Sermon: First Sunday in Lent (22 February 2015)

Tags

climate change, exile, Noah

Preached by Dr Richard A. Davis at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Suva, Fiji Islands (22 February 2015)

Reading: 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. 14 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.”

Our Old Testament reading today from the book of Genesis speaks of the covenant God makes with Noah, his descendants, and all living flesh. It is a well-known part of the larger Noah narrative, in which God floods the world wiping out sinful humanity and giving life on Earth a fresh start.

Coming toward the end of the Noah story this particular reading from Genesis would have to be one of the most repetitive pieces of scripture.

When we see repetition, we can assume a bad writer or editor, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that instead God really wants us to learn the point. Repetition here is giving emphasis for a humanity that is perhaps slow to learn. Or, perhaps God wants to reassure Noah and his family about the his change of behavior. I think it is significant that when God asked Noah to build the ark he spoke to Noah alone, but here God, in making the Covenant makes sure that he speaks to Noah and his sons. Noah and his family had just seen everything they knew wiped off the face of the earth, so God was at pains to reassure them all directly that he would not do it again.

The lesson is clear enough it seems, God will never again flood the whole earth. He wants this point to sink home. And it is one we must remember too.

Some might think that because of this covenant it is impossible that God will allow climate change to cause water to inundate low-lying areas or counties.

Sadly, this covenant does not prevent natural disasters and floods. It did not prevent the 1931 Chinese floods that may have claimed up to 4 million lives. Closer to home, it did not prevent the Fiji floods of 2009 that claimed at least 16 lives.

God’s covenant with Noah will not prevent flooding due to climate change either. Evil remains with us, but through the covenant we can be sure that those disasters that do occur are not the products of God’s anger or rejection.

In many cases, disasters have very human causes. While Western politicians debate resolutions at big international conferences while increasing their emissions at home, and protect and subsidize oil and coal industries, communities in the Pacific are already being relocated.

For people tied so closely to the land and sea where their ancestors lived I can only imagine the disruption caused – not only to the communities, but also in the hearts and minds of those affected. We should never underestimate the attachment to a place, especially those who have not much else but the land they farm and which has provided for them and their communities.

Instead of coming from God’s hand, the rising waters of climate change are the waters of human sin.

Humanity was all but wiped out due to its sin. In this covenant with Noah, God will no longer send waters of destruction. This does not mean that Noah’s family and their descendants will eradicate sin. What it means is that sin will not punished in this way.

It is sin nonetheless that leads to climate change. The greed of the West and the violation of mother nature is what lies behind climate change. The curious thing here is that the unintended result of climate change was just that – unintended. No one desired to pump gases into the atmosphere to change the climate. That would be a sin. No, the sins that eventually lead to climate change are most likely greed, pride, and gluttony. These sins continue to drive an inhumane global economy to the brink of destruction.

In some ways we deserve the punishment of a word wide flood as people implicated in the causes of climate change. Some have more emissions than others, but we all have emissions and many of us use beyond what is acceptable for a stable climate.

In our text for today, God makes humanity a promise. God promises never to flood the whole earth and all flesh ever again.

Humans make promises too. And children seem to have a very good memory for promises made to them by their parents. You parents know what I’m talking about.

Have others made promises to you? Too often when people make promises to us we remember the broken promises that that person made before. This reveals both their shortcoming and ours, as we shouldn’t dwell on the failings of others.

But when God makes a promise to us, we should remember all the promises God has made and fulfils on a daily basis to us. God’s promise in our story today is that God will not allow the forces of chaos to destroy us.

Other promises of God include that found in Jeremiah 29:11: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”

But these promises may have a hollow sound to those facing dislocation through climate change induced sea level rise. Those faced with losing their lands and ancestral homes in the Pacific, are in some cases our families and friends and they are certainly our brothers and sisters in Christ.

But a sea level rise is not a flood to destroy the whole earth and all flesh.

To think that the flooding of our land is a flood for the whole earth is self-centred. In itself such a view is a sin that somehow our world is the whole world. That somehow if our world is destroyed, the whole world is destroyed. This is not how we should think at all.

Those displaced by climate change may wonder what God has done in allowing this to happen.

Instead of thinking about what God may have taken we can choose to see what God has given us.

Perhaps these people displaced by climate change can be a gift to the church. They might be able to teaching us that our home is not this earth.

But that I do not mean that our home is in heaven and we should simply accept what we are given here and wait for death. No. I mean that they can teach us how to live here and now.

Those victims of sea level rise forced to leave their homelands have been called rightly been called refugees. This appears to be a correct use of the term. But I want to apply another, more theological, term to their plight, and that is the term “exile”.

An exile is someone forced to leave their home for one reason or another. But it allows us to draw on our own traditions of the Bible and theology as we understand the plight of those moved on from their homes by climate change. They will move, like all exiles, to a strange place and encounter the unfamiliar.

But they are not the only exiles in the church. Our ancestors perhaps faced a greater disruption with the arrival of missionaries and colonization. Christians today face being exiles in a culture which has increasingly little place for faith. All exiles need to help one another deal with the unfamiliar.

For many dislocated by rising sea levels they will end in exile. But unlike the exile of the Hebrews in Babylon, there will be no chance of a return home. They will need to learn how to sing their songs in a new land

The question for them is: How do we learn to be resident aliens, living in exile?

In the famous “Epistle to Diognetus” early Christians were reported on in the following way:

“They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.”

Christians were seen in a way that transcended boundaries with a light connection to place

Noah was also an exile. For Noah there was no going back. His homeland was flooded and everything he had in the whole world was in the ark. Most likely, he and his family had drifted a long way from home. He had to accept his new location as being provided by God.

He demonstrated this acceptance by immediately planting a grape vine. Given that grapes can take about three years to produce fruit, we can see that Noah was taking a long-term view and adopting his new home.

In fact, some scholars suggest that the first 11 books of genesis were written during the Babylonian exile. If true, then this would suggest to us that we might see a criticism of Empire and a way of dealing with Exile in our text.

One thing that the Creation narrative of the first 11 chapters of Genesis makes clear is that our God, the God of Noah, is the God of the whole world.

God not only made the world but is also everywhere present in it. God was with Noah when he set off in the ark and was there when the ark came to rest. Few gods of the ancient world could achieve that feat. They were often being located in just one place.

Climate change forces us to rethink our God. God is not the God of our village or the god of our farm. God is the god of the whole world.

Can we nurture the faith of an exile? -With eyes on the Kingdom of God, which is above nations, hovers over the waters and the land and has no regard for arbitrary national borders.

Can we demonstrate a new way of living – clinging lightly to this earth and the things of this world? I hope we can.

Part of this poses a responsibility on those receiving the exiles too.

Take Deuteronomy 10:19: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Refugees, asylum seekers, and exiles are being treated terribly in Australia and other countries around the World. We Christians need to open our hearts and encourage government to do better in welcoming the stranger.

As someone in self-imposed exile, a New Zealander, a Kiwi living and working in Fiji, I love the communal life here in Fiji. People are friendly and here in the middle of the Pacific Fiji and other countries are surrounded by some of the worst climate offenders in the World, USA, China, Australia and New Zealand.

What do we have to offer them? I think we can live a life that shows how people can live in harmony with nature and each other under God.

This was the task given to the exile Noah, It is remains our task today.

Pacific Theological College Chapel Reflection (09 February 2015)

Tags

Jesus Christ

Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.

Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. 6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.”

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.”

But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!

Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage.

But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”

So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Reflection

Our reading today is one the great stories from the books of Kings, even of the whole Old Testament. The healing of the Syrian general Naaman is complex and full of characters. It contains lots of drama, and has a great outcome. It may even make a great movie one day.

To some it may seem a gentle, comforting story of the healing of Naaman by the kind prophet Elisha. But it is worth remembering that Jesus was nearly killed when he mentioned it in Nazareth at the beginning of his ministry.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus, following his temptations in the desert, returned to his home town of Nazareth and while in the synagogue read the famous prophecy from Isaiah – and referred to a story about the prophet Elijah, and this morning’s passage, saying:

“There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” [Luke 4:27]

Such was the anger of the crowd at hearing these words, thatJesus was forced to the edge of the cliff where many of the faithful Jews present would have expected him to die a worthy and justified death.

What is so scandalous about this passage that the Jews of his home town were driven to kill him?

To know and follow Jesus, a task we share at PTC, encourages us to understand why this story caused such a deep offence.

Let’sreturn then to Naaman and Elisha.

Naaman was a mighty warrior in the service of a Syrian king. God had given him many victories. But he was also afflicted with leprosy.

This is one of the challenging aspects of the story for Jews – Naaman is a leper, which would have made him unclean in their eyes. Yethe still wins God’s favour. So much so, that according to Jesus, he is healed while other lepers in Israel remain afflicted.So in spite of his leprosy and his threatening status as a foreign general who has previously defeated the Israelites, he remains in God’s favour.

Some commentators suggest that Naaman’s leprosy would have excluded him from society. Yet there is little evidence for this in the text. In fact, in verse 19, which follows our passage, he seeks forgiveness in advance for his sin in offering physical support to the King of Aram in his idolatrous worship in the temple of Rimmon. That he was a leader in Syrian and that the King would touchhim in the temple, suggests that the Syrians accepted him, adding to the belief of the Hebrews that the Syrians were a corrupt and dangerous society. Israelites hearing this story probably were scandalized at a society that not only posed a military threat to Israel, but also allowed a leper to mix with a king.

Nevertheless, God had been good to Naaman. This story is scandalous partly because we hear that God is not simply the God of Israel,but the God of all peoples, including the Syrians.Naaman is just one of several gentile figures in the Old Testament through whom we learn that the God of Israelis the true God of the Gentiles too.

There is another scandalous aspect to the story. This is the relationship between official and political power and the humble and outsiders.

Naaman is a powerful man working for a powerful King. It seems that the Syrian king is the dominant one who gives orders to the King of Israel.Upon receiving the letter from the king of Syria, the Hebrew king rents his clothes knowing that he is militarily inferior. Foolishly,and demonstrating his lack of faith, he thinks that his survival depends on his own power and not the power of God.

Despite the presence of these kings, this is anti-political text. It undermines the pretensions of those in power and who think that having political power makes things happen.Recall that the kings are nameless. Rather than being the main characters, as rulers are often tempted to think of themselves, they are props in the narrative to merely drive the story forward

The Syrian king assumes that the Hebrew King has power to heal. This is a pagan belief. And our neo-pagan rulers today retain misplaced self-belief in their power to effect change and heal nations.

But both kings are powerless in dealing with Namaan’s leprosy. However, there are two others in the story who have the confidence that God can cure Naaman. The first is the slave girl, the lowly captive whose words reach the King of Aram. Second is the hero of the story, the prophet Elisha.

Here are two examples of the how the God uses the weak to shame the strong.God raised Naaman up, but to make him whole he had to take him low, through the slave girl’s advice, to hearing the word of an aloof prophet, to washing in a second-class river.Yet, through all this,somehow hemaintained enough faith to be healed by the power of God.

Let’s return to Jesus who cited this story in the Synagogue in Nazareth. This visit was a homecoming for him. He had been away and now he came back a man at the start of his ministry.

As I’ve already said, Jesus readthis famous prophecy about himself from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.”

The reading from Isaiah is sweet to the ear– with good news to the poor and release to the captives.

Luke records the congregation’s favorable reception of Jesus’s words: “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”

Yet moments later, after Jesus recalled to their minds the story of Naaman, they want to kill him.

I want to suggest that while they could agree with Isaiah, the real challenge comes with Elisha.

I think that they were upset that Jesus was linking his task to that of the prophet who adopted a universalistic task of the healing the nations and not being a parochial, nationalistic messiah.

Peace for some in Israel at Jesus time meant a nationalistic messiah to come and rid the land of the occupying Roman force and their local collaborators.

This desire showed a limited political imagination and a theological one too. God is limited to Israel. Jesus would be, like the prophet Elisha, a healer to the nations and Gentiles, even Syrians or Romans who had defeated Israel.

No wonder the crowd was upset – to them Jesus had twisted the meaning of their sacred texts and brought them together in such a way that meant that he claimed to work for peace and justice in ways that could accommodate gentiles and even Romans within God’s love.

This crowd would have known Jesus – they would have known Mary and Joseph and been curious to hear what their son, Jesus, had to say. They were amazed, happy,then scandalized to the point they wanted him dead. Immortal are Jesus words “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

Students be warned! When you complete your studies here are PTC, people at home will be wanting to know if you have changed during your time here. Maybe some have feared that too much learning strange theology in a foreign colonial language ways would change you.Curious, they might even come to church to hear you preach.

But like Jesus, when you return home the lessons learned in the desert, by temptation, and through the faithful reading and study of God’s word will serve both you and your communities.

People long to hear comforting words that reinforce their own prejudices. But sometimes truthful words that need to be spoken can challenge and cause disruption. I would encourage you all to practice the virtue of courage so that when the time comes you too can speak prophetic words at home.

My prayer for you is that if you be disruptive, let it be the holy disruption of God.

Amen.