The Great Flood: Cleansing for the Earth? Or catharsis for God? (Lent 1 -- Feb 21, 2021)

 Lent has a reputation for being a season of renunciation and deprivations – as in “what are you giving up for Lent?”  But it’s really a time of looking forward to, and preparing for new growth and new life.

The word “Lent” comes a Latin word for lengthening – in this case, the lengthening of days, as we move past winter solstice and longest night, into a time of earlier sunrise, later sunset, soon the first hints of spring and the budding of new life, and the beginning of plans for what that will be – the shape of the garden, what will be sown in the fields, what projects will be undertaken, what use will be made of the summer so we have a good harvest again in the fall.

In the days of COVID we also talk about something we like to call “a new normal” beyond the pandemic – whatever “the new normal” will turn out to be.

And that’s what Lent is for.  For taking stock before winter is completely gone.  For looking around, and looking in, to see what really we have to work with, what we want to work towards, and what we might yet need to get and to learn to be able to do it.

Reading:  Genesis 9:8-17

We live in a time of global anxiety.  Global anxiety is not a new thing, though, to anyone familiar with the world’s religious and mythic traditions.

The reading is about the ending of The Great Flood in the Book of Genesis.  The Flood had come when God was enraged at how wicked humanity had become on the face of the earth.  It was God’s powerful attempt just to wash all the wickedness away.

But as the waters subside, God sees how near the world came to being totally destroyed.  God repents of his rage.  As Noah, his family and the surviving animals come out of the ark to start the world over again, God makes a promise never to use that kind of power against the earth again.  Instead, God will use his power to sustain and maintain all life on earth.

The promise God gives is that when the rainbow comes out in a time of rain – using the word for “bow” also used of a warrior’s bow for battle – the rainbow up in the sky will remind God of God’s promise to hang up his bow, leave it hung up, and never take it down to use it against earth again.

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him:

“I now establish my covenant with you, and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you – the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you – every living creature on earth.  I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:  I have set my bow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

“Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.  Whenever the bow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Sermon

I wonder how he felt as he stepped off the boat and onto dry land.  Well – probably not yet really dry land, but land nonetheless.

I wonder how he felt.  Noah, that is.

I imagine relieved after spending a full year on the ark.  As relieved as we’ll feel when we’ll be able to come out from our homes and be together at church again, after almost a full year now of being closed out, closed in, and socially distant – a little over eleven months now and still counting.

I imagine he also felt tremendously fortunate.  Like he and his family had won the lottery, which actually they did.  “You, Noah, and your family, from among all the families on Earth are to be enclosed in an ark for a year to survive the deluge of God’s sorrow, and start life on Earth all over again!”

And it really was like a lottery win.  It’s hard to believe Noah was the only righteous man on the face of the earth.  

And even though the story says Noah was righteous, blameless and walked with God, we also know that often when the Bible says someone “found favour with God,” it means only that God picked someone.  And many times God makes the strangest picks of the most unlikely people to be agents of God’s will.  Maybe just to show that God can work with any material that’s available, and make something good come out of anyone.

Like with Noah, who not long after landing on his feet on partly-dry land after a year in the ark, makes an unrighteous fool of himself and brings holy shame on him and one of his sons forever.

It makes me wonder if maybe one thing Noah grew during his time in the ark – aside from a COVID beard and a love of beating his kids at Risk on family games night, was a sense of entitlement.  Like, I deserve this.  Like, I must be someone special to be getting this special treatment from God.  Like, I guess I’ll be like a king or a guru or something when we land.  Like the wizard in The Wizard of Oz.

It’s funny how that sense of entitlement so often accompanies those who have known God’s grace, and have known themselves blessed by God.  A month or so ago at the height of the Black Lives Matter conversation in the States and the white evangelicals’ response to it, I came across this comment, for instance, by Caroline McTeer, “White Christians should be leery of our own judgments; we are primed by culture to oppress and primed by religion [and, we might add, by our long experience of being blessed] to think God is on our side.” 

It’s a comment that may also apply in Canada to the Christian church in relation to the First Nations of our land, to rich believers anywhere in relation to the poor and the criminalized, even just to the fortunate in relation to the unfortunate, and so on and so on.

Any time there is inequity and a sense of “other” it’s always easy to imagine yourself as God’s favourite in some way, and create a theology to support it.

Thinking of that, I would like to think that something else Noah felt and thought as he walked off the boat, as he looked at the devastation all around, and remembered all the life that was gone – all the old neighbours and friends and even enemies drowned, and all the animals and plants and gardens and forests now reduced to a reeking mess all around him, was the simple but sobering thought, “There but for the grace of God, would I be.”

There, but for the grace of God.

I would like to think Noah felt deep sorrow for all that was lost.  For all that was destroyed and killed and now gone because of the wickedness of the species and of the race upon earth that he was part of.  Because of the race of humans of which he was one, all that once had life – even as bad it was – now was no more.

I wondered about this when I was in Sunday school.  I wasn’t old enough to worry about it.  I just wondered, and I hope I had the wherewithal and the courage to ask about it.

My Sunday school teacher, who was old enough to be able to worry about it, seemed not to.  The deep sorrow about all that was lost, and the questionable wisdom of divine action that destroyed so much of what the Divine One had created and so deeply loved in the first place, didn’t seem to be a concern to my Sunday school teacher.  It wasn’t mentioned in our Sunday school class, anyway.

I hope it was a matter of some concern, some sorrow, and some pretty deep grief and a reason for seriously rethinking a few things for Noah.

Because it was for God.

According to the story, God repents of what’s been done.  God changes God’s mind.  Maybe God’s heart changes God’s head.  Who knows how these things work?

All we know is that when God sees what has been done, God promises never to do that again.  Solemnly promises.  Even sets up a sign in the heavens as a constant reminder, in case God ever forgets.

“When the rainbow comes out in the sky in response to the rain when it starts to fall again,” God says, “I will look at it, and that bow will be a reminder to me of how I have hung up my warrior bow on the wall, never to be taken down again, to wreak such vengeful havoc upon the earth. 

“What I promise in place of judgement, is forbearance and forgiveness; and what I promise instead of retribution and punishment, is compassionate for what may be lost, patient love with what is broken, and long-suffering engagement with all life on earth – even with all human life on earth – towards the healing of what is broken and the righting of what is wrong, day by day, season by season, year by year, generation by generation.”

“For,” God says, in all humility and in full possession of a divinity worth worshipping, “I know now how much l deeply love all that I have made.  All plant and animal and human life.  And how deeply, self-sacrificially I commit my self to the inter-related life and mutual well-being of all.”

“You can count on it,” God says.

And I wonder what this does to Noah’s understanding of being God’s servant on the face of the earth, and of doing God’s will.

To his trust in, and happiness about lottery and luck as a way for people to get what they need for life.

To his sense of entitlement and special holiness.  To any easy judgments about those who are “other.”  To theologies that justify exclusion and inequality.

Does it make a difference to Noah to know how good and how loved by God is every creature, every plant, every form of life, every person under and inside the rainbow?

Do God’s feelings make a difference to Noah as he starts the world over again?

And what difference do God’s feelings make to us – all children of Noah that we are – as we go about creating another new normal after the pandemic in the days and the years ahead?