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May 29th 2005
Trinity 1
My mother once wrote a story about Noah’s Ark.
It was like a lovely sailing trip
with monkeys on deck
and giraffes hanging their
necks out of portholes.
Mrs. Noah kept everyone
happy by bringing them
tea and crumpets and knitting
warm sweaters and making sure
Mr. Noah wore his galoshes.
It seemed very English sort of ark.
No matter how old you are
Noah’s ark captures your imagination
because it is a story of a lifeboat that saves
Noah, his family, and all living things.
Unlike my mother’s story
the ark is basically not a ship
but a large floating box
crammed full of life while around it
is simply death and chaos
as the waters cover the lands.
Noah’s ark is a story that
eludes us because
it is hard for us to grasp
the impact the story
would have had upon the early people
who have first told it.
Where we live, we are used to water –
it falls frequently, we use it
for transport and for making a living
but in their dry and dusty land
when the rains came they come with a vengeance
and flooding brings death.
In the minds of the ancient Hebrews
water was a blessing but also
a symbol of the chaotic and the destructive.
Flooding was as fearsome to them
as the fear of nuclear war is to us today.
For them the ark is not a fun
children’s story but a story
of their worst fears coming true
and a story of humanity surviving
“by the skin of our teeth.”
Surviving in a lifeboat.
And you know the story:
God makes a promise with Noah
never to destroy the world again
by flooding and places
the rainbow as a sign of that promise.
And once again we hear this old story -
and what I want to ask is
what do we do with this story?
Why do we still read it
why is it included in our readings on Sundays?
The answer to that is in
how we receive this story.
If we were to take it at face value
we could see it as a warning
and hope our generation
doesn’t get in God’s bad books
like Noah’s generation did.
Others might look at this story
and see the angry and wrathful God
and wonder a bit
how this view of God
squares up with the other parts
of the Bible that say God is love.
For many it is a glaring dichotomy
that cannot be reconciled.
It leaves us puzzled and confused
as well as vaguely fearful of God.
We might find ourselves
objecting to what we read
wondering about the fairness of God
if as the story goes He wipes out
all of the world – we might find
ourselves wondering about the justice of God
and then we might feel afraid
that we are wondering:
after all, we reason,
who are we to question God?
This is one of those problem
scriptures that confront us
from time to time –
they seem to contradict what
the gospel of John states so clearly
that God is love.
So what many of us do
is we kind of ignore this passage.
and go onto something easier and let sleeping dogs be.
But I think our faith
should be able to stand up to tough questions
God has given us our minds
and I think he expects us to use them.
And this is how I see it – take it or leave it it’s free.
Much of the problem as I see it is in
how we look at this story
that is, how we look at scripture.
There are a number of ways
to look at this book we call the Bible.
One way is to say well
we take it at face value and
what it says we believe and do.
This is a literalist approach.
It takes scripture at full authority
without error and as God inspired.
Another way is to see the scripture
as being God inspired
but delivered through human beings
and interpreted by human beings.
In this view we do our best
to interpret the will of God
but we are only human and
do not get it right every time.
This approach says that scripture
does not have to be literal
to contain God’s truth or
revelation of his will.
In this approach scripture is shaped by the
time and culture it is written.
This is the approach I take.
I see this story as a folktale told over many campfires
– it records the great
events in the life of a people
and this story records
the occurrence of a mighty flood.
I see this story as people
with an early understanding of who God is.
A more primitive view if you will.
They attribute catastrophe
to God as well as blessings.
They remember the flood
and they think God is behind it
and they weave this understanding
into their sacred stories.
It is my belief that this
way of looking at scripture
solves what in my mind is
a glaring problem in how we
understand who God is.
Many have been troubled by the fact that
the God of the Old Testament
is very different from the
God of the New Testament.
Why is that the case?
It is my belief that we have matured over the years
in understanding who God is
we have developed in our relationship with God..
The Old Testament has
many instances of scripture
that contradicts the Christian claim
that “God is love and in God
there is no fear of condemnation.”
Many people try to live
with a strange image of God
who is threatening and mighty
and ready to smite and yet is the God of love.
Running through the Christian faith
is a strange fault line
in which we claim we love God
because deep down it is mixed with
a tremendous fear of him.
The ultimate expression of
this love / fear is in
our deeply ingrained fear of a fiery hell.
This became very clear to me
when as a teenager I saw a school bus
that had been converted into
a sort of hippy bus.
On one side of the bus
were painted in bright pink letters the words
Accept Jesus or burn in hell
for ever and ever and ever”
with a whole bunch of exclamation marks.
On the other side of the bus
were the words “Smile, Jesus loves you!”
I knew then something was terribly wrong.
Living with this strange dichotomy
leads to a strange
and twisted view of God
and it leads to a schizophrenic relationship with Him.
So what do we do with this story
of God venting his anger?
Well, first of all we have to recognize that this story
still speaks about God
and still is a sacred story.
Something does not have to be literal
to contain truth about God.
It seems to me that we
have to have courage to look at it with a new lens.
There are other and earlier
similar stories of the flood
in other cultures and this is a retold story
just as the Romans borrowed
the stories from the Greeks.
I see this story as mostly a Hebrew folktale
that attributes a natural disaster to God.
It reflects an early understanding
of God that is not accurate.
So what can we do with this story?
I suggest that we
instead see this as a story of how God
seeks to preserve life
in the face of disaster.
I do not believe that God
sends disasters as punishment
or bullies us into loving him.
A love relationship cannot
be built on fear whether it is
a human relationship or a divine relationship.
Personally, I feel that this
insults the integrity and good ness of God.
I suggest we see this story rather
as emphasizing God preserving
of life and how God stands
by those like Noah who
are in a solid relationship with him.
I see this story as God’s
faithfulness to Noah – preserving him
and his family from a calamity.
This ancient story can still
speak to modern people
because it challenges us to ask
where do we put our trust?
What do we put our faith in
to keep us afloat when
our lives are struck by disaster?
Disasters challenge our sense of security
just as 911 did or the Tsunami did
and make us ask where or what do we put our trust in?
What is our ark? Things change suddenly.
We must be ready!
“For in the days before the flood,
people were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
up to the day Noah entered the ark.”
Jesus himself warns that
those who do not
place their trust in God
but in their own resources
“is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, the wind blew hard against that house, and it fell. And what a terrible fall that was!”
People who hear his words
and listen to them
“is like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over,
and the wind blew hard against that house.
But it did not fall, because it was built on rock.”
Jesus uses a graphic image
to shake us out of our
complacency – we are urged
not to turn to God out of fear
for the future but rather
that we can meet the future
with all of its challenges
when we have made Christ
our foundation and our rock.
These scriptures ask us
what do we do when our world falls apart?
What solid ground do we find
to keep our heads above water?
And we all know it’s true!
Life goes on like normal
“as in the days of Noah” so to speak and wham –
a car accident, a stroke,
something that changes us forever.
What is your lifeboat?
What do you trust in?
The scripture urges us to be ready.
It tells us that Jesus
is the rock to stand on
the one who calms the waters
and who commands the storm
to be still and it is
the cross that is the lighthouse
despite the storm.
So who gets the last word today?
This is the dilemma I face
every sermon but this week it goes
to an old Salvation Army hymn
which we really should learn to sing.
It’s called Will You Anchor Hold?
You may know it -
“Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,
When the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift and the cables strain,
Will your anchor drift, or firm remain?”
O tell me, brother, - O tell me sister,
will your anchor hold?
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