God's Rainbow Connection

Lent 1B
February 26, 2012
Genesis 9:8-17


"Why are there so many songs about rainbows,
and what’s on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me." ~"The Rainbow Connection" from "The Muppet Movie"

What do you think of when the topic of rainbows comes up? Leprechauns and pots of gold? Kermit the Frog with a banjo? Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz? The cultural icon of the 80’s, Rainbow Brite? Have you ever looked at a rainbow and pictured it as God’s battle weapon? It’s not the touchy feely, happy go lucky, image that rainbows tend to carry with them…a weapon of battle. It’s not even something that we may want to associate with God, a beautiful object in the sky that could be used for destruction…but it makes sense in the context of our text this morning from Genesis.
We enter the story after God’s call to Noah has been fulfilled, after animals entered the ark 2 by 2, after 40 days and 40 nights of rain flooded the earth, after the waters had subsided and Noah and his family had exited the ark. We enter at the happy ending of sorts, the scene that is painted on the walls of babies rooms and church nurseries, a happy Noah and his family and the animals standing in the shadow of the ark hearing about the covenant that God was going to make with them. It’s a beautiful image, but it’s only part of the story.
Likewise, it’s tempting to look at the story of the flood as a story of an angry, vengeful God who has lost it with humanity. That, too, is missing the point…and it’s not the most accurate reading of the text. In chapter 6 of Genesis, we hear that God had seen how the hearts of humans had become focused on evil…and God was sorry that God had created humanity so that it grieved God in God’s heart. God had experienced the rupture in God’s relationship with humans in the garden, God had witnessed the downspin of humanity with the first murder and other evil acts that were in essence acts of betrayal against their creator, affecting not only themselves, but the entirety of creation.
Such sinful acts pained God, and in God’s sorrow, God sent the flood as an act of grief and a way of starting over, with Noah and his family as the prototype for the second go-around with the humans that God had made. And after the waters subsided, after Noah and his family had entered the ark, something had changed…but something hadn’t. Even after isolating a faithful family and placing them in the safety of the ark, human nature hadn’t changed. There was still sin lurking in the hearts of the family that had been chosen to be spared from the waters of the flood. However, God had changed. God was so full of love for humanity and for the rest of creation, that God changed how God looked at the world…being willing to be active in a future of creation that was less than the perfect world that God has created, and being open to new ways of seeking out and being in relationship with God’s children.
So God repurposed God’s bow, taking it from being a weapon of divine battle and turning it into a reminder of the promise that God made to Noah, his family, the birds of the air, the domestic and wild animals of the earth.
Unlike other covenants made in scripture between God and humans, this first covenant made to Noah and the animals was a covenant that relied solely on God’s action and shows the change in God’s approach to being in relationship with creation. It was a promise that God made to creation…not a covenant in which we were also held accountable, and looking at our track record with covenants, that’s probably a good thing…we have a tendency to not keep our end of the bargain. So, for God, the bow in the sky is a reminder that even in the most dismal circumstances, when God is so grieved at our actions towards God and one another that God is ready to wipe the slate clean and start over again, God made a promise to creation…not just to humanity, but to the whole creation…to all the animals that left the ark, that God would never again remove life from the face of the earth with the waters of a flood.
Instead, God sought out new ways of connecting with God’s children…making good on God’s promises to Abraham and Sarah, working through Joseph to care for the tribe that would become Israel, using Moses to rescue the children of Israel from the hands of the Egyptians and writing God’s laws on to tablets of stone so that they would have a framework with which to live amongst one another. When that failed, God made the Israelites walk in the desert, but not without providing for their needs. Later, when we had not lived up our end of the bargain on our covenants with God, God sent prophets to call the people into account and to remind them that while we hadn’t been faithful, God is always faithful.
But when we didn’t listen to the prophets, God had to come up with a new game plan. So God sent God’s only son to become a part of humanity and forge a new covenant. That covenant was written in the blood that was shed on the cross. We are reminded of this covenant every time we approach the table to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ. In this new covenant, we are reminded that death has been crushed and that only life in Christ remains.
Rainbows aren’t just reminders for God, they are also reminders for us. When we see God’s bow in the sky, we are reminded that God loved us so much that God was willing to give up a little control, hang up God’s bow, and live into a future that was less than the perfect creation that God had made. Instead of total destruction, God chose to wipe the slate clean and to walk with us and seek new ways of connecting with God’s children…even if it meant going back to the drawing board when we rebelled and tried to do things our own way.

God has refined it, the rainbow connection,
For prophets, believers, and me.