God's Covenants- Noah's Rainbow

 Noah didn’t even know what a cubit was when he started. But he followed the Creator’s orders to the letter-- building the Ark in his backyard, putting up with harassing neighbors, gathering two of every kind of animal and bird and insect.

There’s a point in a famous comedy routine when Noah is loading all the critters into the Ark. He’s trying to get the elephants up the gangplank. Noah is pushing and pulling, sweating, straining, doing whatever it takes to get those two pachyderms up into that boat.

Finally he gets the job done. At that point, the Creator’s voice comes down from the sky, speaking to Noah. After all that effort he's inadvertently loaded two elephants of the same gender onto the Ark. In order that the world not run out of elephants, one of them needs to be pushed down the gang plank and a different one found and brought up. What a pain!

Noah is tried and out of breath and starting to get a little bit cranky.

He suggest that God change one of the ones already loaded.

God replies, “You know I don’t work that way.”

To me that’s not only one of the funniest lines in the routine-- but without a doubt, it’s the truest. To me, that’s the heart of the message of the story of the Noah and the Flood. Our God just doesn’t work in certain ways.

In the old pagan stories, it was actually a council of many gods who almost whimsically decided to flood the earth. Their gripe was that raucous humanity was just getting to be too noisy-- they kept waking the gods up from their mid-afternoon naps. But then, one of the gods went and spoiled all the fun by secretly warning a mortal hero named Utnapishtim of the coming universal inundation.

In the Hebrew Priestly writer's version of the story of course, it was Yahweh, the one God of Israel, who despaired of humanity’s evil and violent nature-- but wishing to spare the innocent and preserve the planet-- warned Noah-- because of his faithful obedience-- of the impending flood.

Bible Scholars now think that there quite probably was some sort of wide-spread deluge-- a cyclone or super tsunami-- that flooded virtually all of the ancient Near East, some four thousand years before the birth of Christ. There are simply too many folk-tales and myths and stories in the literature of too many peoples and cultures for the Flood to be no more than a fictional tale. The literary memory is too deep and wide-spread and abiding for nothing to have really happened. Such a catastrophe would indeed have seemed like the whole world had been flooded, and then coated in a sea of mud as the waters receded.

For the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians and all of the other ancient peoples of the region, who remembered and recorded the story of the Flood, it just went to show that you couldn't trust the gods. You tried to keep them happy with blood sacrifices and fertility rituals, but get a little loud at a party some Friday night and they were still not above flying into a rage and almost destroying the world.

Of all the ancient peoples of the region, only the Hebrews recognized that God doesn’t work that way. Only they were able to take the remembrance of this horrible disaster and see beyond their fears and legends and superstition. Only the Hebrew people made the connection between the moral behavior of individuals and the fate of a society. In a world of bloodshed and tears-- only those early Israelites understood the destructive human potential of violence-- not only just on individuals-- but on this unfinished, imperfect planet itself.

Whether we see the Flood as some sort of consequence of the mysterious, poorly understood, causal relationship between humanity’s unfinished, imperfect character and the unfinished broken nature of this world; or simply the direct hand of God in punishment for our sins-- only the Hebrews were able to see in this unprecedented catastrophe of nature a great lesson of morality and hope.

Their neighbors assumed the universe was ruled by multitudes of fickle gods who had to be propitiated and assuaged. The Hebrew people affirmed there was only the one God-- The Holy One-- who was steadfast and faithful. They seized on the story of the Flood and the Ark and the Rainbow as a sign of their God's forgiving, sustaining power. They acknowledged that Yahweh, the Maker of the world is not only it’s Ultimate Judge, but also its' Sustainer. The God they worshipped, the God you and I worship, the God of Noah and of Jesus Christ, is a God who can be trusted.

So in the end, it doesn’t matter what is or isn’t on top of Mt. Arart. It doesn't matter if the actual flooding did not extend beyond the ancient Near East. It doesn't matter how many people actually survived that ancient deluge—at least not to us. It doesn't matter if one of the eyewitnesses who survived and first retold the story was actually named Noah, or Utnapishtim, or something else.

In their version of the Flood story, the ancient Hebrew scribes and editors got hold of something eternal. It is an insight of ultimate hope for their time, and for ours. The story of the great flood and the covenant promise of the rainbow makes clear God's response to our universal human condition.

The One who made us knows us-- knows our sinful ways and violent, unfinished human nature. They come to us as a consequence of the same Free Will that makes us free to choose good over evil-- free to follow in faithfulness and integrity-- or free to walk alone in sin and self. And it is that very freedom-- our curse and our greatest blessing-- that makes us in the words of Psalm 8, “ ...little less than God“

The Noah story teaches that God continually, calls us to a higher morality. God recognizes that ultimate paradox dwelling within us --weeps over it --perhaps at times even regrets giving us our freedom—perhaps even thinks twice about having created us in the first place at times. And yet, our Maker ultimately accepts and loves us for who we are. As individuals, we each of us are at times of saint or sinner, lover or warrior, incomplete and yet incredibly graced. Paul spoke for all of us when he laments the good that he would do he does not, as opposed to the evil he would not do, that he actually does.

As a species, we are capable of awe-inspiring wonders-- and of unimaginable horrors. We are building an amazing permanent structure in the sky that will allow men and women to literally live and work in space for a long-term basis. And yet fanatics blow up buildings and people who dare to disagree with them on points of religion. We build mansions on hilltops. And yet in cities around the world, families sleep under bridges, in parks, in doorways, their only shelter a cardboard box.

Children as young as ten are drafted as guerrilla fighters and torturers and prostitutes around the world. Fundamentalist terrorists of all stripes treat human life as having no more value than a used Kleenex-- in the name of God. Our human capacity for hate and violence and wickedness literally threatens to drown the planet in our own blood and tears.

Yet our God still reaches out to us. Our Maker's compassionate response to our sin and broken-ness is not to drown us and start over with a new species, but rather to understand, and accept, and forgive and take the initiative to redeem us. Ultimately, that same Divine compassion would lead the Creator to choose to make the ultimate sacrifice on the cross, to teach and lead us and to save Creation itself.

There are some who choose to believe that God once upon a time sent natural disasters to punish erring humankind on earth—but the Biblical witness is clear. God doesn't work that way.

The Divine Purpose is to love and preserve and nurture, not destroy. Our Maker invites, begs us to choose moral and spiritual growth, and through that growth, the perfection of humanity itself-- as well as the liberation of unfinished Creation from bondage. The Divine Nature is compassion and forgiveness. And I for one, am glad.

Make no mistake. There will be some sort of existence after this earthly plane we so desperately cling to. There will be an ultimate end-- not only for us as individuals, but for humanity, and for Creation itself. But when that comes and what it will look like, You and I don't know.

No one knows, said Jesus, except for the Heavenly Parent, when the end will finally come. Maybe it won’t be when things get so bad that God can't stand it anymore. Rather, maybe it will be when we finally finish the task of reforming and transforming ourselves and our broken, incomplete world in godliness.

Make no mistake. We will all answer one day for our lives on this planet. And on that day, I for one, am going to be counting heavily on Christ's mercy, rather than upon God's justice. I for one, celebrate that God has granted time and opportunity for humanity to work on making itself, and this world better, rather than being washed down the cosmic drain. I for one, celebrate our gracious Creator's rainbow covenant, for in it and it alone lies our ultimate hope.

You and I have the opportunity to join with our Maker in this on-going task of co-creation by remaking and reforming our own tiny corner of this sad and sin-sick world. God's righteous anger has been withheld. Can we do any less? When we despair of one another-- when we despair of humanity as a whole-- when we despair of our own selves-- we can understand-- we can have hope-- we can forgive-- we can choose to move on.

Jesus made it crystal clear in Matthew 28. We, as God's people, are called to be about the business of comforting the of feeding the hungry, bringing water to those who thirst, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and imprisoned, and organizing the powerless.

Every rainbow reminds us that our God is not sitting up in heaven with an itchy trigger finger. "I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." This is an affirmation of the deepest hope.

Every afternoon the van would drop her off after school. And every afternoon she would gulp down the plastic cup of juice and stuff the two allotted cookies into her jeans pocket. Then she would quietly settle down on the floor in front of the wooden Ark and its plastic animals. She would solemnly survey the toys, and then begin to line them up. First the lions and tigers and bears. Then the apes and monkeys and the dogs and cats and cows. Then came the smaller creatures and the birds. Finally the critters that slithered and slid. Pair after pair, time after time, day after day, she would mArkh them up the plank and into the Ark.

So far as anyone knew, she'd never heard the story of Noah and the Ark and it's cargo of life when she and her mother had been admitted into the shelter.

They'd fled a drunken abusive man they lived with. Her mother had seemed to be more interested in caring for her drug habit than her daughter, and mom's sole motivation for rehab seemed to be a desire to escape the wrath of a dangerous and abusive man they’d been living with. Mom's treatment wasn't going so well, and the child was silent all of the time, except for the regular clicking of plastic hooves up the ramp of the Ark,

Day after day, time after time, the animals lined up again and again, parading up into the Ark. One day someone decided to brave a question.

"Where are those animals going?" The child gave a look that seemed to ask how can adults ask such an obvious, absurd questions sometimes.

"They're going home!" She replied. Of course. Home is where animals want to be. Home is where all God's creatures long to be.

The child's tone seemed to say that where they were was not home. The shelter was clean and well lighted. The meals were nutritious, well prepared and served on time. She had received new blue jeans and clean socks. No one hurt her there. But this was not home.

Where is home? Had this child ever had one? Four months with this last man, two months with an aunt before that. Somewhere else before that and before that-- addresses and years lost in the haze of mom's drug addiction. How can she hope for home-- for something she's never had, never really known-- except by its absence?

"You say the animals are going home. Where is their home?" The dromedaries have just gone up the ramp. Now it’s the rhinoceroses' turn.

Without lifting her eyes the child replies, "God."

"Oh, you mean God will give them a home?"

"No. God will be their home."

The rhinos teeter at the top of the ramp, then clatter into the hold. The warthogs, the antelope all follow until the whole double line of little creatures are resting safe in the Ark. The ship is ready to set sail. It pulls away from the dock.

The rainbow shines overheard. Where's the ship going? It's destination is home. It's destination is God.

Other ships sail by sun and stars. This one sets course by a rainbow and a promise. The stars are ancient and fixed in their courses. The rainbow can be as efervesant, as fleeting as mist. But it is the rainbow, not the stars that is reliable for our journey home-- our journey to God. A rainbow might not seem like much-- but it's all we've got. That--a of course, the covenant-- the promise.

This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I'm putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth

The rainbow invites us to our final, our true home. There will be nothing and no one there to harm us, and everything to be thankful for there. The Ark of Noah reminds us that our God is a God whom we can trust to save and to preserve. Paul reminds us that Jesus’ Ark will bear us on the waters of our Baptism to Salvation.

Our Creator has pledged not to destroy, so that all of humanity might be utterly free to repent and convert and change and grow into the Divine image. Our God is loving and caring. Our Maker's covenants are trustworthy and eternal. Our God will be our home. That's the covenant. Thanks be to God. Amen.