Here we are in the First Sunday of Lent. We are ready to move more deeply into a time of reflection about our relationship with God. We have just heard, again, the story of Jesus' baptism and the temptations he is about to face in the desert. Anglicans around the world ate pancakes last Tuesday, received ashes on Wednesday and are walking with us into the desert with Christ today. How did this solidarity happen?

We are a church that seeks to sanctify time and space. We use a Book of Common Prayer to order our individual liturgies. But the lessons we read, the rites that we practice and the liturgical seasons we pass through are knit together by something less visible. We have a system that guides us on our pilgrimage through the Word over time. The means of this orderly and systematic presentation of lessons is the lectionary.

In the web based version of this sermon you can look in "An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church" and find a fuller definition of the lectionary. But it is enough for now to appreciate that by it we are nudged along our journey through the church year as though by an invisible hand that delivers lessons week by week. These lessons are like manna from heaven or water from the rock - sustenance delivered just in time, over time, to lead us deeper into the story of God's interaction with humanity.

The collect of the day in a liturgy sets the tone for that day. Today's collect has two phrases that jumped out at me. They are thematic for Lent and emblematic of the human condition. We ignore their reality at our peril. We experience their power daily whether we admit it or not. The collect today speaks of our "manifold temptations" and our "several infirmities". It declares that we are assaulted by temptation and, God knows, we are weak in various ways. This is not a reason for shame. It is an invitation to live in reality.

Lent is an occasion for accepting the truth of our condition and the limits of our abilities so that we might put our hope and trust in the right place- in Christ. We are going to put our trust in something. But why should we trust God? Even scripture presents us with reasons to be nervous. Look at what happened to Noah's neighbors.

Let's look at how the lessons appointed for today sketch out the process of God and people growing in understanding, wisdom and relationship, over time. We know that we have free will. It is a gift from God, but it is a dangerous gift that has led to grief for human beings and for God.

We are free to choose paths that lead to disaster or to glory. When poor choices are made I believe God grieves over us just as a parent will weep over a wayward child.

But how can we square that empathetic image of God with the story of Noah in which most of humanity came to a bad end? Is one of these images of God wrong? Which is true- is God loving and caring or capricious and much to be feared?

In the Book of Genesis, the flood is not presented as an accident, or a natural occurrence, it is a presented as a conscious act of destruction by an angry and seemingly frustrated God. Process theology is a branch of theology that states that it is not just we who learn from our mistakes but that God too grows in understanding and wisdom as our relationship has progressed.

Those of us who are parents can probably remember times when we have reacted too strongly to the actions and attitudes of our misbehaving children. Those of us who are grandparents know that we mellow over time as wisdom replaces frustration. In the reading from Genesis, God seemed to be as horrified by the outcome of the flood as we are. It was not an action that God desired to repeat. Indeed God sought a different way of being in relationship with Noah, his family, and their eventual descendents forever. "I establish my covenant with you," God said. "Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood." There is a sign placed in the heavens-a sign that persists to this day-to remind God and to remind us of the new relationship. Providentially this sign appears whenever it rains.

There is an ongoing progression in our relationship with God. We have moved a huge distance from the simple assurance of the rainbow in Genesis to the statement and actions in the water in Mark's gospel. Jesus, who was both God and man, was fully submerged but He rose up full of life, to the sound of God speaking - "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." And we, through our baptism, also rise up from the water similarly blessed and unscathed.

In Christ's baptism, God has entered the water- the very water that was the means of death in Noah's day. The water has been redeemed. We have been redeemed- not only through Christ's baptism but by his death, resurrection and rising to life again.

After the words of greeting, the first letter of Peter begins with this statement: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

These words arc over us like a rainbow in the sky. New light from new water, new gift from a God who is everlasting and ever new.

We do not need to fear that we will be drowned by our manifold temptations or be abandoned in our several infirmities. We can look back to the promise made to Noah. We can remember what Christ has done, is doing, and promises yet to do on our behalf. This is the treasure at the far end of the rainbow, light glinting off the water that the darkness cannot overcome.

Psalm 25 sings a song of remembering and forgetting: Remember O Lord, your compassion and love. Remember not the sins of my youth. Remember me according to your love.

This psalm could be the anthem of adolescents. Who wouldn't want a loving parent who blots out the memories of their sins and loves them anyway?

We are the luckiest of children. We have a God who forgets, and a God who remembers. A God who was willing to be as we are, willing to be wounded by our transgressions, without sin of His own, but who loved us so much He was willing to die for us.

This is the truth. We are not saved by our own efforts. We are also not brought down to death for our misdeeds if we are willing to simply hand them over, thanks be to God. We are in a growing relationship with a God who comes to be with us in manifold ways to love us and lead us into all good.

Temptation is real. Our weaknesses are real. But God really came to save us and the story is not over. Lent is the stretch of the journey between baptism and the cross. It is a highway in the desert that leads us into greater light and open us to deeper love.

Take advantage of Lent. Let us take time to pray even if the flood of daily tasks seem to be rising around us. We will not drown. Go slowly into the days ahead. Savor the stories of how God has been coming to know us, and bidding us to know Him better. Let us make use of the silence in the Meditation chapel, come to the fellowship and teaching of the Lenten Studies, and walk together through the liturgies of Holy Week.

The order and structure of the church is here to serve as a trellis for our growth and there is hope and warmth and light in the sign of the rainbow and the gift of the Son. AMEN.