REDEMPTION IS CALLING-- by Christy Gunter: Genesis 9:8-17 and 1 Peter 3:18-22, “Covenant and Renewed Covenant: God’s mercy and grace in chaos”

This is the sermon for Trinity Church of the Nazarene, Christy Gunter-Leppert on March 1, 2009. The picture is from "scripturepics.org"

I included my outline this time, so the reader can see where I'm going. If you want to scream out "No! No! That's not right!" Hang with me. I might be doing something on purpose-- to get us somewhere together.

I. Story of the flood (Genesis 9:8-17)

The world was a dark and dreary place.

It was cold, it was as if the sun was hiding it’s face.

It was full of sin, full of greed, full of pride, full of killing, full of misused power.

The world was hopeless; seemingly in a downward spiral towards falling apart.

The people were nothing but ashes… and acted like it.

They coveted their neighbor’s wife. They treated people as property. They stole birthrights.

They took from the tree of good and evil.

They were selfish. They were sinful. They cared more about what they wanted than anyone or anything else.

The need for power, security, and prestige dominated the world.

And then from the cloud covered darkness… it started to rain… and rain… and rain some more.

Before long it rained so much it was flood.

The world was so bad, so sinful, so pathetic… even nature responded.

The people were so selfish, so sinful—that even nature, the creation suffered.

More people died, more animals died.

The sinfulness of humanity destroyed itself.

II. Covenant: God’s mercy and grace in chaos

But in the midst of sinfulness, in the midst of chaos, in the midst of the death that comes from sin—in the death that comes to all creation because of sin… was God’s mercy and grace.

God asked the faithful one, the one who chose what God wanted over what he wanted, build an ark and collect some animals and his family- and they were spared.

God’s mercy and grace broke through the chaos and God gave a covenant.

Genesis 9:8-13

So basically—we have this loving, merciful God promising to forever hold back the natural forces that crash and kill everything as a result of human sinfulness.

We have God promise to never again deal with sin—by letting the natural catastrophic consequence to destroy everything… in all of creation.

We have hope for mercy and grace—even in the worst disasters and consequnece of sin; that caused a flood.

III. Story of flood of life, we still did not get it

And yet… we humans, the people of Israel, still did not get it.

After the flood the Old Testament is full of stories of people who still did not get the effect of their sinfulness on all creation.

The king takes another man’s wife.
Apostasy (turning away from God towards false gods) runs crazy.

The world is full of a flood—natural consequences to sin; catastrophic—but not deadly to all of creation at one blow.

But yet, even without a literal all-destructive flood, the world is still pretty bad.

The world was a dark and dreary place.

It was cold, it was as if the sun was hiding it’s face.

It was full of sin, full of greed, full of pride, full of killing, full of misused power.

The world was hopeless; seemingly in a downward spiral towards falling apart.

The people were nothing but ashes… and acted like it.

They coveted their neighbor’s wife. They treated people as property. They stole.

They were selfish. They were sinful. They cared more about what they wanted than anyone or anything else.

The need for power, security, and prestige dominated the world.

The prophet Elijah called down fire from heaven to the priests of Ba’al.
Hosea married a whore to show how sinful the people of Israel were.
Amos called them to stop using the poor to get rich.

But the world was still in bad shape.

The world was still full of people tearing up creation and destroying people.

IV. Renewed covenant: God’s mercy and grace in chaos (1 Peter 3:18-22)

But in the midst of sinfulness, in the midst of chaos, in the midst of the death that comes from sin—in the death that comes to all creation because of sin… was God’s mercy and grace.

-Yet again.

1 Peter 3:18-22

In the midst of our sinfulness, in the midst of the dark and dreary world—where sin reigned; where we were selfish…

In the midst of all this, Jesus enters the scene.

Jesus becomes the ashes, with life breathed into it.

Jesus becomes the ash—that we all once were and will all become again.

Jesus- becomes the death; the natural consequence for sin.

Jesus- becomes the catastrophic flood, if you will.

Jesus is dead. His body had returned to its once ashen state.

BUT then—the ashes came to life in AGAIN, by the power of the Spirit.

And all those who follow Jesus, who are baptized in Christ, will also have life breathed into them again.

The baptism waters are symbolic—of dying and living with Christ.

We go into the water in the same way our ashen bodies will also die—but we will die with Christ.

And when we are lifted again out of the baptism waters with Jesus, we have hope to have life breathed into our ashes again.

We are a community of the baptized. We are a community of those who died with Christ and will also live again with Christ.

The world might be a dark and dreary place—but there is hope in God’s mercy and grace—for the baptized in Christ. And there is hope for the dark and dreary world—because of the Church of Jesus Christ.

V. A better creation is not just possible; it is happening.

There is hope… because Jesus showed us with his very life and death—the way to live.

Jesus showed us how not to live in a way that brought catastrophic disaster to all of creation (as it did in the flood) or as it did to the whole of humanity throughout scripture (that brings about death).

Jesus showed us how to live a different way.

Instead of living in this downward spiral towards death and destruction—Jesus showed us how to act in an upward spiral towards life and hope.

Instead of acting by exerting power, taking what we want, stealing, coveting, killing… Jesus shows us another way to live.

Jesus’ way of living and dying is one of self-denial, sacrifice, and selflessness.

AND THUS: The world is not such a dark and dreary place anymore!!

The world has the Church!!

The Church needs to be the body of Christ (the continuation of Christ’s life and death—living in this upward spiral towards the good creation) so the world can see WHO THEY CAN BE!

We are to embody Christ, literally BE the body of Christ in the world—so the world (that is still dark and dreary) can see how beautiful they can be… if they choose to act like Jesus too… if they chose to live and die with the same self-sacrifice as Christ (and hopefully as the Church is living and dying).

We, the Church of Jesus Christ, are actually making the world better!

Through the power of Jesus Christ, through the example we follow in Him, we are enabled to act and be—towards a better creation; towards the creation as we were intended—before we chose ourselves.

And what is MOST exciting is that a better creation (as God intended before sin) is not just possible… it’s actually happening!

A better creation can be seen…

1. As my friend Kaza Fraley says, “when a meth addict walks into church on Sunday dirty and high and a lady in the church says, ‘here sweetie you look cold, take my coat and wrap yourself in it.’”