Lent - Sunday 1B.
Understanding the worldview of the People of God is crucial to understanding the Scriptures. We imagine that we understand how the world works, having a post-Enlightenment, post-Industrial Revolution and post-modern worldview. Yet, perhaps we are beginning to see that the world and the environment is not quite as easy to control and dominate as we once thought. Perhaps we are not so different from the worldview of the Ancient Near-East, which realised that so much of the world seemed poised on the brink of chaos, of falling back into the 'tohu va bohu' (formless and void) that God first spoke his creative word into. Into the world of poor human choices, and sin, God speaks again his creative word, this time to Noah and his family to provide the ark as a sign of safety and protection. Inside the ark, creation can again be at peace and properly ordered. The waters of the flood will not overwhelm us if we place our trust in the covenant love of God. Even the wilderness can be a place of protection - a place where Jesus chooses to go as a sign of the power of new creation. In Lent we are called to journey into the desert to confront our sin and our past - not just as an individual act of piety, but as members of the church and people committed to God's work of renewing all creation through our stewardship.
Recorded at Sacred Heart, 9.30am (8'21")
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