Preaching text: Genesis 9:8-17
The more I study it, the more fascinated I become with the myth of Noah’s Ark. And, yes, I used the word “myth,” because that’s essentially what it is. This is not a historical story. It is not fact. It is instead a richly woven parable in much the same fashion as Jesus also told, telling us truths about the Kingdom of God.
The ancients took stories of some long ago (even for them) cataclysmic event (There is evidence of massive floods of this sort throughout the prehistoric Middle East) and used them to inform us of truths about God we otherwise choose to ignore or forget. Their wisdom about our human nature is profound and timeless. These truths revealed in this story continue to be forgotten or ignored even today as we try again and again to refashion God into our own image.
Turning this tale into literal history is another such deflection, but I digress.
In the story, God essentially goes to war with humankind. He looks down upon the Earth and sees our utter and complete depravity: rape, murder, violence, hatred, destruction. And God seems to ask himself, “What have I done? I haven’t created companions with whom I can be in relationship. I have made monsters, creatures hell-bent on destroying themselves and the world in which they live.”
So he unleashes his power upon us. He spares a small remnant in Noah and his family and them wipes the slate clean. Nearly all of humankind wiped out, destroyed, drowned and gone forever. And almost immediately after the last raindrop falls, God regrets what he’s done. He’s annihilated his precious creation. Worse yet, he hasn’t really solved the problem. The seed of human sin is still within even righteous Noah and his family. It will start all over again.
So God then does two things. One, he pledges to never again destroy the Earth to punish humankind for sin. He sets down his weapon of war, his bow, in the sky as a sign of that promise. The rainbow is a symbol of peace because it is God’s reminder to never wage war against us. Because that doesn’t work. That doesn’t help anything.
The second thing that God does is that he begins to seek a new way. That will lead us to Abraham and the Chosen people. That will lead us to the Old Covenant and God’s promise to bless all the families of the Earth. That will lead us eventually to that blessing, born in a manger, grown to a man, crucified on a cross, and risen again on the third day. God will go the Jesus path: the path of redemption, not destruction.
This is what the story of Noah’s Ark is really about. It’s ancient writers and storytellers reminding us that God does not seek our destruction but our salvation. Never will he destroy us. Writers and storytellers that never even knew of Jesus and perhaps not even Abraham, but they knew God. They understand that above all else, God must be good and will therefore seek the path of peace, justice, and mercy for his people.
Besides, it’s not like we need any help destroying ourselves. You want to know what the Antediluvian world was like? The time before the flood? You’re living it. Right now, here in America. Turn on the news. See the utter depravity of humankind. Seventeen dead at a school in Florida. And our leaders will undoubtedly again cave to their corruption and cowardice and do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to stop the next one. Doesn’t matter whether we’re talking gun control, mental healthcare expansion, or whatever. We do NOTHING and the blood keeps pouring out in our streets, in our homes, in our businesses, in our churches, and in our schools.
In the ancient world, the world of the Bible, societies that sacrificed their children to their gods were considered the most heinous of barbarians, little better than animals. And what does that make us, when money and guns matter more than the lives of our children?
This is who we are. This is America in the year 2018. The savages of the ancient world are not so much a relic of the past as we would like. We are the savages now. Hundreds of dead in schools and businesses and churches across the country bear silent yet deafening witness to that. Is truly who we want to be? Is this really how we wish history to remember this great nation? A land of brutes who slaughtered their own children.
Last week, I said the worst villain we face in life is ourselves. It’s our complacency and apathy in the face of these sorts of atrocities. We let these things happen by falling silent when we need most to speak.
In 1992, during “Senior Skip Day” at George Washington High School, a kid with a gun showed up and started shooting in an argument over beer. Two kids were dead when he was done. That was my high school, where I graduated a year earlier. But we were silent and it kept happening.
In 2007, at Virginia Tech, a student went on a rampage that killed 33. That was my college; the bulk of the murders took place in classrooms that I sat within when I was a student there. But we were silent and it kept happening. It’s still happening as the news this week grimly reminded us.
Don’t presume that this is some faraway problem. It happened at two of my own schools. So what happens when it’s Eastern or Red Lion or York City schools that plays host to a shooting like this? Are we going to stay silent or are we going to fight to see that it never happens here?
God put down his bow in the sky because he saw something in us worth saving. He began this long elaborate plan from Abraham to Jesus to the Church because he saw something in us worth saving. Can we do the same or at least try?
We are at war with ourselves and people are dying because of it. People are dying because our weapons are too available, our hatred too intense, and our blindness to one another’s value too overwhelming. Precious, beloved, unique, wondrous individuals dying because the people of otherwise “good character” will not speak up and say “This is wrong. It stops now.”
We need our own rainbow moment, when we pledge to bring an end to the killing. Because people are worth saving. The ancients wanted us to see that, so they told the story of Noah’s Ark, reminding us that God would not wage war upon us. It goes further than that. God himself died on a cross for us. That’s statement enough to our value. Can’t we see it? Can’t we see what we’re worth? Can’t we stand up and speak with one voice “Never again?” Our lives are too valuable. Too precious to throw them away like this. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment