The Promise of Hope
Genesis 9: 8-17
There’s a wonderful story about a man who once tricked a leprechaun into telling him where his valuables were hidden. The valuables were in a field, buried under a bush, under a bush that looked like every other of another hundred bushes in the field. The man needed a shovel in order to dig up the treasures. He took a red ribbon and tied it around a limb of the bush so he’d know where to dig when he returned. He got the leprechaun to promise not to remove the ribbon. The leprechaun did and off the man ran. He returned shortly with his shovel and stood looking at the field in amazement. Every bush now had a red ribbon attached to it.
They say it’s because of leprechauns you can never find the pot at the end of the rainbow. But, even so, we’d do well in life if we are constantly looking for rainbows.
The scripture this morning is the end of that great mythological story of Noah and the ark. Noah’s been afloat with all the animals for forty days and forty nights. The ark has come to rest. And now comes the most important aspect of the story. The most important part of the story lies in God’s promise to Noah, to put the rainbow in the sky as a sign of God’s promise to remember the covenant between God and all God’s creatures.
Today is the first Sunday in Lent. This is the season of preparation in which we move toward that fateful final week of Christ’s life, of his death and his resurrection. How appropriate that today’s Old Testament lesson is on this Sunday. The rainbow and the death and resurrection of the Christ are both messages to us that God does not seek to condemn us for our failures; God seeks to save us from our sin.
The last few weeks I’ve found myself reading and watching documentaries about our recent Presidents. Do you remember Bill Clinton’s acceptance speech when he was nominated for his second term? He paid homage to that small town in Arkansas where he was born as he ended the speech, “I’ll always believe,” he said, “in a place called ‘Hope.’”
Each of us can believe in a place called Hope. We can believe it when we see the rainbow. We can believe it when we remember Christ’s sacrifice Bill Clinton, I’ve learned, was a man conflicting desires. He sought the best in himself and yet when he seemingly rose to the heights of greatness he betrayed his better self and those who had placed faith in him and his leadership.
When I was in the service I found myself in a group assigned to Lyndon ; Johnson for a day. You know, I never understood what folks meant when they spoke of charismatic people until that day. There was something about that man, an energy, a confidence, a magnetic quality. And then he got caught up in the Vietnam War, and toppled from his greatness because of his inability to let go lest he be seen as weak.
As I’ve been reading about great men, from Clinton, to Johnson, to Bush, to King David, I’m struck with how similar they are to me, and you. We are all filled with potential, with possibilities, and are all children of the covenant. But we all fail; we fall short; we topple ourselves from the heights on which we were intended to live.
I hope I’m not the only one here who feels that way. I hope I’m not the only one here who fervently desires to serve my God by doing the right thing but time after time relegates God to a secondary position. I hope I’m not the only one here who day after day vows to treat my neighbor as my Lord has commanded and then looks the other way at suffering of others and the abuse of God’s children. Please tell me I’m not the only one. Please tell me you, too, have betrayed God’s goodness. Please tell me I am not the only one who has fallen over and over and over.
I find hope in this story of Noah, hope for my future, hope for my salvation. For that’s what this story is. It is a story of hope. It’s a story of rainbows on the horizon of my life and the horizon of your life.
It is with that hope, then, I can continue to go forward. It is with that hope I can continue to strive not to fail again. It is with that hope I can live as God wants me to live.
Dee Dee Myers, Bill Clinton’s press secretary said of him, “How many chances should you get?” And then she answered the question herself: “How many times have you failed?”
You and I are children of God so, in a real sense, every time we fail we have a chance to be redeemed because God is the God of the rainboow, of hope, of another chance.
How then do we repay God?
As I’ve been studying the lives of these Presidents I’ve noted that each of them had the gift of empathy. They, despite their elevated status, could identify with those who were suffering, in pain, deprived and abused. It was the reaching out to these people that made them attractive despite their other failings. It was the acts of kindness that endeared them.
I’m never going to obtain greatness like that. Most of you in this room are not likely to become President. But each of us has that capacity for greatness that God desires. Each of us can do those things that recognize the hope that God has given us. We can do that by giving hope to others. Every time we see or think of God’s rainbow we can be reminded of the simple things we can do to acknowledge God’s promise of hope to us.
In the movie “Evan Almighty” God calls Evan, a United States Congressman to build an ark. It’s a move with one laugh after another. In the end a damn breaks and water comes coursing down the valley. But the people are saved when they run onto Evan’s ark. The movie ends with God and Evan talking under a tree about what has happened. In their conversation God reveals what people can do when remembering God’s promise .
Will you remember God’s promises to you this week by going out and performing acts of random kindness to your neighbors? And when you fail this week, when you fall, with you remember God’s promise, God’s rainbow, and get up and try again?
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thank you for this, QP.
Posted by: Nancy | February 28, 2012 at 01:56 PM