Good morning, Church! Welcome. I’m Danny Bradfield, I use he/him pronouns, and I’m the pastor of Bixby Knolls Christian Church. Whether you are here in person, or joining us online, it is good that you are here. It is good, and it is a blessing to me and to everyone else who is gathered with us in worship. Thank you for being here.
Things continue to change. I am vaccinated and most of those in our church who are eligible to be vaccinated have been; but we are still keeping our masks on over our mouths and noses when we gather inside for worship, as the health experts suggest. We’ll only remove our masks when we are at the microphone speaking.
Vaccination is almost - but not quite - 100% effective, and no one under 12 is able to get vaccinated yet; we want to do everything we can to make this a safe space, and we want to do everything we can to stop this virus, to completely eradicate it, so that we can continue gathering together and praising God and showing real love to one another and learning, together, how to show real love to our world.
If you are joining us online - thank you for welcoming us into your space. Please leave a comment and say hi - that’s the only way we know you are here - and maybe tell us where you are located, especially if it’s outside of the Long Beach area. And (whether you are here in person or online) if you want to learn more about our church, please visit our website: www.bixbyknollschurch.com.
Our scripture today is not from the lectionary. But we’re in the middle of a five-part series on covenant, and this scripture is all about covenant. And also: it has a rainbow, which is a cool thing, given that this is pride month.
Also: there’s something really, really cool about this scripture passage. It’s in the way that this passage is structured. It follows a certain format, almost like poetry.
For example: you may know that a haiku consists of 3 lines, each with a specific number of syllables: five in the first line; seven in the second line; and five in the last.
And you may know that a sonnet has 14 lines, usually with ten syllables per line. (I’m not going to recite a sonnet for you.)
This passage from Genesis isn’t usually considered a poem, but maybe it should be. It does have a certain structure. It is a chiastic structure, sometimes called a chiasmus.
It may be helpful to know these words start with the letters c-h, just like the word Christ, because they all come from Greek, and in Greek the first letter in all these words is the letter chi. The Greek letter chi looks like our letter X, a letter made up of two lines that meet in the middle.
So this scripture is a chiasmus. In a chiastic structure, the main point is in the middle. What comes immediately before that main point, and what comes immediately after, mirror each other.
A,B,C,X,C’,B’,A’
Here’s a very simplified example:
My favorite food is strawberries. They are healthy, and sweet. I love strawberries! So sweet… so healthy… there’s nothing better than strawberries!
Here in Genesis 9, the word covenant appears seven times. Three times leading up to the main point… then the main point… then three times after the main point.
At the center, the main point is when God says: “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”
And you can see the chiastic structure, because the very first appearance of the word covenant appears when God says to Noah, “I’m establishing my covenant with every living creature,” which matches up with the last appearance, when God again says to Noah, “This is my covenant between me and all flesh.” (“all flesh” being just a different way of saying, “every living creature.”)
But wait, there’s more...
This gets even more interesting when you learn that this whole chiastic section exists within a much larger chiasmus that spans the entire story of the flood, stretching across four chapters in Genesis. This larger chiasmus isn’t just A,B,C,X,C’,B’,A’, it’s A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,X,J’,I’,H’,G’,F’,E’,D’,C’,B’,A’.
At the very beginning of the story, you have a verse that mentions Noah and his sons, followed by a mention of all life on earth, and then a description of the curse; at the end, you have the reversal of the curse (in other words, a blessing), followed by another mention of all life on earth, and then a final mention of Noah and his sons.
Many other details appear in this larger chiasmus, which would take far too long to discuss. But at the center is the central verse stating that God remembered Noah.
And God remembering Noah is key to understanding this covenant. God does not forget or neglect God’s people. God remembers them. God takes notice of them. And the covenant is a reminder to God and a reminder to humans of the special relationship we have with God.
And it’s really cool that, in this story, the covenant is symbolized by a rainbow, because, in a rainbow, where one end meets the ground, you have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet… and at the other end, where the other end meets the ground, the colors are reversed: violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red. It’s a symmetry that resembles the symmetry of a chiasmus.
I could stop right there, because this is all so cool (at least, to a nerdy guy like me), but I do have a little more to say…
...because the complexity and the craft in this section of scripture emphasizes the significance of the story, and the importance of covenant.
So let me talk just a little bit more about covenant - what it is, and what it is not.
In many ways, a covenant is like a contract. It is an agreement between two parties. But there are some significant differences; some very important differences. To help you understand the difference between a contract and a covenant, let me first describe to you what it feels like, to me, when I sign a contract.
I don’t know about you, but when I sign a contract, it’s scary. Financing a new car (which I’ve done) or buying a new mortgage (which I haven’t done) involves lots of pages of fine print and required signatures. It’s complicated, and I’m not even sure I understand what’s in all that fine print, yet I want to know:
What, exactly, am I agreeing to? What, exactly, am I giving up? What, exactly, am I committing myself to?
Is this person I’m signing a contract with actually a sea witch who’s going to take my voice and steal my prince and turn me into one of her little - what are they called, those little creatures stuck to the floor at the entrance to Ursula’s cave?
I think they’re called polyps. The firewall on the LBUSD computers blocked access when I tried to learn more about Ursula’s polyps while I was substitute teaching at Catalina the other day, so I guess they must be really, really, poor, unfortunate souls. But I did learn that you can buy your very own 9 inch resin sculpture of some polyps on the Disney website for only $95. Why you’d want to, I have no idea…
My point is that signing a contract can be scary. It can trap you.
But a covenant…
A covenant is not like that. A covenant’s strength comes from love, not law.
In this week’s Covenant video, which I’ll post on our church facebook page, Casey Sigmon has her own Disney movie references; but, more importantly, she says that “Covenant people are lovingly bound to one another while contract people are legally bound.”
We’re bound together by love. And in love, there is freedom. There is room to grow. And there is grace.
A covenant doesn’t present penalties to those who fail to abide by it. No one is going to become a polyp in Ursula’s garden!
Instead of penalties and punishments, there is grace, there is forgiveness, and there is the opportunity to renew the covenant, to start anew, to heal, to make it stronger. It is such a positive, affirming thing!
There is no fear in covenant; there’s nothing to be scared of.
Our covenant with the 3600 other Disciples congregations does not limit or restrict us. In fact, it gives us greater freedom. It empowers us to do more than we could if we were not a part of that covenant.
Covenant challenges us to commit to unity, because there is strength in unity.
Covenant challenges us to be better. The rest of the church holds us accountable, and we can hold other parts of the church accountable.
It’s the same way that we in this congregation are committed to one another. None of us have to be here. None of us is forced to be here.
But our love draws us together. Our love for God, and our love for one another.
And we have committed to showing up for one another. We have committed to being present in support of one another. We have committed to making space for one another. We have committed to praying for one another. And we have committed to supporting this congregation, financially, and in whatever other ways we can.
No contract or legally binding agreement enforces this commitment; rather, our love and common purpose is what holds us together.
And within that covenant, we find freedom;
...and within that covenant, we find grace;
...and within that covenant... we find the opportunity to grow into who and what God is calling us to be.
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