 |
| Rainbow at Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite. |
Sometimes, it seems, God
taps us on the shoulder to awaken us, and the last few days have been no
exception. Much of the Episcopal/Anglican world has been abuzz with what did
(or did not) happen at the Primates’ Meeting last week. Yesterday, we
remembered that great prophet and martyr, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There are some common currents that run through those events and our reading
today from Genesis in the daily office lectionary. In all these things, there seems to be a
thread related to power, covenant, and freedom that binds them together.
Today’s reading from the
Hebrew scriptures is from Genesis
9:1-17, which sets forth the promise of God to Noah at the end of the story
of the flood. However, after I read it, I flipped back in my Bible and read the
end of the creation account in Genesis
1:26-28. This is where in the biblical story we are first reminded that God
created humans in God’s own image. Through establishing a covenant with us in
creation, God showered humanity with gifts: our beautiful, fragile Earth, our
only home; the breath of life itself; and most importantly, freedom, and the
power that must accompany that freedom, if it is to mean anything at all.
The reading from Genesis 9
in the daily office lectionary today also speaks about freedom, power, and covenant,
just as the story from Genesis 1, although with some differences:
And God blessed
Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the
earth….Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,“Behold, I establish my
covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living
creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast 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.”—Genesis 9:1, 8-11
The language used as God
speaks echoes with phrases from the Genesis 1 reading. Once again, humans are
ordered to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” Once again, humans
are given power over every living thing. However, there is an interesting
difference in the covenant with Noah and his family: this is not a two-way
covenant. It is actually a three-way covenant: between God, and Noah, and with
creation itself as well. The voiceless are part of the covenant, and
specifically acknowledged as being included. Dr. King also understood the
importance of contract and covenant when, in his “I Have a
Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, he spoke of
promises of inalienable, God-given rights made but NOT fulfilled, promises of
freedom and justice for all, promises that rest upon that same freedom and love
that is an intrinsic part of God’s relationship with creation.
In endowing humanity with
power and freedom, God made possible a real relationship of love between God
and humanity, for love must be freely given. Love that is coerced is actually
the opposite of love—it’s domination and tyranny. God created human beings with
free will—including the freedom to reject God and reject God’s intention for
creation even as we simultaneously long for God, the Infinite One. In giving us
free will, in seriously desiring relationship with us, God gave us power. Yet
the greatest way to exercise that power is through love, as Dr. King reminded
us again and again. This reminder is rooted in the concept of covenant. It is
indeed ironic that our current situation in the Anglican Communion has to do
with arguments about covenants. On the one hand, there are covenants that were
never made--covenants that sought to deny and restrict the full personhood and
acceptance of all of God’s people, male or female, of every race and sexual
orientation or gender identity. Part of this latest argument is, ironically
about another type of covenant: marriage. Marriage, too, just like the
covenants in Genesis, is a covenant that is rooted in love and the proper use
of power, that offers rights and privileges, yes, but is also based on both
fulfilling and yet sometimes limiting our freedom—all in the name of love.
This point might cause us to
go back and look at those stories of the covenants again. The stories we
tell—and scripture falls within this field—are always stories about ourselves,
or we do not find them very compelling, much less enduring. In telling this
story in Genesis about ourselves, I wonder how different the story would have
been if, instead of being stated as “dominion
over” the rest of creation, we would instead have been able to see that God
was calling us not to use but to love and
care for every living thing that moves upon the Earth. Love, like power,
only exists through the agency of freedom, but the difference is that love uses
its freedom to limit itself in the interests of the object of love, the
beloved. God loves humanity so much that God gave us freedom in the interest of
making us understand our heritage as ones made in God’s image. That’s our
potential. The tragedy of human history, however, is of using our freedom not
for the glory and love of God but for the glory and love of ourselves. Too
often our freedom is rooted in a failure to pour ourselves out in love to our
God and our fellow creatures, as Jesus does on the cross.
We in the Episcopal Church
have declared that we will stand with those who have been excluded from full
participation in the rights enjoyed by others, which is why we remember and
celebrate the life of Dr. King as a saint of God. Further, we stand with those
who have been excluded throughout history from the full protection of the
Church, whose full humanity has been denied based on fear and prejudice. Real,
lasting love is sacred, and is a blessing that should be blessed by the Church,
called as we are to embody the love of God in the world. As Christians, we are
called to understand that the greatest power in the world is love, because it
comes from God, and is the foundation for all covenants.
(This was originally posted at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 19, 2016.)
(This was originally posted at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 19, 2016.)
No comments:
Post a Comment