The most significant Egyptian, Babylonian, and Mesopotamian creation myth is a 12th century BCE story, the Enuma Elish. In one of its most complete versions the warrior god of the sky, Marduk becomes the king of the gods after he defeats the goddess of the dark primordial waters of the chaotic deep, Tiamat. Marduk splits her in two with an arrow shot down her throat. From this, we conclude that the authors of this myth understood a god king to be one who splits the chaos and brings order to the cosmos, much like the Hebrew God in the first chapter of Genesis.
This photograph depicts a rainbow over the pyramids of Egypt (the likely birthplace of the Enuma Elish), which stands as a symbol of the weapon God hangs in the sky, turned heavenward as reminder of God’s covenant never to use it to fire upon the earth again. -- Chance Dillon)
Lectionary Scripture Focus – Genesis 9:8-17 NRSV
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."
God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."
Reflection on the Lectionary:
Many years ago, home for the summer from my studies at the University of Iowa, I had a thought pressed into my mind, i.e. I could not remember when I last saw a rainbow. I sense now that it was part of the soul searching I was in at that time related to discerning what profession I should pursue. Ultimately, I decided upon clinical psychology. At that point however, I was unclear and seeking a sign that whatever I chose to pursue, it had to be pleasing to God and supportive of a calling I recently experienced (see blog post “Discern theCall”) in terms of ministry. You see the denomination I belonged to at that point had long shunned formal seminary training in terms of preparing interested young adults like me for full-time professional ministry. Instead, a young adult was to serve sacrificially and unreservedly – and if you were lucky, and I do mean lucky -- some general officer of the church hierarchy might just notice you and guide you along the ropes to being “appointed” by the hierarchy to come work for it. There was a huge amount of pressure to the whole process. So I knew that I had to have a fallback profession in case I wasn’t up to snuff in the eyes of the hierarchy. I also needed to know, at that time, that whatever the fallback profession would be, it had to be something pleasing to God and for me, one sign of God’s love was a rainbow.
So not able to recall at that time when I last saw a rainbow, I prayed that God that would let me see the next one that came along. One other thing about that particular summer is that it was the summer of the beat-up 1963 Ford Fairlane, a car I bought from my younger brother to drive back and forth from Fargo, North Dakota, to Iowa City, Iowa for school at the university. For some odd reason, I had to rebuild the car’s starter every sixty to ninety days. It was incredibly annoying! But on one of those occasions, under the jacked up car in the garage pulling off the starter, the rain poured down heavily that hot summer day. Wanting to keep a breeze going through the garage, I left all the doors open during the storm.
Soon the storm passed and the sun shone brilliantly. As it did so, I heard a young child exclaim very excitedly at the end our driveway, “Look at the rainbow!” Instantly, not believing my ears or the situation, I turned my head to look at the young child from beneath the Fairlane and I saw him at the end of our driveway gazing upward with great concentration at the sight before him. For me, I realized God was answering a prayer and knowing that the sight might not last too long, I crawled out from under the car as quickly as I could.
Stepping outside the garage, I saw the most beautiful rainbow I think I had ever seen to that point. And then an even more delightful thing happened, a second and equally beautiful rainbow formed right beneath it. It felt as though God decided to double the pleasure of answering my prayer and I knew that whatever direction I chose to take with my life, God would be with me and would bless my choices.
Fast forward from then to the fall of 2010 and the image of a middle age man of fifty-three sitting and fishing by the shore of the Columbia River at Frenchman’s Bar just outside Vancouver, Washington. There one encounters a man being pelted heavily by rain that morning. He’s spiritually-broken and beaten down by the lack of vision in the faith tradition he grew up in and for which he served in full time ordained ministry for nearly eighteen years. There one encounters a man fervently trying to make his peace with God, a man who’s fervently praying that God would release him from that a calling given to the young adult he was so long ago to “prosecute the missionary work in this land and abroad so far and so widely” as he could – a calling that was centered in nothing less than a “work entrusted to all”, a work that was nothing less than the pursuit of God’s just and peaceable reign for all living creatures -- a promise no more clearly evident than the promise reflected by God’s rainbow.
As that middle age beaten down minister continues his plea for release, he confesses with every ounce of his soul that he must have gotten an awful lot of things wrong through the course of his ministry and relationships with others. Through his tears and his prayers, he tells God that it’s really alright to release him and he in turn releases God from any commitment to that calling. But then, the rain eases up. Eventually it stops and the sun breaks through the clouds. And then a sight across the river stuns the tired broken minister as a rainbow begins to form, and before long above it, there forms another rainbow. And with this sight comes an answer to the man’s prayers, an answer to his pleading, and in his mind he hears the words, “I keep my promises.” Nine months later, from “The One” who spoke those words, there will come a calling so profound, again from “The One” who is the source of all life, "The One" who is the head of the church universal, a calling that will totally re-order his life, an experience the minister will name from that time forth, “My God Encounter”.
Brad Shumate, M.S.,M.A, LMHC
Free of Encumbrance
Vancouver, WA
Email: brshumate@freeofencumbrance.net
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