Village Shepherd

Roly Bain, the ordained Anglican priest whose ministry is based around presenting the gospel through clowning, has a unique and powerful way of offering intercessions. He uses a small pot of bubble mixture and as he blows the bubbles he invites the audience to look at the bubbles and draws the congregation's attention to the rainbow within each bubble. He then reminds them of the story of Noah's Ark - which everybody knows - and explains that when flood waters subsided, God put his sign in the sky, the sign of a rainbow. He suggests brief biddings and invites the people to attach their prayers to a bubble and says very quietly and reverently, "When the bubble bursts, you know that your prayer is heard." It's a powerful moment which electrifies the congregation.

This is a very useful way of leading public prayers which appeals to both adults and children and enables them to pray effectively. It's especially helpful in a service of all-age worship such as a baptism, where many members of the congregation may not be familiar with church.

There's something about rainbows. Perhaps it's the historical link with our ancestors since the beginning of time, or perhaps it's a feeling that as long as the rainbow is seen in our skies from time to time, God is still in charge of the world.

In today's story from Genesis of the rainbow, God makes a covenant with Noah. God makes many covenants with people throughout the Old Testament, but on all future occasions the covenant is agreed with a commitment on both sides. On this occasion of God's very first covenant with human beings, there is no commitment on the human side. God freely and generously makes a covenant with human beings, but demands nothing in return. The first covenant is unconditional and is a sign of God's unconditional love for human beings.

This covenant is not only with Noah, but is with all Noah's descendants and with every living creature. Since all human beings and all living creatures apart from those on the ark have just been destroyed in the flood, this covenant is therefore with the whole of creation and is for all time.

God's promise is that he will never again destroy the earth and his rainbow is a sign of that promise. Both God and human beings will remember God's promise whenever they see the rainbow.

In ancient times the bow was a weapon and therefore an image of war, but in God's hands the bow has been reversed and serves as an image of peace and a sign of God's eternal promises. And since this passage was written around 500 years before Jesus was born, when the Israelites were suffering in exile in Babylon, the sign of the rainbow would be powerful and significant. Just when it seemed as though all hope was lost and the people had been deserted by God, when God saw his bow in the sky he would remember his covenant and the people would be able to go home.

What does the rainbow mean for us today? The symbolism has perhaps been hijacked by Gay Pride, but if we can get beyond the identification of the rainbow with minority groups, it should still tell us that God keeps his promises. Perhaps because of this, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition also used the rainbow as a symbol of their political movement. And the rainbow plays a part in many myths and stories related to gender and sexuality issues in Greek, Native American, African, and other cultures.

How interesting then, that shortly after God gave his covenant to Noah, Noah was involved in sexuality issues of his own. It seems that Noah's first act upon reaching dry land again, was to build a vineyard and make his own wine. As everyone knows, home-made wine can be very potent, and after drinking his own wine, much to his son Ham's horror, Noah was discovered naked in his tent in a kind of drunken orgy. Ham told his brothers, Shem and Japheth, who discreetly walked backwards to avoid setting eyes on their naked father and draped a garment over Noah. But poor Ham, the father of Canaan, seems to have been the victim in this story, for when Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers." (Genesis 9:24-25). This might explain why the Canaanites were later dispossessed, but we're told that despite his failings, Noah went on to live for 950 years!

The Christian story has always been based around forgiveness. No matter what we have done, we are forgiven by God and enabled to start over again. This love and forgiveness has been brought to us by Jesus, who received his own sign at his baptism. We're told that just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." (Mark 1:10-11).

The dove is common to the story of Noah and the rainbow and to the story of Jesus' baptism. On three occasions Noah released a dove and only knew that the waters had receded sufficiently to allow disembarkation from the ark when the dove failed to return. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon Jesus, convincing Jesus of his vocation and effectively starting his ministry.

The dove was a powerful sign for Jesus, and the rainbow remains a powerful sign for us today. Whenever we see a rainbow we can not only remark upon its beauty, but we can also know that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world.