Genesis 9:8-15
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:12-15
Bishop Untener's Homily
The Sweep of History
That reading from the Book of Genesis about Noah takes us way back into time. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are called "pre-history". They tell us in symbolic ways of ancient truths going back thousands, millions, billions of years - that God created the universe and all living beings, and that from early on, human beings were sinful.
Then we fast-forward to the Gospel reading - the beginning of the ministry of Jesus - which was only 2,000 years ago. Jesus announces that a new stage in God's plan has arrived.
Let's step back and take a wide view of this long sweep of history.
Early Forms of Life
Technology has helped us learn a lot more about all forms of life, and how the natural world works.
Fundamentally, living beings in this world have a genetic drive in them toward survival. This drive is called "self-preservation". Self-preservation ultimately focuses on the self. In that sense it is selfish.
But from the beginning, life was programmed that way because it's the only way life could continue and develop: Self-preservation.
After eons of simple forms of life, animal life developed, and this fundamental law of life - self-preservation - was even more manifest. Animal behavior includes aggression, deceit, theft, and killing. This is not, morally speaking, sinful. It's self-preservation. It's built-in, and enables life to evolve and continue on.
Human Life
Then, some 200,000 years ago, human life emerged. What made it different from animal life was intelligence, the ability of self-reflection... which meant freedom.
God wanted life now to go beyond its primitive stages. Human beings were to be able to use their intelligence and freedom to rise to a new level... to discover the law of love, and no longer to be trapped in the law of self-preservation, which was ultimately selfishness.
Some have used a helpful analogy. The drive for self-preservation was a necessary law of life in its pre-human stages, just like a booster rocket is needed to get a space vehicle off the ground and out of the earth's gravity. But in order to continue on, the booster rocket has to drop off so that the spacecraft can soar to greater heights. In the same way, the drive for self-preservation enabled life to survive and evolve, but now human beings have to let go of this selfish drive, and rise to greater heights.
Human beings had intelligence and freedom, and God created them to rise to a new level. The aggression, deceit, theft, killing of animal life would now be something freely chosen by human beings. It was sinful. But human beings are not pure spirits. They are material beings made up of cells, and this genetic drive toward self-preservation was still in them. They were capable of rising above it, but it was a constant struggle, a struggle made more difficult because the drive is not only in individuals. It's in everyone else, which is to say, it's in our society. We're born into a society with this drive in it, which is one way of saying that we are all born into "original sin." We can overcome it. Free will enables us to do that. But it takes great effort, and we tend more readily to opt for self.
God wanted to overcome this behavior that is meant to be left behind, and the story of Noah is the story of God taking steps to eliminate this selfishness, which was now sinful. We also see God, in the Covenant at Sinai, give Moses the 10 Commandments which said: "Thou shalt not kill... Thou shalt not steal... Thou shalt not lie."
Still, God knew that in order to bring human beings to this new level, God would have to become part of the human race and not only teach a new way of life, but live it.
Jesus
That brings us to today's Gospel.
Jesus came as one of us. He was not a pure spirit. He was truly a human being, born of woman. So he himself had to struggle through to this new level. Thus it was that, as we just heard...
"The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him."
Did you notice? "He was among the wild beasts." Jesus faced all the drives to self-preservation that lead to selfishness. He faced all the evil forces embedded in our heritage, and he overcame them. Then he began to go out and preach the Gospel - the "good news" - that we could rise to a new level... that God's life would be poured upon us, and we could live forever and we were no longer prisoners of the war of survival. Thus, after the temptation in the desert, Jesus announces...
"This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel."
A new stage in history had begun. Jesus teaches and lives this Gospel, this "good news." He is the "man for others" - just the opposite of raw self-preservation. He says, "Blessed are the meek... Blessed are the merciful... Blessed are the peacemakers..." Jesus announces a new way of living: "You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you... when someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn and offer the other." Jesus says, “Formerly it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' But I say to you, love your enemies... that you may be children of your heavenly Father."
Then, after preaching and living this way of life, Jesus freely dies. He gives his life - for us. Then he goes through death to a transformed human life, and now death is no longer the end but rather a new birth. Then he pours his Spirit upon us - God-life that enables us to rise to a new level. That's why Jesus can say to us: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist
What has all this got to do with the Rite of Election? It's got everything to do with it.
Catechumens and candidates... you are not simply joining a club. You are joining us in trying to live this new way of life - and keep in mind, in the broad sweep of history, it's still "new". You are preparing for Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, and during this holy Lenten season we are all renewing our commitment to the way of life expressed in Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist.
In order to be part of the way of life that Jesus has called us to, we have to die to that primitive drive in our genetic make-up - the drive toward self-preservation, the drive toward selfishness.
At Baptism, we express that dying... dying to the "old way" of human life. We express it through the most dramatic sacramental action we have: Going down into the water, dying to one way of living, then rising to this new way of life. Actions speak louder than words, and your baptism is an action. At the peak moment of the ceremony, you don't speak a word. The minister of baptism says, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And you go under water. You don't say "Amen." There are no words. There is only action. You die, and then you rise. You don't die to this or that particular thing - giving up smoking or alcohol or chocolate. You die to a whole way of life, and rise to a very different way of life.
And then in Confirmation you receive, in a special way, the breath of God's own life within you.
And then you join in the Eucharist, and you come forward to receive the Bread of Life, and take the Cup, and this time, unlike Baptism, you speak. You say, "Amen". Through that "Amen" you join with Christ in his own dying and rising, and you become with Christ, the Body of Christ, bringing to the world around you a whole new way of living and dying.
May God who has begun this good work in you, sustain you along the way, and bring it to fulfillment.
Given at the Cathedral Rites of Election, March 8-9, 2003