Tuesday (Epiphany 2 Year 2)
Commemoration of Vincent
Today’s assigned readings:
Genesis 9:1-17, Hebrews 5:7-14, John 3:16-21
Dear Friends,
God said, “This [Rainbow] 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.
Genesis 9:12-13
One thing you can say about Teh Gayz: we likes us some rainbows. While I usually find the Rainbow Pride Flag to be kinda silly, I do love that the city of San Francisco always flies the original ones around the city during the month of June (or so). The Rainbow-as-flag has quite a history, extending from the Aztec Empire and Protestant Reformation!
But I’d like to focus on it’s modern religious use - which arises from our passage today.
I’m intrigued by this concept of the Rainbow as a mark of God’s Covenant -
not with the Jews, but with all nations and people.
Within the Jewish tradition this covenant is referred to as the Seven Noachide Laws. These are often broken out into many different rules and regulations (by ehe Rabbis - not the text) and you can see these on the Wiki page linked above; but these are the seven:
- Prohibition against idolatry
- Prohibition against blasphemy
- Prohibition against murder
- Prohibition against theft
- Prohibition against sexual immorality
- Prohibition against eating the limb of a living animal
- Establish courts of justice
Of course, these things only need make sense from a Jewish point of view: the general idea being “we” have the Covenant of Sinai while “they” have the Covenant of Noah. Both covenants, of course, being written about from within the context of the Hebrew scriptures. Yet the general idea is that we are all - somehow - under a covenant with God. According to the Jewish Encyclopaedia, The 18th century rabbi, Jacob Emden
in a remarkable apology for Christianity contained in his appendix to “Seder ‘Olam” (pp. 32b–34b, Hamburg, 1752), gives it as his opinion that the original intention of Jesus, and especially of Paul, was to convert only the Gentiles to the seven moral laws of Noah and to let the Jews follow the Mosaic law—which explains the apparent contradictions in the New Testament regarding the laws of Moses and the Sabbath.”
And as I thought about that, I recognised a sketch of the Noachide laws in the directives sent, by the Jerusalem Council to the Gentile Christians (meanwhile, the Jews at the Jerusalem Council were following the Mosaic Law still). Later Paul will forget about his council and decide that he can issue directives on his own - about many of the things covered in the letter from the council.
I’ve not given it much thought, to be honest. My interest in Judaism is one thing. I looked at the Noachide Laws briefly ten years ago, but many of the folks who are into them seem just a little bit loopy, as in too pious for words. But it’s the idea that draws me: that there is a standard for conduct on par with Torah - not just select parts of the Torah that we decontextualised in order to access them on our own terms. (We like the no-gay-sex rule, but we’ll keep eating shrimp, thanks.) This seems to make as much sense as any approach to Christianity.
So, tonight as I write, I’m intrigued by this idea that Gentiles are under a covenant - even according to the earliest church.
Where can such an idea take us? Away, I think, from “Chosen people” (where we imagine ourselves as a replacement for Israel) and into “average people” where all the people of God are included. Maybe? Or can we envision the early church as Noachide synagogues? Can we imagine what such a movement might look like today?
Much Love
Huw