BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS!
Genesis 9:8-17; Mark 1:9-15
March 5, 2006
By Rev. Dr. Jeanne Knepper

Do you ever wonder about the Scriptures chosen for any particular Sunday? Why these two, or three, or four, and no other? Why are today’s stories those of Noah and the rainbow covenant; Jesus being baptized, tempted, and proclaiming the realm of God?

And even more, why is it that you can drive along Portland street and see, week after week, sermon titles that might apply to the scriptures we read here? Is it magic? A great conspiracy? How does this happen?

Well, I suppose you could call it a conspiracy, of sorts, especially if you go to the root meanings of conspiracy, breathing together. You see, many mainline churches, United Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal and others, choose to follow what is called the Revised Common Lectionary, a three year cycle of readings that tracks the church calendar and takes us through much, though not all, of the great breadth of the bible. In Lectionary terms, today is the First Sunday of Lent in year B, the year when our gospel focus is mostly on the gospel of Mark, the year when many readings during the period of Lent focus on the subject of covenant, as in the establishment of God’s covenant with all life at the end of the Noah and the flood story.

One of the gifts of preaching from the lectionary, which I mostly do, is that it takes me, or any preacher, beyond my favorites, into wrestling with texts that stretch me. Another gift is that there are many sermon resources out there that are keyed to the lectionary, so that preachers can tap into a wealth of material that might be relevant. A third gift, and temptation, is that, after a while, after three years, passages come back again. And now, in our age, the miracle of computers means that I can tap a few keys and find out what I had to say three years ago.

I did that this week, and found a pretty good sermon, one that began with me tossing this rock up and down and talking about the great Missoula floods that shaped the land under our feet right now, the long gravel bar that is North Portland. Those floods still seem to be a good starting point for a reflection on our scripture for today.

Now I’ve talked with you before about the purpose of creation mythology, that it answers questions about the nature of God and the whys of creation, about the relationship between God and life on earth, about how things came to be the way they are. So listen, then to our story. In the face of floods—not one but many [geologists think there may have been as many as 100 Missoula floods in the 6000 year period between 18000 and 12000 years ago, approximately one every 60 years for a 6000 year period]—in the face of a period of flooding that filled sixty centuries with frequent devastating floods, our faith tells us a story of a creator who promised, no more destruction of the earth, no more flooding to cover all the known areas of habitable land. The rainbow, the story tells us, is God’s sign, God’s signature to promise that God does not intend to destroy, not earth, not the animals, not the birds, not the people. The story tells us of a God who loves creation, all of it, even us, with a love more durable than my rock.

Well, that’s a good message, that God loves all of us, loves us with a depth and longevity that we can’t even imagine. God loves you. Oh, but beware of the life-changing power of that message. Jesus heard the message as he arose from baptismal waters—“You are my beloved�—and it drove him into a wilderness of doubt, despair, and temptation, a proverbial 40 days of wandering in the wilderness, trying to come to terms with the idea that the core of all being had said, “I love you.�

In our other gospel stories of this time, as in the song we just sung, some of the trials of that desert time are spelled out. If God calls me beloved, will all my needs be filled? If God claims me as God’s own, will I be assured that no harm will come to me? If I am God’s beloved, shouldn’t I rule the world? Our stories tell us he struggled mightily with these temptations and delusions before coming to the truth for his life, that God had called him to tell people, the poor, the outcast, the marginal people, the ones on the outside of power, to tell them that GOD LOVES YOU!
But let’s go back to the delusions for a moment. How many times have you heard religious voices proclaim, “Only believe as we believe and you will be blessed with all material prosperity?� “If you truly believe, nothing bad will happen to you.� And not just for individuals. It strikes me that many of our national delusions also spring from bad theology: “We are God’s beloved, a city on a hill, a light shining in darkness, so of course God wills that we rule the world.� “We are God’s beloved; of course God wants us to prosper.� We, the beloved nation, the “Christian� nation, we can ascend to the highest pinnacles of our time and leap out into our own delusions of grandeur, confident that God will protect us from all harm. We can pollute the planet, overheat the biosphere, set the oceans boiling up into vast cyclones of power and destruction; we can leap off into madness; but God will keep us safe, because God loves us, so we are destined to prevail.

Do you hear the madness in that? How is it that a message of such life and love can bring one—you or me, Jesus or a nation—to such possibilities of ruin? How? Because it is so easy to imagine that the message was there for me alone, for Jesus alone, for this nation alone of all the rest. Oh, isn’t that the delusion that has us now three years into a war against terror? Think of that, a war against terror. Isn’t that like a slap against pain, a tsunami against destruction, a pandemic against death? Just how mad have we become, thinking we can reduce the terror in the world, or even in our part of the world, through the liberal application of bombs, torture, and Patriot Acts? Isn’t there a name for this madness, the name of paranoia? And isn’t paranoia, the belief that others are out to hurt you, to take away what you need, to expose or ridicule you, isn’t paranoia, being governed by fear, isn’t this national paranoia a consequence of our addiction to power, protection and prosperity, of our mistaken theological conclusion that we’re God’s favored nation?

Well, Jesus went into the wilderness of trying to discern what it could mean that God called him beloved, and he came out with what was probably the only sane response to such news, to go out among the people and tell them, all of them, “God’s realm is right here, right now, at our fingertips. You drunk, you are beloved. You prostitute, you are beloved. You woman worn down with twenty years of bleeding and inadequate health care, you are beloved. You paraplegic, dependent upon your friends for life, you are beloved. You rebel, you unemployed, you outcast, you immigrant, you gay one, you fat one, you old one, you pimpled one, you are each and all beloved. Repent, turn around, rejoice and dance, believe the good news.�

Recently, a man named Rob Brezsny published a book called, Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia. The starting point for Pronoia is not “the world is out to get me, “ but “the universe is fundamentally friendly.�

“Pronoia works,� he writes, “because there is a Divine Being who comprises the entire universe. When I say, ‘Life is a conspiracy to shower us with blessings,’ I understand that this Divine Being is the Chief Architect, Builder, and Manager of the conspiracy. She oversees the evolution of 500 billion galaxies and every single thing in them, yet is also available as an intimate companion and daily advisor to each one of us. . . .The Maker of the conspiracy constantly tinkers, always keeping the big picture in mind and moving in the direction of ultimate blessings for all concerned.�

The Realm of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the good news. Repent—turn your head around, come to understand things a new way. We are not called to power over others. We are not called to safety from all harm. We are not called to the fulfillment of our every desire; we are called to tell the good news, that God desires good and blessing for everyone, for every part of creation.

Repent, start figuring out what it can mean to live on a planet, in a cosmos, where every person, every person is God’s beloved, where the covenant of God’s unending love extends beyond my self, my people, my nation, my species, extends to the lowliest and to the highest, to the star and the worm, to the rat and the potato, to all the young men and women risking everything for the sake of the people they love, be they from Iraq or the United States, Israel or Palestine, all beloved of God.

Repent, step away from your position of power and privilege, and believe the good news. But don’t imagine for a moment that Jesus promises you, or me, an easy path. This is, after all, the season of Lent, a time when we remember again that knowing he was beloved of God, knowing that God is a God who loves, led Jesus to confront every entrenched privilege with an invitation to join him on the journey; led him to speak truth to power and hope to the hopeless; led him to walk, aware, afraid, and yet undaunted, toward struggles with institutionalized power and paranoia that would lead to his death, to his death, but not to his defeat, not to his destruction, and never, never, to separation from the love of God.

The realm of God is at hand. Here. Today. At your fingertips. Repent, you frightened one, turn from your fear. Repent, you scorned one, turn from your internalization of self-hatred. Repent, you helpless one, turn from your belief that you can’t make a difference. Repent, believe the good news, and rejoice. Enter into a life of resistance and rejoicing, of imagining and letting go, of courage and play and compassion. Start where you are, and invite everyone to the table of God’s love. Reach out, feed the hungry, care for the marginalized, dance with the ones in wheel chairs, live life NOW in the realm of God. Do this with courage, do this with joy, do this in remembrance of all the ones who rise up spluttering from the waters of baptism and hear those heart words echoing throughout creation: “You are my beloved, all of you.� Amen.

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