June 14, 2020: Between the End and the Beginning
Genesis 6:11-22
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins
June 14, 2020
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.
______
The Lord told Noah, you’re gonna build an arky, arky
The Lord told Noah, you’re gonna build an arky, arky
Make it out of gopher barky, barky
Children of the Lord
The story of Noah and the ark is a favorite story people of faith share with our children. We decorate our nurseries with images of a big boat with many colorful animals aboard . . . elephants and giraffes and monkeys. We sing the little song about the arky, arky, and the animals going in by twosies, twosies, and how it rained and poured for forty daysies, daysies, then the sun came out and dried up the landy, landy. The song ends like this:
This is the end of
The end of my story, story
This is the end of
The end of my story, story
Everything is hunky dory, dory
Children of the Lord
But is everything really “hunky dory, dory”? I don’t think so.
There’s a real problem with this story. Multiple problems in fact. So many problems I had a hard time deciding which one to tackle.
Let’s start with what a terrible children’s story Noah and the Ark is. It’s basically a story of genocide at the hands of an angry God. “So honey, let me tell you a bedtime story. The people were bad, and God was angry, so God sent a huge flood to kill them all. G’night sweetie!” I find this primitive understanding of the nature of God unpalatable. I’m not going to go too deep into this today, but know that the Bible has multiple authors, and multiple takes on the nature of God. This take—that of a genocidal god—let’s just say it’s not my favorite. Fortunately, a deeper understanding of the nature of God develops in the biblical narrative. And when we get to the New Testament, we see Jesus working feverishly to counter toxic theology like that.
So that’s the first problem—a problem with the text.
And then there’s the first problem in the text. It’s stated clearly in the first verse we read:
“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” Luckily, we don’t know anything about corruption and violence today (note: sarcasm). I could do a whole sermon on this angle.
But alas, there’s yet another problem—the one I want to focus on today. There is a great flood, and it’s up to Noah to save the human race as well as the animal kingdom. No big deal, right?
Admittedly, this is the fun part of the story. This is the stuff bedtime stories and children’s songs and blockbuster movies are made of. You can almost hear the movie trailer now:
An angry God is destroying the human race.
It’s up to one man to save it.
Enter Noah with his long beard and his staff, a monkey on his shoulder scratching a submissive lion behind the ear. Noah the protagonist. The hero. Savior of the human race.
The power of this story is not so much that it happened, but that it happens.
You see, every generation knows violence. Every generation, it seems to me, finds itself drowning in some way, just like all the peoples of earth except for Noah and his family.
Have you ever thought you were going to drown? It’s terrifying.
Several years ago, some friends and I went whitewater rafting on the New River in West Virginia. It’s a beautiful, mountain river with the coldest water on the planet. We were in a large raft with a guide having a great time, breathing in the fresh mountain air, invigorated by the cold water on our skin, exhilarated by the thrill of navigating the rapids. But at one point in the journey, the river grew deep and calm. The guide told us it was a great opportunity to get in the water and float alongside the boat. I thought that sounded like great fun. So I got in the water. It was cold, but fun. Not a care in the world as I let the river carry me downstream, alongside my friends still in the boat.
Now, I don’t remember how I got to what happened next, but for some reason, I didn’t get back into the boat in time to avoid going through the next set of rapids solo. All I remember is that all of a sudden, the raft was jammed up next to a big rock . . . and guess where I was. I was underneath the raft! The water rushing . . . pushing me into the rock in the same way it was pushing the raft into the rock. What was probably just a couple of seconds seemed like eternity as I looked up through the rushing water, the bright yellow raft blocking my ability to surface, preventing me from the one most elemental function of life. I could not breathe. I was terror-stricken, believing I was going to drown. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t drown.)
So there’s literal drowning. Then there’s figurative drowning.
It seems to me that every generation finds itself drowning in some way . . . could be war, pandemic, civic unrest, economic upheaval.
My great grandparents suffered through World War 1 and the Spanish Flu epidemic.
My grandparents endured the Great Depression and World War 2.
My parents’ generation, including many of you, can tell us about the Vietnam era,
Watergate, the assassination of JFK and MLK, the riots that followed.My generation, GenX (we are un-lovingingly called), remember Iraq and Afghanistan. We can name where we were when we watched the twin towers fall on 9/11.
Millennials can remember that too, but more than the rest of us, millennials suffered the collapse of the housing market in 2008 and the Great Recession, creating a domino effect of financial challenges for them.
Then there’s GenZ. They get the coronavirus. Many of whom are on the streets yelling “Black Lives Matter,” demanding change in the face of 400 years of systemic oppression in this country.
If we know what’s going on in the world, we are keenly aware of civic unrest, political polarity, and economic disparity. In so many ways, we’re drowning.
The story of Noah didn’t just happen, it happens. It’s happening now.
The world is drowning, and God is calling the righteous to build a lifeboat.
We know how the story goes. Noah “did all that God commanded him.” He built the ark. He brought in his family. The animals came in by twosies, twosies. It rained and poured for forty daysies, daysies. What we don’t remember is that even though it only rained for forty days, the earth was so flooded that it was one year before Noah et al disembarked from the ark.
That was a long time to live in liminality—between the end of the world as they knew it, and the new beginning, whatever that would look like. This story shows us that sometimes, often times, liminal space stinks. All those animals on one boat gives the term “poop deck” new meaning!
And in the year 2020, during this liminal time between the end of the world as we have known it and the new beginning we have yet to imagine, you might agree with me that liminal space stinks. It’s uncomfortable. Pandemic. Civic unrest. Political polarization.
The world is drowning, and God is calling the righteous to build a lifeboat.
But we have an advantage over Noah—our advantage has nothing to do with how sophisticated we are in comparison. It’s not about technology or industry or architectural or nautical or engineering advantages. Our advantage? We have each other.
While Noah was all alone, while others laughed and scoffed at him and thought him a lunatic, we are together. We are the church, and we collectively know that people are drowning out there. We recognize that our greatest role right now, both in and for this generation, is to help build a lifeboat.
The world is drowning, and God is calling the righteous to build a lifeboat.
But the only way this is going to work . . . the only way we’ll find ourselves participating in God’s reclamation project . . . is to make sure that the lifeboat we build isn’t just for our own. Noah’s circumstance called him to bring in other species. Our circumstance is merely calling for us to bring in our brothers and sisters, to let all people enter the lifeboat two by two: male and female, gay and straight, Christian and Muslim, citizen and immigrant, republican and democrat, and most relevant these days, black and white.
For 400 years in this country, black people have largely been excluded from the lifeboat. Too many American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) are drowning in continued systemic racism; they can’t breathe. It began with slavery then on to Jim Crow, redlining, to the police brutality and mass incarceration we have today. Black folks simply want a place in the lifeboat. That’s why so many are on the streets—“A place in the boat!” we can hear them chant if we have ears to hear. “A place in the boat!”
This week I saw a rainbow, the symbol God gave to Noah as a promise never to flood the entire earth again. But this was no ordinary rainbow—it was a double rainbow—I haven’t seen one of those in years. Maybe you saw it too. From my driveway, I could see the entire ark of both rainbows. One of the rainbows was more pronounced, the other barely visible as it did its best to shine its colors, the very same colors as the prominent rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Though it was faint, it wanted desperately to shine. Almost like I could hear it saying, “A place in the sky!”
Isn’t that what we all want? A place to shine? A little corner on the lifeboat so that we aren’t swept away by the challenges life inevitably brings?
Our calling as the people of God is to build a lifeboat for humanity. I am so thankful that we have each other, because it’s going to have to be one big boat.
People of God, we can do this. We can create a system that works for all people. We can do this. We must do this. Our lives depend on it. Let’s get started!