First Sunday in Lent (Hebrew Scripture)

Text: Genesis 9:8-17

Look:

Today, I share with you the benediction from our McCormick worship service that happened on March 7, 2012. It was brought to us by our beloved professor, Dr. Ted Hiebert. Beautiful words reflecting on the passage through an eco-lens. Blessings to you as you "stay here."

Benediction/Blessing

In this benediction

I’m not sending you forth,

I’m not sending you out into all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

I’m asking you to stay here,

Where you are,

To become native to this place,

To learn to know your neighbors and those who walk these streets,

To read this landscape with your eyes wide open and with all the energy that you have.

To become grounded again.

But no. Not this place. The place where you live and serve. That place,

With its neighborhoods, its schools, its community gardens,

With its watershed, its inexhaustible sun, its soils and its pavements, its own kind of hydrangeas.

So this is the benediction:

May god be with us all in our own particular places,

The god who is not just worried about us, but about our neighbors and about every living thing,

The god who is in fact in the air we breathe,

In the highest standing trees on your street,

And in the dark clouds of the strong and driving thunderstorm on your horizon,

The god who promised once—but hasn’t been able—

To save every little living thing from disaster,

The god who is that present and that invested in the world.

And may this deep, deep god at the heart of things plant us all in our places,

That we may we be grounded,

That we may be rooted in the world,

That we may serve the earth from which we were made,

And in serving, become again the people we were created to be.

Amen.

Listen:

Since Ted teaches a class called, "Teaching the Bible with Children," I thought he would enjoy this illustration of God's promise. I also hope you are inspired to "wear God's promise on your feet."