The story of Noah and his ark includes in it a story of God's repentance and transformation. One kind of transformation comes when we have our eyes opened to see ourselves in a way that allows us to ask, "What have I done?" about the pain we have caused to others or to ourselves. God has that moment after flooding the earth, and offers a covenant of the rainbow. Waters of flooding and death become later waters of baptism and new life. We are no longer punished for our mistakes (not by God, anyway), but instead God reminds us of love and mercy and holds us in tender hands.
Have you had a "What have I done?" moment of transformation? How did it happen, how did it work out?
“Noah and God’s Repentance”
Sermon, Year B, Lent 1, February 22,
2015
Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau
Claire, WI
© Rev. David J. Huber
Focus Scripture: Genesis 9:8-17 andMark 1:9-15
(you may also listen to this sermon)
We started by reading the end of the
Noah and the flood story. I’ll be honest, I find Noah’s story to
be a terrible story. It’s a story of destruction and death. I don’t
understand why it’s become such a cherished children’s story.
People write children’s books about, and make artwork and paintings
for children’s room, and toys. Now, it is at one level the story of
God saving some lives: Noah’s family, some animals. But at the time
that God is saving those few lives God is also sending floods to
destroy everything else. All the surface of the earth is being
destroyed. Destroying everything. God is so angry at humanity’s sin
that it all has to be wiped out, except Noah’s family. And when we
read that story it’s so easy to get to the part about the flood
waters coming and to say the words about the flood covering the
earth, without taking a moment to pause and think about what that
means. That God sent the waters to flood the earth and destroy
everything. We read those words with no more thought than we might
recite a grocery list. Where’s the contemplative pause after
reading such terrible words?
I will say, that I do not believe that
this literally happened. I do not think the Noah is true in a
factual, historical sense. It’s out of character for God, for one
thing. It also reflects the point of view and the issues of people
thousands of years ago when the story was first being told, retold,
and passed down. There is also no archaeological evidence for a
worldwide catastrophic flood five or six thousand years ago. But
there is some evidence of flooding in the Mideast about that time. So
this could very well be a story that began with flooding, perhaps
numerous floods over a number of years, and the stories get passed
down. If you’ve ever played the telephone game, you know that as
stories get passed on, they get changed, embellished, mistakes creep
in. These stories also come at a time when people were worshiping a
god or gods that were believed to be in control of things. So when a
flood happens, then they have to think, “Why is this?” Often,
then, the logical conclusion that they make is that the gods must be
causing it, and they are causing it because they are angry at us for
something. We must have done something wrong, and we’re being
punished. Unfortunately, that thinking continues into today. When we
have natural disasters now, seems like there are always some
Christian leaders who come out and say that the hurricane came
because of New Orleans’ sin, or that the school shootings happened
because punishing us for our sins, and so on.
That’s a kind of thinking that is
stuck in a Noah’s ark ancient understanding of God sending disaters
to punish us.
But even without belief in the literal
truth of Noah’s ark story, we still have it. It is in our text. It
is in our scripture that we call holy. And we have to deal with it.
One thing that I see in it, in the
verse from today and also the verses before this one, is a point of
redemption in this saga. As we talk of transformation this Lent
season, transformation of self, church, community, etc., one part is
repentance. To repent is simply to turn around, to change direction
to a more godly way. It is not to flog ourselves our feel terrible.
Just to turn around from sin, and sin just means to miss the mark, to
make a mistake. There is in this story a transformation of
repentance: on God’s part. God has a moment here. Whether literally
true or not, the text has a transformation that God goes through.
At the beginning of the story, God is
getting angry at humanity. We are sinful, wicked, evil. God is angry
at humanity for all of its sin and wicked ways. God’s anger seethes
and seethes, and rage builds up like water behind the Three Gorges
Dam until it bursts and floods the world in watery death.
And I bet that felt good! God may have
had a moment that it felt really, really good to let all of that
anger out. It can feel good to us, yes? Let that anger out! Throw the
plate at a spouse, punch the guy who is offending you, flipping of
the guy in traffic, insulting a loved one who, because you love them,
you know them well and you know that one place to insult them that’s
going to hurt them the most. You tear them down and it feels sooooo
good in that moment! Let that anger out!
But as good as succumbing to the anger
feels in that moment, it is often followed by remorse. Perhaps you
have felt that. Been through that process. A moment of remorse. After
all the destruction of the flood, God sees the destruction once the
punishment is rendered, once it’s too late to not do it... once God
really sees the death and destruction that has been wrought, there is
a moment at which God has a change. The text does not say that God
was ashamed, but I wonder if that was part of it. I can imagine God
looking on the world and saying, “What have I done?”
Perhaps you have asked that of yourself
at some point. Or multiple points. I’ve asked it.
I had one big moment, and I don’t
want to turn this into a personal confession time, but last September
I had a moment. During the week of September 11, I had a very tough
week. Most of you know that I was in NYC during the attacks, and so
the week around the anniversary is always kind of weird. Usually not
too bad, but for some reason last year it was not a good week for me
at all. Plus, my car broke down that week, and some other things
happened not related to the anniversary just piled on the bad
feelings.
So I’m feeling bad that week, and I
send messages to Yuki, my partner in Japan to let her know how I’m
feeling and what is up. And I didn’t hear back from her for days.
For days! And finally, late in the evening on September 11 I was at a
total low. One should never write letters when one is really angry.
Lesson probably not learned. I was in a rage from not hearing from
her, and wrote from my suffering a note to her. It wasn’t long, but
it was sufficient, and it was mean-spirited, nasty. She called me
soon after receiving it, and we talked a bit. But mostly it was just
me yelling at her, and then hanging up. And then I turned off my
phone and computer so she couldn’t call me back. And it felt so
good! I was in that moment of anger, and I was totally justified in
what I said, and totally right! Because she was the sinful,
miserable, wicked people and I was the perfect God who was being
insulted and having indignities heaped upon me. I totally won! I was
so triumphant and so proud of myself. I had won!
But of course, if you’ve been there
you know, that you don’t win. It’s not a win. When I woke up the
next day, I turned my electronics on and I had some emails from her.
And by rights of my rage, her emails should have been full of apology
and contrition. By rights of my rage, that’s what I deserved! But
they weren’t full of that. They were, instead, a sharing of her
story – of what had gone on in her week. They were actually quite
compassionate. Way more compassionate than I deserved. And I saw that
she was not being the unsupportive intentionally hurtful wicked enemy
of all that is good. That was me. I was the one being that.
I’ve done things in my past, been a
person that I am not proud of. I don’t know that any of us escape
those moments of failure. That’s just part of being human. But we
have grace. The gift and beauty of grace and love is that they don’t
come to us because we are perfect, and they don’t wait until we are
perfect, we have them – God gives them to us – because we are
faulty human beings who make mistakes. Who do things that we know we
shouldn’t, but we do them anyway. That’s the gift of grace and
God’s love, that they come to us despite who we are.
And so that night, I don’t know if
I’ve ever been a more horrible person than I was that night. That
was perhaps my lowest point at being a decent person. And the irony
is that it felt so right at the time! I was so convinced, I felt so
justified at the time. I don’t know that I have ever been that mean
or unreasonable. That morning, after reading the emails from Yuki, I
looked upon the destruction I had wrought and I thought, “My God,
what have I done?”
I was transformed there, in that moment
of repentance, realizing just how much of a jerk I had been.
I think there is also in this Noah’s
story, a moment when God repents. When God looks upon the world that
had been created out of love, and then destroyed in anger, and God
says, “Never again. I will never do this again.” God creates the
covenant with Noah, and with the rest of humanity and with ALL living
things, not to do that again. That’s a life changing moment. And I
wonder if God had a moment in all this, after all this destruction,
that God might have thought, “If Noah and his family want nothing
to do with me after this, I will understand. They would be totally
justified to want nothing to do with me again.”
There is another transformation that we
can see between the Genesis passage we read, and the Gospel lesson we
read about Jesus’ baptism. Another transformation that takes place
in the biblical epic, and it’s about how water is used. Water,
essential for life on earth. Water, out of which our ancestors a
billion years or so again crawled onto the land for the first time.
The way God uses water changes. God uses water to kill all but a few
of humanity and billions of animals in collateral damage, to cleanse
to the earth of evil. But of course, it didn’t cleanse the earth of
evil, because Noah and his family are still human. They still sin.
The destructive power had no power to bring the ends that God had
hoped. There is no power in violence. Then God makes a new kind of
cleansing via water. Not to destroy life, but to grant life, through
the waters of baptism. We are flooded not by suffocating power of
water, but flooded with grace and love. Cleaned by the water. God
says “I’m not going to wipe you out, I am going to clean you of
your guilt, your shame.” God, who stood at a distance and send
flooding waters to destroy us, now comes to us as Jesus into our
brokenness, into our pain. God came as Jesus, was tempted and
understands temptation, knows our human lot, came to live our story
and hear our story with a tender heart, and with a tender hand,
reaching out with cleansing waters on them to touch us and say, “You
are my beloved.”
You are my beloved just as you are. No
more floods, no more destruction, just this covenant of the rainbow
and baptism. A covenant of hope, of life, and the transforming power
of love.
Amen.
