Each week millions of believers in liturgical churches confess their faith by reciting the Nicene Creed.  The officiant stands, usually following the sermon and leads in the words;

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

This is the second Sunday in lent; a time for us to reflect on our own lives and see those places where we have room for improvement.  It is a time of repentance, not repentance like it is used by so many churches to bludgeon people into feeling guilty, but repentance in the sense that we return to our right mind or right thinking, according to the root meaning of the word for repentance metanoia.

Our Scripture lessons cause us to reflect on faith, and perhaps challenge us to get back into our right mind about faith.  The word faith is used many different ways.  When it is used in the recitation of a set of beliefs, like the Nicene Creed mentioned earlier, it creates a belief system.  That isn’t what the word faith truly means.  We can have a great deal of faith without believing what the church considers to be right doctrine.  While liturgical churches use the ancient creeds, other protestant churches may use a church covenant or statement of faith like that of the National Association of Evangelicals.  Often these covenants and statements agree with the Nicene Creed, except that they have added a deep belief in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible into the mix.  Creeds and Statements of faith are used as a way to distinguish Christians from non-Christians.  Jesus gave a very different method.   He said that others would know his followers, “If you have love one for another.”

From our lesson in Genesis we learn that Abraham and Sarah would be the progenitors of many nations because of their faith.  Not only is this true physically, since many nations now trace their heritage to Abraham and Sarah, but those who are not physically the children of Abraham consider him to be the father of our faith.  It was Abraham who dared to believe God and set out in blind faith following Yahweh God.  Abraham did not have a creed that he subscribed to.  There was no church council to decide what all those who are truly of the faith must believe.  Instead Abraham simply had faith in God.

In our reading from Romans Paul explains that this faith of Abraham was counted to him as righteousness.  He didn’t earn his position with God.  He was not great because he did great things.  He was great because he dared to have faith.  It is faith that makes us righteous as well.  We are given God’s grace freely and completely because we of God’s wonderful love for us.  It isn’t because we have right doctrine that God gives us grace, It isn’t because we do all the right things that God has given us grace.  We cannot earn God’s favor.  We must simply accept God’s favor.

Faith comes from the root word for trust.  Faith is more of a verb than a noun.  Faith is where we place our trust.  I dare say that the majority of the people who recite the Nicene Creed every Sunday do not truly believe every word of its text.  Those who claim the Bible is without error must understand that it has been changed many times and the Bibles we have today are not at all like the original documents written thousands of years ago.  It is a risky thing to place our complete trust in words continually translated and interpreted over a couple thousand years; it is just as risky to put our trust in the decision of a church council in 325 AD presided over by a Roman Emperor for political compromise.

Where then can we put our faith?  Is there any security beyond this tangible world?  Can we be assured of anything?  Yes we can.  Our faith and trust must be placed in God.  It is through faith in God that we can accept the fact that God has freely given grace to the whole world.  It is truly without cost or obligation. 

How can we return to our right mind this season of Lent?  We can return to a simple trust in God and know that it is enough.  The extra things that have been added to this simple faith by the church can either be an extra blessing to help us find our way, or at times it can be a hindrance to keep some out.  We must remember that our trust must not be in the works of human beings, but in the wonderful grace of God.  The works of humanity are more condemning than accepting.  The works of men are not intended to include everyone, but they have been designed to keep separate Christianity from the rest of the world.  The work of God is for us to accept God’s wonderful grace and love by trusting, through faith,  that God’s love is enough.  This is the right way of thinking I believe we are called to return to this season of Lent.

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

I had a friend in high school who told me he was going to give up French fries for Lent.  Not being part of a church that practiced Lent, I had no idea what he was talking about.  He explained that for the forty days before Easter he would fast by giving up some kind of food he enjoyed, in his case it was French fries.  Since we were in high school hamburgers and French fries were considered some of the best food offered in the cafeteria.  I don’t know how long he was able to maintain his commitment to not eating French fries.

I have heard many arguments for many different kinds of fasts over the years.  Some people fast entire meals.  Some have no food at all, while others only refrain from certain foods.  One of the best rationales I have heard for fasting considers the fact that most people today have an emotional attachment to food.  Sometimes it is food in general, at other times it is specific kinds of food.  This emotional attachment causes us to eat far more than we should, or perhaps the wrong kind of food.  Fasting can be a way to remember that we should live our lives in moderation, without extremes.

This is the first Sunday of Lent.  For western liturgical churches lent began on Wednesday with Ash Wednesday.  It is a time that recalls the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting and praying.  It is actually 46 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, but Sundays aren’t counted since they should be devoted to God anyway.  Christians have come to think of this time of year as a time of reflection, repentance, and often penance.  It is always good to reflect on one’s life and spend time in introspection.  It is also important to repent, not in the sense that fundamentalists use the word repent, but to repent based on the actual meaning of the word; to get back into our right minds.

It is easy to be distracted by the influences of those around us.  We can be driven by inappropriate desires and greed.  We can be misled by false preachers and teachers who spread a message of hatred rather than a message of love.  We can become clouded in our judgment because of the pressures of a sick economy and political processes.   We can be confused by our histories and allow bigotry or prejudice to influence our judgment.  For these and many other reasons, it is a good thing to take time and look inside ourselves and try to get back into our right mind, or correct way of thinking.

Our Old Testament lesson this week shares the story of Noah leaving the Ark after the flood.  You may recall that this is another time in Scripture where 40 days is mentioned.  God sent rain for forty days and forty nights and caused a great flood to destroy all life on the entire known world at the time.  Only eight human beings survived the flood because God had warned Noah and he built an ark, or boat, to preserve the life of his family as well as the various species of animal life.

Our lesson from Genesis chapter nine describes the time after the flood when Noah and his family came out of the Ark.  Following his religious tradition, Noah offered a sacrifice to God in gratitude for being spared from the destruction of the flood.   It is at this point that God makes an astounding proclamation.  God promises that God will never destroy the earth with a flood again.  God was moved by the devastation of the flood and pledges that it will never happen again. 

God was not only concerned with preserving human life, but included in the promise all of the animals, birds, and other life forms that had been destroyed.  In context God appears to be sorry that the flood took place.  Never again would such devastation occur.  There are some preachers who claim that God will never destroy the earth again with a flood, but that God is free to destroy the world in another way, like fire.  While that may be true according to the letter of what is written it is certainly not true in the spirit of what is written.  God appears genuinely remorseful about the situation.  The spirit of God’s promise is that all of nature will be preserved from total devastation in the future.

The sign of God’s pledge not to destroy the earth is the rainbow.  Rainbows have had various mystical connections over the years.  There is something special about the phenomenon in spite of the fact that it is a natural occurrence.   We know that rainbows are literally a spectrum of refracted light as the sun shines through tiny drops of moisture in the air.  Yet rainbows are something more, they are a reminder of God’s blessing and God’s promise to preserve all life.

On our tenth anniversary together my husband and I were legally married In Canada.  When we came back to the United States our church blessed our rings of commitment to one another.  Driving home from this wonderful blessing we drove through a storm and at its edge a beautiful rainbow filled the sky.  While we know the rainbow was a natural phenomenon, it still gave us a sense of God’s blessing as well.  Just as God pledged to preserve life in Noah’s time, we believe that God has pledged to preserve our life together as well. 

One way we can get back into our right mind this season of lent is to remember that the world is a diverse place.  There are countless kinds of life on this planet.  Within humanity there is great diversity of gender, color, sexual orientation, language, and ability.  God has pledged to preserve all life.  God loves all of the wonder of creation the same. Just as there is a broad spectrum of light in a rainbow, there is a broad spectrum of human beings in the world. One type of life is not more loved than another.

Often we forget and allow our prejudices to get in the way of our right mind.  We can remember the rainbow following Noah’s flood to remind ourselves that we are all accepted and loved by God through Christ.  God does not intend to destroy and hate.  God intends to preserve and love.

Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15