We know the story well. The book of Genesis tells us that God grieved over the wickedness of humanity and was determined to rebuild creation, much like an artist who redoes a painting that wasn’t just right. After flooding the earth for forty days, sparing Noah and his family, God sent a rainbow as an assurance that the waters shall never again destroy all mortal beings.
While there hasn’t been another flood to devastate the whole earth since then, one has to wonder if the earth is being devastated when we find ourselves coping with frigid winters and subsequent floods or dry hot summers and scorching forest fires along with the ongoing pandemic.
As we heard in that first reading, God made a covenant with Noah and his descendants. A covenant is an agreement between two parties so we have to ask ourselves if we are keeping our end of the covenant. The answer is not so when you consider what we have done to our planet in the past century. Granted much has been done to curtail the rampant pollution of past decades but still the health of our planet and its weather system has been impaired by many choices we have made.
Centuries after Noah walked off his ark, Jesus came on the scene. In the gospel, he offers pithy advice, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” Evidently, humanity had not done a good job honoring its covenant, but this time, instead of flooding the earth, God is giving humanity another chance by showing how the covenant can be honored.
What comes to mind when you hear that line, “the kingdom of God is at hand”? Do you think of some distant utopia, perhaps heaven? Have you ever given any thought that the kingdom of God is a reality that could happen here and now? Jesus isn’t talking about what we will find on the other side of death’s threshold. He is talking about himself. Jesus wants us to open our eyes and see him, more to the point, to see what God is doing in and through him. Namely showing us how to make this a better world.
Think of the gospel as God’s vision for a new and better planet. The earth was destroyed once because of humanity’s evil ways. Might the earth be destroyed again because of our sinful choices? Jesus offers us the good news, namely the gospel to repair our broken world.
Perhaps you think of the gospel only as a biography of Jesus’ brief public ministry but actually the gospel is God’s antidote for restoring the beauty of this unique planet, the only one we know of for certain that is blessed with life.
When we see a rainbow, following a storm, we are reminded that the sun is breaking through, that better weather is in store for us. God sends us rainbows in the cloud to remind us as well of the covenant, as Noah learned, “between me and you and every living creature with you.” Heed the covenant and a better world emerges.
The gospel is given to us as a blueprint for us to honor our end of the covenant, a means for us to deepen our relationship with God by turning away from self and directing our focus toward God and God’s people.
God of the Old Testament and Jesus are striving to lure us away from evil to a new social order that puts the needs of the marginalized first. One pathway that Jesus often spoke of is illustrated by the corporal works of mercy, pictured in our stained glass windows: visit the sick or the imprisoned, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, bury the dead. Pope Francis calls them our Christian identity cards because they outline for us how we ought to live in imitation of Christ.
Often we see Lent as a time of turning inward, taking an honest look at our failures and shortcomings in living the Christian life and making up for them and it is. But Lent is also a time for turning outward to our brothers and sisters in need, treating them with compassion, mercy and love just as God treats us.
With infinite power, God could have created a perfect world but with infinite wisdom, God willed instead to create a world journeying toward ultimate perfection. Until that happens, however, good and evil will coexist.
Jesus provides us with the blueprint to see how destructive evil is to our lives and our planet. Through prayer, worship and following his directives, we can see the way to create a better world for ourselves now and future generations.
Lent is not the time to be asleep, not the time to languish in complacency and self-satisfaction, not the time for delaying tactics, procrastination and second-guessing. In the midst of Lent and this ongoing pandemic, now is a time for us to be attentive and as Jesus said, now is the time to repent. Not just be mindful of our own wrongdoing but repent also means to alter our way of knowing, perceiving and grasping reality. Evil persists because we haven’t tried to see the world differently. Jesus and the gospel exist to provide us with a new vision for honoring our covenant, to build a new creation, being mindful of our pressing need to care not only for ourselves but also for others and this planet. Look at the rainbow. God has not given up on us. We must not give up on ourselves either.