Reading below: Genesis 6:5 - 9:17

The sky show last Sunday was spectacular, wasn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. The sun was setting on a huge storm front that boiled up the Willamette Valley. The sky was orange and yet strangely purple, and a picture perfect rainbow – no, make that 2 picture perfect rainbows – arched through the sky, framing a lightning bolt display rarely seen in the Pacific Northwest. And the sky inside that rainbow frame – holy cow! The sky inside the inner rainbow was about 15 times brighter than sky surrounding it, all orangy purple, and to the west, a brilliant bright blue sky held the setting sun. The whole effect was just incredible, and it lasted for such a long time. All I could think of was, “Nice Going, God.” ¹

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever met a rainbow I didn’t like – great big showy ones like Sunday’s, and even short rainbow bits like the one we saw at softball practice on Wednesday evening. Each one just makes my heart sing. And while I understand and appreciate the science of rainbows (all the stuff about raindrops refracting sunlight), the scientific explanations take nothing away from the marvel of seeing those arcs of color in the sky. Rainbows are simply magical wonders of God.

Truth is, we human beings have pretty much always been fascinated by rainbows. The creation stories of any number of cultures include something about rainbows, including, of course the one the Israelites told. But the rainbow in that story is just the icing on their creation myth cake.

For the past month or so, I’ve been working through a series of sermons on the pre-history stories of Genesis, trying to shed some light on why these stories were created, and why they were included in the sacred texts of the people of Israel, the texts that have become our texts thanks to Jesus of Nazareth. Let me say again this morning that these ancient stories from Genesis matter, not because they are factual, which they are not, but because they are profoundly theological. They tell the story of a phenomenally creative and deeply loving God and the tragically flawed human creatures that God was so excited to make: creatures fashioned in God’s own perfect image – made to create and work and love, and yet somehow so not perfect. You see, God gave us free will and the flip side of humankind’s ability to create and to make wonderful choices, is our tendency to destroy and make devastating decisions.

So the flood story we heard today in its entirety (!) is entirely a theological endeavor. It seeks to explain not simply rainbows, but why human beings are still on the planet, despite our being such a disappointment to God.

Now let me start by saying that the flood story in Genesis is hardly unique. In fact, there are a boatload of flood stories from the Mediterranean region and on up into what is now northern Europe, and even in a number of other indigenous cultures around the world. A few years ago I was excited to read about the research that was being done that could shed light on the origins of the Mediterranean flood stories.

In 1999, National Geographic reported that the source of the legends might lay in the melting of the Ice Age about 12,000 years ago. Back then, some kind of global warming (unrelated to fossil fuel consumption) caused glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere to melt, raising the level of the oceans and seas. Some geologists theorize that about 7,000 years ago, water from the Mediterranean Sea pushed northward, slicing through the region we know as Turkey. Funneling through a narrow valley, they think the water surged into the Black Sea with 200 times the force of Niagara Falls, absolutely inundating the coastal land cultivated by prehistoric farmers.

Terrified survivors told the tale of the flood and that story was passed down and elaborated on through the generations and eventually became the stuff of legends, including the stories of Deucalion and Pyhrra, from ancient Greece and Rome, who saved their children and a collection of animals by boarding a vessel shaped like a giant box. And to the north, Irish legends talk about their Queen and her court, who sailed for seven years to avoid drowning when the oceans overwhelmed Ireland.

And one of Israel’s neighbors, the Babylonians, told their epic of Gilgamesh, a king who embarked on a journey to find the secret of immortality. Along the way, he met Utnapishtim, the survivor of a great flood that was sent by the gods because they were irritated by all the noise the humans were making down on earth. The god of water warned Utnapishtim of the impending deluge, so he built a boat in time to and save his family and friends, along with animals, artisans, and precious metals.

With all these stories circulating around them, it should come as no surprise that the Hebrews would have their own version of the flood story. Someone from the court of Solomon wrote down a first draft a thousand years before the birth of Christ. 400 years later, that draft was picked up by the priests of the exiled people of Israel who had been conquered and taken away by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.

Exile, you see, was a common practice in those days. A victorious army would march several thousand of the most important, influential and talented of the conquered people back home with them. Keeping those kinds of people physically close to you not only benefited you financially, you could pretty much guarantee that no one would be fomenting revolt back in the home country. Besides, over time, you might be able to win their minds or hearts or both – and thereby really cement your control. Telling them the stories of your gods (who were, of course, far superior and waaay stronger than that puny Yahweh) was an important way to do that.

The priests of the exiled people came up with their own version of the flood story, drawing at times from the tale of Gilgamesh, and wove it into the story from Solomon's time, which is why the text seems to repeat itself in a clumsy sort of way. The priests wanted to maintain the heart of the original story that the people knew, but they needed to deepen its theological purpose.

You see, Israel had a unique theological point of view, one very different than their Babylonian hosts. The Israelites worshipped only one God instead of the usual assortment of gods favored by the Babylonians, the Greeks & Romans and virtually every other culture in the world. And their God Yahweh was not a God who favored the powerful people and rulers of the day, but a God who cared about them as ordinary people, even as beaten down as they were.

Israel’s experience of Yahweh as a God of love and justice conflicted with their experience of suffering in exile: God created the world for goodness, yet the evil that humans do is rampant in the world. The flood story sought to make sense of that conundrum and to give the people hope for a brighter future.

We read today that within 6 chapters of the Genesis history of the world, God came to such frustration with humankind that destruction of the whole planet seemed to be the only solution. This then is the story of God's terrible despair over what had happened with the human race, God’s regret at having ever made us in the first place, and God’s bitter decision to put an end to the whole creation endeavor by bringing a great flood upon the earth. (which you will note effectively reverses what God did on the second day of creation when the waters of “in the beginning” were separated by a dome creating the sky).

Now, we need to stop right here and sit with this for a moment. Almost everybody thinks they know what this story is about. They think it means that God got really angry with the terrible people of world and decided to punish us by sending a flood; and that if it hadn't been for good old Noah and his family, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. If it were up to God alone, the world would have been doomed, but good old Noah changed God’s mind, right? Not so fast. If we take time to really listen to what’s being said, the story unfolds very differently.

What we find here is not an angry tyrant who destroys the world because we deserve it, but a troubled parent who grieves over what has gone wrong. In the stories before this one, we read about how the people of the world had betrayed creation's intent. Violence and pain and a surprising lack of love and appreciation for God marked humankind from the beginning. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and even fallen angels. God’s plan for a peace-filled and bountiful creation had been undone by the very creature that had been created in God’s image – and God was in despair.

Now. Over and over again, we have heard that God is timeless and immovable, and immune to what goes on in the world and in our lives. Like maybe a kind of George Burns – “Oh God!” type of God who doesn't have time – or a mind – for all the details. Or perhaps a kind of Victorian monarch who considers it beneath her dignity to be aroused by such petty concerns. Or maybe a stoic God, or a God who doesn’t just care about mere mortal matters.

But that is not what this story tells us about God. The God who is revealed here is a God who feels deeply about creation. God is devastated, crushed, and angered by the chaos of the planet and God seems convinced that the world would be better off without humankind, better off if we simply disappeared without a trace.

But God cannot quite do it. God cannot quite give up on us entirely. It is the good news of this ancient myth: God cannot quite abandon the world that was made so joyously. God cannot quite stand back from it and say, "Bad idea!" God cannot quite turn away and say, "Never again!"

Do you hear that? Most of us think that this story is about a crisis of the future of humanity. But if you read the story carefully, you find that it is the heart of God that’s in crisis. The crisis is not whether the flood will destroy the world; but what the wickedness of humankind will do to the heart of God.

And here’s the kicker: God changes his mind. God changes her mind long before the rainbow is set in the sky with the promise never to destroy the earth again. God changes his mind long before ever telling Noah to collect his things and get ready to ride out the perfect storm. God changes her mind before any of that.

The story says that right at the very beginning of the story, when God noticed that Noah was just and blameless among his contemporaries, that is when God reconsidered the whole destruction thing. In that moment God decides not just to save Noah and his family, but to give this whole endless incurable terrible source of divine hurt and grief, this whole screwy creation, another chance.

So when God finally says, "Never again will I destroy the world" it’s not because the flood has changed anything about the world, and it’s not because the flood’s devastation had caused God to take pity on us. And it’s not even for the sake of one good man named Noah and all his family. It is because God changed. God decided not to act with vengeance, but to keep on loving us no matter what.

The flood didn’t change humanity. We were just as screwed up as we always were – as we’ll find out next week when we read the very next story in Genesis. No. The flood definitely didn’t change humanity. The flood changed God. God realized that simply getting rid of us wasn’t a happy option and that really, unlimited love and patience was the only answer to the problem of humankind.

The rainbow that God places in the sky is the product of light refracting through raindrops, but more importantly, the rainbow is a sign that God will not abandon us. As God remembered Noah, God remembers us. And I pray that someday our hearts will become one with God’s loving and patient heart, and that rainbows will fill and spill through us all like the Son’s own living water.

Amen.

[1] Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

I give thanks for the work of Rev. Barry J. Robinson, Walter Brueggemann, Robert Adler, and Columbia University geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman.
 

Genesis 6:5 - 9:17(Priests for Equality trans.)

Our God saw the great wickedness of the people of the earth, that the thoughts in their hearts fashioned nothing but evil. Our God was sorry that humankind had been created on earth; it pained God's heart. Our God said, "I will wipe this human race that I have created from the face of the earth-not only the humans, but also the animals, the reptiles, and the birds of the heavens. I am sorry I ever made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of Our God.

These are the generations of Noah:

Noah was just and blameless among his contemporaries, and walked in accord with God. Noah had three children: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

It was clear to God that the world was corrupt and filled with outrage. God looked at the earth, and saw that it had gone to ruin: all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. So God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before me, for they are the cause of all its corruption. I will destroy them, and the earth as well.

“Build an ark for yourself out of cypress. Build rooms in the ark, and coat it with pitch, both inside and out. Its dimensions are to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. Put a roof over it, with an overhang of eighteen inches. Put a door on the side, and give it a lower deck, and a second and a third deck below that.

“What I have decided to do is to flood the earth and to destroy all flesh under heaven that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will die. But I will establish my covenant with you: you and your wife will go into the ark, with your children and their spouses. Bring with you two of every living thing-one male and one female – of all flesh, to preserve them. Every kind of bird, every kind of animal, and every kind of thing that creeps on the ground – two of each-are to come to you, to keep alive. You must also store up all kinds of food to eat – food for yourselves, and food for all the creatures with you." Noah did as he was instructed; he did everything that God commanded.

Our God said to Noah, "Come aboard the ark, you and your household; you alone among this whole generation do I see as righteous. Of all the ritually clean animals you must take seven pairs of each kind, a female and a male. Of the unclean animals you must take one pair, a female and a male. Of the clean birds of heaven also, seven pairs of each kind, a female and a male, to propagate their kind over the earth. For in seven days' time I will bring rain to the earth; it will rain for forty days and forty nights, and I will rid the earth of every living thing that I have made." Noah did everything that Our God commanded.

Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters came over the earth. So Noah and his wife, together with their sons and spouses, entered the ark to escape the flood waters. With them came the clean and the unclean animals, birds and creatures that move on the ground, two by two came to Noah into the ark, male and female as God had commanded.

Seven days later the waters of the flood appeared on the earth. In Noah's 600th year, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the well-springs of the Deep burst, and the windows of heaven opened, and it rained for forty days and forty nights. On that day Noah, his wife, their children Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their spouses entered the ark. Every kind of wild animal, every kind of cattle, every kind of slithering creature that crawls on the ground, every kind of bird-anything that chirps or has wings – came to Noah and entered the ark, two by two from all flesh in which the breath of life resides. There was one male and one female of every form of life. They came to Noah as God commanded, and Our God closed the door of the ark upon them.

For forty days the flood continued, and the rising water lifted the ark so that it rose high above the earth. The waters rose and rose throughout the whole earth, and the ark rose with them. The waters rose so high over the earth that all the high mountains under heaven were covered­ – the waters rose above the mountaintops by more than 250 feet. All life on the earth perished – birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures, and all humankind. Everything that had once had the breath of life in its nostrils, everything on the earth, died. God destroyed all living things that existed on earth, from humans to animals, from things that crawled to things that flew; all were wiped out throughout the world. Only Noah and those with him in the ark survived. The waters rose for 150 days.

God remembered Noah and all the animals in the ark, and sent a mighty wind over the earth so that the waters began to subside. The springs of the Deep and the windows in the heavens were closed up. The rain from the heavens stopped. The water covering the earth gradu­ally dropped, until at the end of 150 days it was gone.

On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. The water continued to go down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains came into view.

At the end of forty days Noah opened the porthole he had made in the ark and sent out a raven. It would fly off and return to him as the waters were drying up from the earth. Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had subsided on the earth. The dove, finding nowhere to perch, returned to the ark, for there was still water over the whole earth. Putting out his hand for the dove he brought it back into the ark. Noah waited seven more days, and again sent out the dove from the ark. In the evening, the dove returned with a freshly plucked olive branch in its beak, and Noah knew that the waters were receding from the earth. After seven more days, he again sent out the dove, and this time it did not return.

In Noah's 601st year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up on the earth. Noah opened the door on the side of the ark and saw that the ground was drying. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was dry, and God said to Noah, "Leave the ark, with your wife and your children and their spouses. Bring out all the living things with you – the birds, animals, and all the slithering things of the earth – so they may spread throughout the earth, bear fruit, and become many on the earth." So Noah with his wife and his children with their spouses, and every kind of bird, animal, and crawling thing that moves on the ground, left the ark, one family at a time.

Noah built an altar to Our God, and choosing from every clean animal and every clean bird, offered burnt offerings on it. Our God smelled the sweet fragrance and said, “Never again will I curse the earth because of humankind, since the evil their hearts contrive begins from infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done.

So long as the earth lasts,
sowing and reaping,
cold and heat, summer and winter,
day and night will never cease.”

God blessed Noah and his family and said to them, "Bear fruit and be many, and fill the earth. Now, however, all the earth's wildlife, all the birds of the air, and all that crawls on the ground or swims in the sea, will be afraid of you. But remember that they are your responsibility: they are in your hand. You may now eat anything that moves and lives, just as it had been with the green plants: I now give them all to you.

“However, you are not to eat flesh with its lifeblood still in it. At the same time, I will demand an accounting from your own lives, your own blood: from every animal I will demand it, and from every member of the human race in regard to one another, I will demand an accounting of human life.

"If anyone sheds the blood of another,
by others will their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has the human race been created.

“Now go, bear fruit and be many – abound on the earth and increase your numbers!"

God then said to Noah and his family, “I hereby establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you – birds, cattle, and the earth's wildlife­ – everything that came out of the ark, everything that lives on the earth. I hereby establish my covenant with you:

All flesh will never again be swept away
by the waters of the flood;
never again will a flood destroy all the earth.”

God said, “Here is the sign of the covenant between me and you and every living creature for ageless generations: I set my bow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, my bow will appear in the clouds. Then I will remember the covenant that is between me and you and every kind of living creature, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all flesh. Whenever my bow appears in the clouds I will see it, and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature on the earth.”

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