COVENANT AS EXPRESSION OF LOVE

Last week we explored the first covenant established in the Jewish scriptures with Noah after the great deluge. This week we take a look at the second covenant expressed by God, that to Abraham.
Abraham's story begins with his passage with the rest of his family from Ur of the Chaldeans in ancient southern Babylonia (Gen. 11:31). He and his family moved north along the trade routes of the ancient world and settled in the prosperous trade center of Haran, several hundred miles to the northwest.
While living in Haran, at the age of 75, Abraham received a call from God to go to a strange, unknown land that God would show him. The Lord promised Abraham that He would make him and his descendants a great nation (Gen. 12:1-3). The promise must have seemed unbelievable to Abraham because his wife Sarah was childless (Gen. 11:30-31; 17:15)...
Abraham took his wife and his nephew, Lot, and went toward the land that God would show him. Abraham moved south along the trade routes from Haran, through Shechem and Bethel, to the land of Canaan. Canaan was a populated area at the time, inhabited by the war-like Canaanites; so, Abraham's belief that God would ultimately give this land to him and his descendants was an act of faith.
The circumstances seemed quite difficult, but Abraham's faith in God's promises allowed him to trust in the Lord. In Genesis 15, the Lord reaffirmed His promise to Abraham. The relationship between God and Abraham should be understood as a covenant relationship -- the most common form of arrangement between individuals in the ancient world. In this case, Abraham agreed to go to the land that God would show him (an act of faith on his part), and God agreed to make Abraham a great nation (Gen. 12:1-3)...Abraham's response is the model of believing faith: "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness" (Gen. 15:6).(from Padfield.com)

How does Covenant express the reality of love from God? Is covenant expansive or inhibitive in its nature? How do we demonstrate covenant to others of faith?

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.

17:2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous."

17:3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him,

17:4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.

17:5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.

17:6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.

17:7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

17:15 God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

17:16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her."

RAIN UNTIL THE COWS COME HOME

RAINBOW AND COW by David Ovila

Life and its beginnings in our birth would not be possible without the sustenance of water. In ritual we often celebrate this in manners of cleansing and even the symbolic gesture of baptism. Jesus even followed this rite in the gospels to express his desire to follow God's will. We do so to create new direction and meaning in our lives as we tread the ripples that encircle us as we are baptized. 
In this ancient of stories that harks back to new beginnings, what does the water mean in this story.? What does a renewed chance mean and how is that related to the declaration of a covenant?

Genesis 9:8-17
9:8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,

9:9 "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you,

9:10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.

9:11 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."

9:12 God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:

9:13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

9:14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,

9:15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

9:16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."

9:17 God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

TRANSFIGURATION SUNDAY

Transfiguration of Jesus from Mafa

While doing graduate work in Communications for an art atelier at a university, an artist told me during an interview that there are two significant obsessions in the visual arts. The human figure and the landscape.
Thinking back generally about art expression over the millenia it appears this is a keen observation but also an insight with great import. Obsession with the self and one's environs is most likely expected as a given fundamental of human nature. But as with most obsessions, this can blind us to such other perspectives and opportunities that lend the possibility of seeing our selves and our environs as "transfigured." In the Mafa illustration above the appearance of Moses and Elijah with Jesus acts as a fulcrum in the gospel story, the lives of the disciples and as well the early development of what would come to be called Christianity. 

How does the Mafa rendition of this event speak to transfiguraton? What else is being transfigured besides the figure Jesus? What do you take from this transfiguration? Does it change how you see your landscape?


Mark 9:2-9
9:2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,

9:3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.

9:4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

9:5 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

9:6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

9:7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"

9:8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

9:9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

RESTORING COMMUNITY

Restoring Community

For close to twenty years I worked in hospitals. Assigned to areas of Neurosurgical Intermediate and Intensive Cares, Cardovascular and Neonatal Intensive Cares, as well as Emergency room and Ventilator Care. 
From this experience came the observation that once one is considered ill or infirm, the disease often assumes or becomes the identity of the person. They are no longer Larry or Jane or Bobby or Katelin. They are the lung cancer in 409. Their prognosis is their destiny. Their status is ostracization from the flow of routine society. 
A sort of out of sight out of mind relationship occurs between them and the rest of the "functioning community"
This was particularly true of Jesus' time in Judea. The sick, especially the leper was an outcast an outsider.
How did Jesus cross that line of ostracizing for the benefit of individuals in community?
Do we have "lepers" today that we ostracize. How might we follow Jesus' example to heal community one soul at a time?

Mark 1:40-45
1:40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."

1:41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!"

1:42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

1:43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,

1:44 saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."

1:45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.