“Rainbow Grace”

First Sunday in Lent

February 18, 2024

Genesis 9:8-17

Mark 1:9-15

I want to share a story a colleague wrote about related to today’s lessons.[1] Now, I don’t know if Grace Church is a real place or if this story is a parable, but it could easily be either. There was a lot of talk at Grace Church when Sam had returned. Sam was Tom and Betty’s son. As a child, he was a handful. Sunday school teachers would suddenly take a year off when it came time for them to teach Sam’s class.

He had been caught breaking windows, but the church didn’t press charges. Tom and Betty just replaced the windows. After Sam turned 18, he was driving his friends around town. He waited behind the wheel while his friends stole a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store. He didn’t know they had a gun. So, when they emptied the cash register and wounded the owner, Sam, too, went to prison. For 8 years.

He moved away when he got out, because he was ashamed. But he couldn’t get a job where he was. He finally returned home to live with his parents and look for work. He helped on the farm with Tom, and his family was glad to have him home and safe. And every Sunday, they came to church.

But Sam and Tom and Betty couldn’t help but notice the whispers and stares every Sunday. He had grown to love worship, but he was concerned about his parents losing their friends. He thought it might be best if he stayed home. So, he went to talk to the pastor. With his permission, she took the issue to council.

As she recounted his concerns, the council became quiet. John spoke up first. “As a teen, I went to reform school.” That took everyone by surprise. “I’ll give him a job.” And then Margaret spoke up. She had been Sam’s first grade Sunday School teacher. She told the story—which she told many times before—about the day they were learning about Noah and the ark. She had left the room briefly after class. When she returned, she discovered Sam using permanent markers to draw a rainbow on the wall. “I didn’t have the energy to remove it, so I just left it,” she said.

Ben remembered that rainbow, because he had tried to paint over it several times when he was in the classroom. It still showed through.

In the end, the council asked Sam to read the Scripture lessons and then speak a bit about what the church community meant to him. After the readings, he thanked the council for the opportunity. He thanked John for the job. He thanked his parents for never giving up on him. He thanked the congregation for remembering the promises they made at his baptism.

And then he told of his fondest memory from growing up in the church. One day, after first grade Sunday School and learning about Noah and the ark, he took permanent markers and began drawing a rainbow on the wall. When his teacher, Margaret, returned and saw what he was doing, she said, “Well, neither one of us will make it to church on time if I don’t help.” She picked up a purple marker and started drawing.

He remembered the stories Margaret told him that day about grace. God’s grace, even after such deep anger and disappointment, in the people of earth and the rainbow promise God made. She told about how all of us make God sad sometimes—even her. She talked about the rainbows of grace in her own life—her family, her church. Even his class and this time together, drawing on the wall.

Sam said he knew he had disappointed his congregation and his family. And God. And still, God gave grace to him. He had gone down to that Sunday School room recently to see if the rainbow was still there. Though someone had tried to paint over it, it still shone through. Just like the way we try to cover up God’s grace by ignoring it or pretending we don’t need it—or refusing to offer it to others.

God’s grace will still shine through. We may not deserve it. But it’s there. And after he sat down, the people of Grace Church found it easier to live up to its name.

The story of the great flood tends to leave me with a lot of unanswered questions. Questions about accountability and reconciliation. Questions about abuse of power and genocide. Questions that make me uncomfortable as I ponder what kind of god could destroy all of creation and then think that a rainbow in the sky and a promise not to destroy things in that way ever again could make up for it. Like an abuser who brings home flowers after beating someone half to death and promises not to hit the person ‘there’ next time.

It’s uncomfortable and confusing. And it’s difficult to see the grace in that story. So, I want to just name that discomfort right now. Because I know that I’m not the only one who squirms a bit when such a reading comes up.

The thing about these primordial stories is that their point is rarely the event, itself. And they are written by a people long-since distanced from the history they write about. In many ways, true or not, the story takes on mythical proportions. Everything is made bigger to emphasize the main drive of the story. In this case, the drive isn’t the destruction but the grace. The second chance for humanity.

This is a story about humanity’s weakness in temptation. And what is it that tempts us most? Power, prestige, and profit. Every time we seek out these things for ouselves, we hurt one another. We do things that can’t be undone. We destroy the creation that God so lovingly made. We see this today as people seek ways to defraud on taxes, dump their poison into waterways and fallow earth, lie to get to the top, and pretend they are something they are not. We see it at every level of society—even among children.

As I read through Mark’s account of Jesus’ temptation, I was disappointed to realize that he doesn’t give any details. The temptation account—the wilderness account—is all of 2 verses, 1 sentence long. Which is why the lectionary bookends it with the baptism story (which we just heard) and taking up of John’s proclamation. I wondered, what were the temptations? Well, they were what tempts anyone. Power, prestige, and profit. Taking care of one’s self in spite of the needs of others.

But God’s grace comes in Jesus’ baptism. Before the Spirit can expel him into the wilderness, God tells him—reminds him—ensures him that he is God’s Beloved. Nothing can change that. The most important element of being human is our identity. Power, prestige, and profit cannot give us that, no matter what they promise. They cannot make us more than who we are already. And it is with that grace that Jesus enters the wilderness. The wild animals surround him, reminding him of God’s perfect garden and the blessing offered to humanity from the very beginning. The angels serve him, reminding him that God is with him, even in the darkest moments.

So that, when he encounters temptation, Satan simply cannot slap enough paint on the temptations to cover up God’s rainbow-grace. God’s claim on us, no matter how much we ignore or forget it, will always shine through. We simply can’t cover it up.

With God’s grace, we can walk through the shadows of darkness and wilderness and temptation without fear. We can even welcome those moments as times when grace shines brightest. We can enter them with a sense of God’s presence and know that no matter the outcome, God loves us, affirms us, welcomes us, and never leaves us.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE

[1] https://melissabanesevier.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/the-rainbow/