out of Illinois, and the stunning corruption and chutzpah of former Governor Blagojevich, five minutes of honesty would be a small miracle!
But Sandburg’s famous opening line might stop us in our tracks. Can we be honest with ourselves for ten minutes here in South Portland, Maine? It’s risky to be honest. The philosopher Pascal said that if everyone knew everyone else’s inner thoughts there wouldn’t be five friends left on earth. That’s because each of us carries darkness inside — some of us more, some less. We think we hide it pretty well. But God sees what’s there. Let’s at least confess on this first Sunday in Lent that most of our attempts to impress others are wasted. Our need is to come closer to God.
So, on this first Sunday in Lent, 2009, as we begin a very familiar journey, can we be honest… about the ways we sin and fall short? Can we be honest with ourselves, and honest with God, about the broken places in our lives?
Apparently not: confession may be good for the soul, but it’s becoming less common. Thirty percent of Catholics say confession isn’t necessary, and ten percent say confession is an obstacle to their relationship with God. You may have read this past week the report released recently from Father Roberto Busa, a 96-year-old Jesuit priest. He kept track of the confessions he’d heard in the booth over his long ministry. He discovered Roman Catholic women and men confess to different hierarchy of sins. For women the primary mortal sin is pride. For men, the primary mortal sin is lust (no comment). The Vatican says the suitable punishment for pride is eternity in hell and being broken on a great wheel, while those guilty of lust will spend eternity in hell, being smothered by fire and brimstone.
I wonder if that’s the reason the Vatican also reports that 60% of Roman Catholics in Italy no longer go to confession.
As Protestants we’ve always emphasized that Confession can be offered collectively, as the community gathers in worship. But we, too, over the years, have preferred to move away from all that language about sin and brokenness and repentance and penance.
We’d much rather admit to being neurotic than sinful. Still, the biblical story, as recorded in Genesis, tells us through powerful myth and metaphor, that we haven’t changed very much or come very far. We were created to live in harmony with God.
Then Adam and Eve – certainly our spiritual ancestors – did precisely what most of us would do. They looked around paradise and began to imagine what they were missing. They reached for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They wanted what only God had.
They fell from grace – plummeted, actually. They, and all their descendents, lived in conflict with God’s will. The account of Noah and the flood spans four chapters, Genesis 6 – 9. Scholars agree there are two accounts woven together, edited by two different hands some 400 years apart. As I read in chapter 6, God “saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”
What to do? Destruction! Wipe out the sinners and any memory of their misdeeds. Start fresh and hope to eliminate sin forever. So God warned Noah to prepare, and then caused it to rain for forty days and forty nights. [Parenthetically, notice how the forty days of the rain, Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, and the forty days of Lent are connected]. As Bill Cosby said in his old comedy routine: then the sewers backed up and it was all over! The floods washed away all that was evil. Noah and his family, along with the pairs of every animal, bobbed about in the ark. The earth was covered for 600 years.
Finally the waters subsided. God looked at the mess and repented, saying “Never again will I destroy my wandering people. I will place a rainbow in the sky as a constant reminder of this promise.” It was a covenant — unilateral. God made a sacred promise while asking nothing in return. God decided to love us, as sinful and broken as we are.
So Noah — the one righteous man — and his family repopulated the earth. Over the generations everything grew back — the birds and beasts and flowers and trees and people. And how long did humankind remain sin free after the great flood? A few years. Noah’s son, Ham, committed a grievous sin and all his descendants were cursed. That includes you and me. As Mae West used to say some people climb the ladder of success “wrong by wrong.” But now, God reconfirmed the covenant. And God, in the rainbow, promised forever not to destroy us even if we treat God, the earth, and each other with reckless disregard.
God is stuck with us. We are graced by God. God has placed a rainbow in the sky as a reminder. Every time we see the rainbow we can remember and we can hope — not in our own ability to be moral and good, but because God has forsaken destruction as an option in dealing with us.
God created us and all things from Chaos. We sinned and God sent the Flood. In the Flood, God reversed Creation. God creates, God also destroyed. God gives life, God also sent death. God gives order, God also sent Chaos. The only alternative to Chaos is God’s covenant. And the covenant with all of creation has been renewed in Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Savior.
In the fullness of time God sent Jesus who was born of woman, and who grew in wisdom and in stature. According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus went out to the river Jordan to be baptized. As he rose from the waters the heavens opened, a dove descended, and the voice of God pronounced: “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.” Immediately Jesus went into the wilderness where he was tested by Satan. He did not sin.
When we’re baptized the water reminds us of the ways in which God provides for all our needs. It reminds us of the covenant that God made never again to destroy this creation and all within it. Then, again, the water reminds us of the torrents of rain and of the Flood and of the Chaos that seems to nip all around the edges. In baptism we become participants in God’s saving acts. We’re not pure, but we are forgiven. Because of this, we can live in hope.
My friends, we don’t have to get it perfectly. But God does ask us to give it our best. We must trust in the goodness and grace of God to cover the gaps. But we don’t have to be perfect. If we repent, our sins are forgiven, our failures are redeemed and our old, tired attempts at keeping it all together can all fall apart.
Can we be really honest for fifteen minutes — even though this isn’t Chicago? On this first Sunday and throughout this Lenten season let’s not duck from the reality of our sin. There is sin — plenty of sin. Let’s not dress it up in psychological labels. Let’s not hide behind the masks that cover what is painful and raw in our lives.
Let’s be honest – we all sin and fall short of God’s desires for us.
And today, as honestly as you can, let your soul come to believe just one thing completely, absolutely: God and God alone is enough for all your needs. And in Jesus Christ, God has come to YOU, to conquer sin and death. Amen.