Lent 1

There is a museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that has as its unofficial name, “The Museum of Failed Products.” Ponder that name for a few moments, “The Museum of Failed Products.”

The museum looks like a standard supermarket inside. However, all the items on the shelves are products that were taken off the market because nobody bought them.

I wonder why? Wouldn’t you want to buy Clairol’s Touch of Yogurt shampoo? Sounds yummy. Or Pepsi’s AM Breakfast Cola, that was supposed to compete with coffee as a morning pick-me-up? And why didn’t we all get excited about Colgate-brand TV dinners, where we could have our teeth cleaned while munching on toothpaste-flavored chow? Or Fortune Snookies, the fortune cookies for dogs? Doesn’t your pooch like to read their fortune each day? The museum also has displays of such wild ideas as caffeinated beer, microwaveable scrambled eggs in a tube, and breath mints that look like little packages of cocaine. Now that one would need to come with a warning label: Take orally, do not snort.

Can you imagine the disappointment of the inventor who poured his or her time, energy, and intellect into creating a product, only to have it fail? How disheartening to have your creation end up in the “Museum of Failed Products.”

I wonder if God doesn’t sometimes look at us, the pinnacle of His creation, and wonder with disappointment how we turned out the way we did?

The story of Noah and the great flood is one of the best known and best loved stories in the Bible. It is also one of the most important because it represents the beginning of the concept of a covenant relationship between the Creator and his creation.  

We are a covenant people. As descendants of Noah we share in the benefits of this relationship which God has established with his children. What are some of the implications of this covenant relationship? What does it mean for our lives today? There are two implications for us.  

The first implication is that God is disappointed in us – even the best of us.  The funny thing is that some of us don’t look at it that way at all. We believe that God is fortunate to have us on His side.  We refuse to see that even the best of us is a mixture of dust and divinity.  

Former Beatle Paul McCartney once coined a word to describe the letdown fans experience when a new song by an old group fails to make them feel young again. The word is anticipointment. “Anticipointment,” McCartney says, “is the feeling of disappointment you get when you’re expecting something really great, but you get something entirely different.”

Perhaps God felt a bit of anticipointment with humanity back in Noah’s time.

In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. . . Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

In other words, there is a battle within the human heart. None of us is immune. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3: 23)  

Yes, there is a basic flaw within our character, what theologians call ‘original sin.’

At times, God is disappointed even in the best of us. The story of Noah and the flood is the culmination of that disappointment. According to the Genesis writer, God repented that he had ever made man. There is an irony in the story of Noah, however. God was so disappointed in humanity that he decided to wipe the slate clean and start all over. But God preserved Noah and his family.

Why did God choose to save Noah? Because he was the only righteous man left in the world. But notice. After the waters subside, and he leaves the ark, what does Noah do? He falls into a tawdry sin that would have brought God’s wrath under other circumstances. God chooses the only righteous man on earth and he turns out to be not very righteous at all. Noah’s story is our story.  

Even at our best, we are not all God created us to be. That is why one of the words in the scripture for sin is hamartia, missing the mark.  None of us utilizes all of our potential, all of our ability, all of our talent in a constructive manner all the days of our life. We are not the mothers we ought to be, the fathers we ought to be, the citizens we ought to be, the church member we ought to be, the priest we ought to be, the soldiers of Christ we ought to be. We all fall short of the mark. 

Now although God is disappointed even in the best of us, He is hopelessly, passionately, in love even with the worst of us. Think about that for a moment. Though God is disappointed even in the best of us, He is hopelessly, passionately, in love even with the worst of us.      

This dilemma forces God into an unusual role.

Actually, God’s last word concerning this dilemma is not found in the story of Noah or even in the Old Testament. It is found in the Gospels. Indeed, it is the Gospel.      

 God made a Covenant with us.  He did that first with a rainbow after the flood and later with a cross. This past week we observed Ash Wednesday, the day that marks the beginning of the Lenten season. This is the time when we prepare to face the cross and Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion and resurrection. There is a story that I think is particularly relevant for us at this time of year.

Major Barbara Sherer served as a military chaplain in Kuwait. She wrote about the time a fire swept through her camp one day, destroying the tents the troops were using as a dining hall and a chapel. Amazingly, the fire started right after breakfast in between the times for the Protestant and Catholic services. No one was in the tents during this time, so there were no fatalities. The fire also happened just a few days before Ash Wednesday.

After the fire cooled down, Major Sherer got permission to visit the site to collect some ashes. She planned to use them to anoint the foreheads of the soldiers. A firefighter scooped up a cupful of ashes and put it in a plastic bag and gave it to her. Later, as she was pouring the ashes into a bowl for the Ash Wednesday service, she spotted something shiny in the bag. It was a small silver cross that had survived the fire. On it were inscribed the words “Jesus is Lord.”

The fire had burned through five very large tents. Everything in the path of the fire had been destroyed. How had that firefighter, in scooping up a random cup of ashes, managed to pick the exact spot where this tiny cross lay hidden?

Major Sherer writes, “The message to me is clear: God walks with us through the terrible firestorms of our lives, and we are lifted unharmed out of the ashes. We may be marked in some way, like the cross of ash placed on our foreheads during Ash Wednesday. However, that mark is a symbol of God’s love and protection.”

Remember that the next time you see a rainbow in the heavens. God sealed his promise with a rainbow. Then He made good on the promise with a cross. None of us are all we might be.  But still Somebody loves us and He sent His Son to die for us. That’s the Gospel.  A Father willing to welcome home a disobedient child.  A Father willing to take that child’s place on the cross of Calvary.