Readings of the day: Genesis 9:8-15; Psalm 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15
What are some of the things we do during
Lent? Maybe Lent is a time for us to focus more deeply on prayer. Maybe during
Lent we might commit more intently to ministry to and with the poor; the sick;
the elderly; the homeless; the homebound; others in need. Maybe the Lenten
discipline of abstaining especially from meat on Fridays may help us to grow
spiritually. Then again, meat-free Lenten Fridays are a light penance for me. I
look forward in particular to our parish’s Fish Fry every Friday during Lent. I
like fish, but even more I enjoy meeting and being with all of us, the people
of St. Kateri Parish. And I enjoy supporting our parish’s Boy Scouts by whose
generosity we have our Fish Fry every Friday during Lent.
Maybe during Lent we might give up
something other than just meat on Fridays, like sweets, coffee, or social
media… One year, before I became a Basilian, my roommates suggested that I give
up puns for Lent. This was a heavy penance for me; my roommates probably
lamented that it was only for forty days!
All these Lenten activities are
excellent, especially if they help to deepen our relationships with one another
and with God: Works of mercy and justice; increased commitment to prayer; abstaining
from meat on Fridays during Lent, and possibly giving up something else we
enjoy but that is not essential to us. But, even if we do all these activities
during Lent, what if we were to focus simply on remembering more profoundly God’s loving kindness; God’s saving,
sustaining presence in our everyday lives?
The people of ancient Israel; the people
of the Bible had a special word for God’s loving, kind action toward us and our
responsibility, in light of God’s loving kindness toward us, to act with loving
kindness toward one another. This word is “covenant.”
Several times we
hear this word, “covenant,” in our first reading today from the Book of
Genesis. God calls “Noah and… his sons” out of the ark after the Great Flood,
and then immediately makes a covenant with them and “every living creature”
that has survived the flood. “I will establish my covenant with you,” God says
to all who were on the ark. The rainbow will be “the sign… for all ages to come of
the covenant between” God and Noah “and every living creature” for all time.
Nothing, especially no flood, will ever destroy this new covenant God has made
with all creation. “I will recall the covenant I have made,” God promises.
But what is a covenant? Is it some kind
of contract? Perhaps we might understand a covenant as a contract. Many of the
Biblical covenants between God and the people are written like contracts: God
makes a promise to bless and to save the people; the people are responsible for
keeping God’s commandments; for remaining faithful to their end of the bargain
with God in return. If the people fail to remain faithful to God, they may
incur a curse or destruction, like a forty-day flood!
But a covenant is more than just a
contract. Imagine us signing on a line for the following: Divine parts and
labor: Salvation of humankind and all creation. Cost: Infinity dollars, plus
applicable taxes and unwavering faithfulness to God’s commandments; ark
building materials sold separately; available while supplies last.
Fortunately for us, a covenant is more
than this. But what is a covenant, among ourselves or between us and God, if
not merely a contract? We might look to the sacraments as signs of what
covenant means, especially for us as Christians. Sacraments are signs to us,
much like the rainbow was to Noah, of God’s loving and kind presence to us;
God’s saving and sustaining care for all of creation.
Do any of us remember when, a few years
ago, concern about legal re-definition of marriage and the rate of marriage
breakdown in this country led our sisters and brothers in some Protestant
traditions to enter into so-called “covenant marriages”? Their concern was that
our society understands marriage too much as a limited, breakable legal
contract and not enough as an unbreakable covenant bond; a sign of something
even more than wife and husband give to one another in a marriage. We might
call this “something more” God’s presence; sustenance; strength; grace; loving
kindness. “Covenant marriages” (I think rightly) struck at our social reduction
of marriage to a mere contract. My concern is that they fell into this same
trap of reducing marriage to a mere contract and so have not really solved this
ongoing social problem.
Is not marriage a covenant relationship,
not only a one-time contract offer on the wedding day but lived throughout a
married couple’s life together? The same might be said of all our Church’s
sacraments: They are visible signs of our relationship with God and with one
another. Our sacraments are visible signs of God’s present, loving, and saving
kindness toward us and all creation. Here we celebrate together one of these visible
signs of God’s presence and loving kindness; of covenant relationship, our
Eucharist.
In the same way, our second reading from
the First Letter of Peter speaks to us of baptism in terms of covenant. “A few
persons… were saved by water”; by the flood in Noah’s time. Now we are all
offered salvation in Jesus Christ by baptism into Christ’s suffering, death,
and resurrection. Baptism is not just a one-time contract with God. It is our
entrance into covenant relationship with God and with one another, the Church.
It is our entrance into the life of “the Kingdom of God” that our Gospel
reading today says is “at hand,” here and now. We enter into this relationship
with God and with one another in baptism and in every sacrament; a relationship
through which God’s loving kindness is made present through our community of
faith.
Baptism, like any sacrament, is not a
mere contract. It is more than a contract. Indeed, I think a covenant
relationship is more difficult for us to maintain, let alone to understand,
than an ordinary contract. All is well if we honor the terms of a contract. And
if we do not honor the terms of a contract, we may pay a penalty. In Biblical
terms, we might (although I believe instances of this are rare) be cursed or
destroyed.
Try as we might, we cannot break the
covenant we have now with God; the covenant God has made with all of creation.
But what can we do to honor this covenant relationship with God and with one
another? What does God invite us to do to honor this covenant?
God invites us simply to remember our
covenant relationship with him and with one another; to remember that God is
always faithful to this relationship: “I will recall the covenant I have made,”
God promises. God invites us to remember and to be confident in God’s mercy for
the times we fail to live up to the same covenant.
This remembrance of covenant is the high
point of our Mass. We hear the words of Jesus in our Eucharistic Prayer: “Do
this in remembrance of me.” And then our Eucharistic Prayer continues in
remembrance of “the saving Passion of [God’s] Son, his wondrous Resurrection
and Ascension into heaven” and our looking “forward to his second coming.”
We remember covenant,
not a mere contract. We remember; we celebrate; we live this covenant with God
and as one community of faith. We remember especially through our sacraments:
Visible signs of covenant; visible signs of God’s loving kindness; of God’s
sustaining, caring, saving presence to us and to all of creation.
