Too Much Water

Image Source (that one time Russell Crowe showed up in the OT)

September 20, 2015

Genesis 7:6-8:3

6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came on the earth. 7 And Noah with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after seven days the waters of the flood came on the earth.

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah with his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons entered the ark, 14 they and every wild animal of every kind, and all domestic animals of every kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every bird of every kind—every bird, every winged creature. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.

17 The flood continued forty days on the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters swelled and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 The waters swelled so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; 20 the waters swelled above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings; 22 everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 God blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred fifty days.

1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; 2 the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters gradually receded from the earth.

Sermon:  Too Much Water

What wild person picks Noah and the flood to preach on?  Ah, right, me.  Perhaps there’s a reason the PW Study left it out of their water series.  But I couldn’t, just couldn’t, preach a water sermon series with out the Lord saying to Noah “there’s gonna be a floody-floody.”

We know this as a children’s story from the Bible.  Which, honestly, is more than a little horrifying.  Sure, if you focus on that ark, on the family safe inside, on all those cute animals crammed in, on that lovely big, bright rainbow, it’s a charming story.  But what about everyone else?

What about those labeled “wicked” who perished in that flood, along with their children?  What about the animals who weren’t paired off and spared?  Surely they weren’t wicked?  Why did they deserve God wrath?

No, this is not a cute story, and I’m not sure it’s one we should teach our children until they’re much older.  It sounds to me like divine capital punishment – God killing creation for killing each other.  This God seems to have an anger management problem!  This God doesn’t seem anything like the God I know.

So, we have some choices to make, friends.  We can approach this troubling text the dualistic way, popularized in the second century by a fellow name Marcion.  We would claim that the God of the Old Testament was the Big Bad Wolf, while the God of the New Testament was a cuddly kitten.  Nope, that doesn’t fly with monotheism. 

We can approach this using traditional theological means: take the text at face value, and then draw truth from it, immediately applying that truth to our lives and the world, whether the shoe fits or not.  This is how the church has usually read this text with the simplistic meaning of “People were bad.  A few were good.  God is good.  God punished bad people, and saved good ones.”  Except of course that we are all a jumbled mix of badness and goodness, and no one is entirely one or the other.

Or we can take a third approach, one growing in popularity thanks to some fella named Francis who’s apparently kind of a big deal, who practices it publicly.  That approach is the one of liberation theology, and it grows out of Latin America, centering around the poor, oppressed and silenced.  Liberation theology doesn’t start with a Bible passage.

It starts with us.  First, we name our reality.  What’s going on with us?  With the world?  With you? 

Think for a minute: what does the world look like right now for you?  Maybe you’re feeling heavy today, trying to keep it together because you are sick.

Maybe you’re living in some past mistake or regret you can’t shake, and every day feels like a struggle to find joy and freedom.

Maybe you’re overwhelmed by mental illness in your family, and feel helpless to do something about it.

Maybe you can’t remember what you had for breakfast, or the name of your childhood pet and the world seems a scary place, the future feels threatening.

Maybe you’re heartbroken over Syrian refugees, over children orphaned, over children forced to become soldiers.

Maybe you just don’t really feel anything – and haven’t for years.

Take a minute, and to yourself, quietly name your reality today.

Now, we do the work of liberation theology – a theology meant to set the world free by God’s word.  Let’s take that place where we are, and put it in conversation with the word of God, in particular the story of Noah, until we hear the Spirit speak to us.

This type of theology means we can’t forget where we really are, what we’re really going through, what the world is going through.  We can’t find truth in this holy text unless it speaks truth into our particular context.

After lots of fighting with this text and my context this week, I’ve discovered something I think is radically true, that might just be what the Spirit has to say to where you are today.  This was guided by a professor at my seminary, Walter Brueggemann (whose words you can find in our little church library, by the way).  Are you ready for that radical truth?  Here it is:  God changed after that flood.

I told you it was a radical truth!  God changed.  Brueggemann puts it better than I ever could, so I’ll let him:

Can God change his mind?  Can God abandon the world which God has so joyously created?  That is the central question for Israel.  Many people hold a view of God as unchanging and indifferent to anything going on in the world, as though God were a plastic, fixed entity.  But Israel’s God is fully a person who hurts and celebrates, responds and acts in remarkable freedom.  God is not captive of old resolves.  God is as fresh and new in relation to creation as God calls us to be.  God can change God’s mind, so that God can abandon what he has made; and God can rescue that which he has condemned.

God resolves to punish the guilty.  But that has now been changed.  The one-to-one connection to guilt and punishment is broken.  God is postured differently.  From the perspective of this narrative, there may be death and destruction.  Evil has not been eradicated from creation.  But we are now assured that these are not rooted in the anger or rejection of God.  The relation of creator to creature is no longer in a scheme of retribution.  Because of a revolution in the heart of God, that relation is now based on unqualified grace.

The telling of the story must focus on that surprising and irreversible turn.  That is the substance of the gospel.  The God who rules over us has turned toward us in a new way.  God remembered Noah.  God remembered.

Friends, this is unbelievably good news--gospel!  It means that, yes, perhaps Noah tells the story of a God who used the suffering of creation as punishment for sin.  But more importantly, it tells the story of the last time God ever did that.  God chose to behave differently towards humanity from that day onwards! Even to the point of a cross, suffering on our behalf.  So back to our important context:

This means that illnesses, sadness, loneliness, tragedy, accidents, apathy, fear, sorrow, refugee crises, poverty and any other trial we can imagine are not rooted in the anger or rejection of God.  They happen.  The world is broken.  But that doesn’t mean God brings them upon us in anger.  Which means God doesn’t bring them upon us to teach us a lesson, either.  They happen.  Life happens.  But in the midst of it all, God whose heart changed in those flood waters, remembers us. 

If that’s not a liberating truth, I don’t know what is.  God remembers us.  We forget God, we forget our neighbor, we forget even our true selves, again and again and again.  But God remembers us – every one of us --, again and again and again.  The waters may rise, but they won’t destroy everything.  The flood may come, but it won’t be sent by an angry, vindictive God.  And eventually, finally, the clouds will part, the sun will shine, a dove of peace will return and we will be safe in the care of the God who has promised (him or herself as much as us) never, ever to forget us.    

Thanks be to the Creator who chooses grace, to the Christ who suffers with us still and to the Spirit who bears life, like a sprig of fresh hope over fearful waters.  Amen.