September 7 -- Flood and Promise

Grace to you and peace this day...from a God whose heart is transformed by love for this earth and its people.  AMEN.

Welcome to this new set of Sunday morning readings, sisters and brothers in Christ!  This is an exciting day, the first of many days that we’ll be traveling through the Bible -- these books.  We can’t cover every single story, but we will go through this holy library in order, centering on one great story each Sunday, and I want to encourage you to look for themes that keep emerging.  Maybe bring a little notepad and take notes.  I want to share this resources with you...[Handout: “God’s Story. Your Story.”]  My hopes: 1) you’re able to bring faith even more into your homes during the week, 2) (many of you already do) but here’s a way for us to be journeying even more together -- Bible Study, confirmation, Sunday School, your daily devotions, and our Sunday morning bible readings...

So let’s “get into our story” for today.  I believe I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it -- we always have to put ourselves into these ancient stories when we’re reading them.  Otherwise they’re just stories.  So where are you in this story?  This week I think it’s pretty easy to figure where you are in this story -- since you’re not God, I’m not God.  And everything else is being wiped out, but you’re not completely wiped out and I’m not completely wiped out -- we can find ourselves in this story:  We’re in the ark.  [look at the ceiling, churches often structured like an ark]  On account of Christ Jesus, who opens up the covenant to all, you’re chosen and we’re saved too!

We’re the ones God “remembers”.  God remembers Noah and his family.  God remembers you and your family.  We’re the ones being saved.  God saves Noah; and God saves you.  And we’re the ones God calls to be obedient and to care for the animals and the plants.  God calls Noah to be a caretaker, and God calls you to be a caretaker.
But lets back up a little bit...because while this has become a favorite story for children and a popular theme for nursery walls.  Lots of pastels.  The story itself is not light and airy, its dark and heavy -- lots of deep blues and dark greys.  God says, “I am going to bring a flood of waters to the earth, to destroy all flesh, everything that is on the earth.”  This can be very disturbing.  What kind of a God would do this.  We have to wrestle with this.  You have to wrestle with this.

In my own research...i.e. wrestling, I learned that the Hebrew word that described what humans were doing to one another in Chapter 6:11 “shachat” loosely translated “doing corrupt things” -- the same word is what God says God will do to them: “destroy”.  The English changes the words the people were doing corrupt things, so God says I will destroy them.  But in the Hebrew, we see a slight but significant difference, I think, because the word is the same in the Hebrew.  The people where doing shachat, and so God must do shachat.  In other words, the punishment fits the crime.  (This is true throughout the Old Testament.)  The punishment fits the crime -- in other words, humanity brings this destruction upon themselves.  [pause] God created the earth and the animals, including the humans, and calls it good in Genesis 1, but in Genesis 6, humanity has begun shachat-ing -- bringing destruction and evil and corruption upon each other and upon the earth.  And so then God grieves.  Just like a parent or a teacher who has to give a big consequence to a child who has broken a big rule.  

[Micah’s teacher this year...it’s the child’s decision to follow directions or not, so when they don’t, she told us at orientation, that she actually makes her voice sound sad: “Oh, I’m so sorry that you’re not going to be able to go outside with your classmates right away...”]

So it is with God, vs. 6 “...and Yahweh was sorry that she had made humankind on the earth and it grieved her to her heart.”

God is heartsick about what’s happened.  “I am sorry that I made them, and I have to blot them out,” God says.  God is torn up about it.  

But then, God remembers someone -- you.  God remembers Noah, and all the vast array of other animals too.  What does this mean for us, in the context of our ecological crises across the globe?  [pause]  God remembers the diversity of creation.  Shouldn’t we...in our decision making?

God directs Noah to build an ark, to build a way for others to be protected -- housed, feed and nourished.  How is God calling us, to build a way for others to be protected -- housed, fed and nourished -- despite the waves of hardship and destruction all around them...and us?  I’m struck by how God’s instructions keeps Noah from just worrying about himself and his family.  Who are we called to bring into this ark?  Who are we called to help to rescue?  Even polar bears and howler monkeys and salamanders and rare plants and common plants matter to God.  God cares about and finds a way to preserve diversity.  That’s a good lesson even in just the human world.  Diversity is not a goal -- “we need more diversity around here” -- biodiversity, cultural diversity, ethnic diversity is the original state of things.  It is a gift, provided and created by God.

God saves us, and saves the animals, and establishes a covenant with us.  “The God said to Noah...I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature...that never again shall all flesh be cut off...”  And the rainbow in the sky is a sign of that covenant, that promise, that diversity (multi-colored), that love that is for us, and for all the creatures, large and small.

Never again, God says, will I destroy the earth.  God knows that corruption “shachat” is bound to come again.  Humans will most certainly engage in evil, and slander, and behavior again.  Before the flood, God saw that “the thoughts of their hearts were evil continually,” and that true after the flood too.  That’s true today, isn’t it?

One scholar points out that people don’t change, in this story.  God’s the one who changes.  [pause]  God’s heart changes.  Evil and wrongdoing will go on, and we’ll hear more stories as we venture together though the Bible this year.  God has given us freedom to do as we chose.  But God will not blot us out, when we go astray.  God will not return shachat on us for the shachat that we inflict on one another and on the earth.  In our confession and forgiveness: “God who is faithful and just will forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  There’s a lot of Noah’s Ark in that confession.  God is faithful, God is just, and God cleanses us.  

See, here’s where we look at this ancient story with our Christ lenses on -- see all these books? -- we unabashedly look at them with Christ glasses on (maybe we’ll have to make some Christ glasses -- Vicki’s American flag glasses).  And when we look at this story with Christ glasses on, the waters that destroy also become baptismal waters that save, that cleanse and wash, that forgive.  God gives us a re-do.  God gives you a re-boot, a re-start.  God re-creates and therefore we have re-creation (one of my favorite words...and it’s biblical.)  

God has made a way for you.  The language can be as comforting as it is disturbing.  God has drowned our sin and brokenness and through Jesus Christ we are washed and forgiven, fed and sent out.  Thanks be to God!  AMEN.