Sermon for September 9th

The reading

Genesis 6:16-22; 9:8-15  (due to length and complexity we divided this reading into 2 parts, Narrator and God) 

Narrator: The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said,

God: I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

Narrator:  But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord. These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.  And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. 13 And God said to Noah,

God: "I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.  Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all  establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 19 And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. 21 Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them."

Narrator: 22 Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him. …  At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; 9 but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; 11 and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him any more. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,

God  "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.  I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." "This 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: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

The message

We are now starting what I have been calling (and thinking of as) a very long Advent.  In the usual church year the 4 Sundays before Christmas are set aside for waiting and looking at the hope for a savior that would restore our relationship with God.  We will have about 15 weeks to do that work, going through the Old Testament including creation, history and the prophets.  We will have the opportunity to do this in more depth and gain a better understanding.

Today, we start with the story of Noah and the flood.  This is still part of the creation story.  The book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, has 2 parts, creation through the flood and the then the start of Israel through the story of Joseph and his family.  The flood changes things. Humanity and all life is different afterwards. Noah’s Ark is a favorite of many Sunday School teachers, the pairs of animals are cute and the kids can draw them, make sounds (a fun collection of moos baas meows, barks and hisses) or talk about their favorite animals. Rainbows are also fun, look cool and a good way to teach colors. Our Rainbow Christian preschool, which just started its 31st year of service to our community, takes its name from this story. The rainbow is the first sign of God’s covenant, "This 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. Our school, its teachers, staff and children are all under God’s promise of care and protection.   

At the same time, the flood is one of the most frightening and brutal stories in the bible. It starts with God’s observation that the earth is filled with violence because of people and other life and the decision  “to make an end of all flesh, now I am going to destroy them along with the earth”  This is a story where God kills most recently created life. It is not total extinction; God grieves, God regrets but spares pairs of each animal along with Noah and his family, the few good people in the world.  Life is unredeemable, people are corrupt beyond help, a slap on the wrist will not change things,  some kind words, come on you can do better, why are you so violent, how can I help you care for others better, is not going to work, threats will not get much done either. God, viewing life, decides what many of us do, the best way to confront and end corruption and violence is to outdo it with greater violence, to the point where no one will forget the consequences.  

We have to look at how we got there, I mean how bad could it be. After creation, there is the fall, when Adam and Eve disobey God’s command and eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  As a result of this, Adam and Eve are thrown out of the garden and it is forever closed. This does not just affect Adam and Eve, human life and the world we live in is forever different.  Sin, pain and death have entered the world, but there is no flood to destroy life.  Soon after this, we see the power of jealousy, one of the first 2 brothers kills the other, Cain kills Able.  As a result Cain and his descendants are punished and cursed but there is no flood to destroy life.  Then we get to one of the truly odd or difficult to understand passages in the Bible from Genesis 6:1-4   

When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

The hard part with this passage is that we have no real idea who or what the sons of God are and we have no idea who or what the Nephilim are (it seems like they are some sort of heavenly beings). For this sin, the first punishment is the shortening of life to 120 years, perhaps the logic here is that shorter life, you can’t screw up as much (ages before this were much higher).  It turns out that will not immediately impact too many people, Whatever happened with the sons of God, that’s it for life. There is too much violence, too much sin and corruption, it is spreading beyond humanity. The Lord decides to call it a failed experiment and end all life. Noah and his family, along with pairs of all life are spared, set aside to try again, a fresh start.

Noah is told to build the ark (a cubit was about 18-21 inches, the distance from elbow to fingertip on an adult male, so the ark is about 450 ft by 75 ft and 45 ft deep). Noah is told to bring on the life that will be spared.   One major reason specific, techniqual instructions are given by God in the Old Testament is that following them is a sign of obedience. Noah obeys God’s command precisely and all on the boat survive the flood sent to destroy all life.    

Surely, the destruction of virtually all life would stop the sin and violence, the fear of this happening again, the awe at the power of God, the sign of God’s ultimate authority, but it does not work. People do not change, Noah, whose name literally means one who grows out of the corrupt ground to make things better, gets to restarting the earth, He plants a vineyard, makes wine, gets drunk on that wine, has his nakedness exposed (shame). There is fighting and favoritism in his family, disputes, devious acts and curses on his children.  People do not change. This new earth moves to create the tower of babel, to gather all people in one place, to build a great tower to heaven with a shared language. This sounds cool but it is disobedience, people were told to populate the whole earth, not one spot of land to engage in epic wars and power struggles over (diversity is at the heart of creation, life in all places was needed to care for creation, for the full experience of the world God has entrusted to us).

The flood does not change people, Everything turns to violence fast before and  everything turns to violence fast after the flood. This moment in history changes God. We have to remember, there is free will, God wishes for us to be in the right relationship with God and each other but people are given real power in the world, entrusted to make decisions with real consequences.  We are not obedience robots, our choices matter for us, for others and those to come (and our choices are often bad and they hurt people).

We see the change in God, This first promise, the covenant to never again send a flood, is unconditional. There are no trade-offs, you do this and ill do that, as long as you do x, ill do y.  It is simply God’s promise to let life be, to not respond to sin with ending human life.  The Old Testament is filled with cycles of sin, disobedience, severe punishment, repentance and restoration. Hope remains, God’s promises remain.  There will not be another flood but God does not give up on doing something about it.

I started out by mentioning this was like a really long Advent, the wait for Christmas, Like the promise after the flood, we look forward to another unconditional covenant, when God destroys something else, the power of sin and death through Jesus birth, death and resurrection. Like there is life after the flood, there is still sin and death in the world, but it cannot keep us from God.  In Jesus death and resurrection, God bears the burden, pain and suffering, it is another unconditional promise,  We mention the waters of the flood in the Baptism prayer over the water, because Christ died and rose again, we have the forgiveness of sins.