Noah
OK, before we get going on the flood story, let’s lay a little groundwork. In fact we’re going to
go all the way back to the beginning, to the first two verses of the Bible:
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void
and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the
waters.
Pretty familiar to most of us. It’s the start of the grand liturgy of creation. OK, now we’re
going to learn one new Hebrew word, and revisit another.
The new one is tohu – or the whole phrase, tohu va bohu. But I just want you to remember
tohu. That’s what gets translated as formless and void. It means emptiness, nothingness,
confusion – it is chaos.
And to the ancients, the deep sea with all its wildness represented chaos. So these first two
verses are an image of the chaos – the nothingness – from which God started. And then a
wind from God swept over the chaos.
From there, the marvelous poetic vision of creation begins to unfold – let there be light. And
there was light.
And so on.
Tohu begins to take on shape – chaos recedes.
The second creation story is the one that gives us the Garden – Eden. Here’s where the
second Hebrew word comes in – you know this one already – Shalom.
Shalom is usually translated as “peace.” But shalom is much bigger than the absence of
conflict. Shalom is Eden – it’s where the relationship between God and humans – and in fact
all of creation - is right; it’s where the relationship between humans and the rest of creation is
right and where the relationship between humans is right. It’s where all of creation has what
it needs to flourish.
Shalom is Eden – God took tohu, chaos, and out of it God made shalom.
But from the very beginning, humans seemed to prefer chaos to the Eden God planned.
God is heartbroken – the flood story is less about an angry God and more about a God who is
devastated that things have turned out the way they have.
God decides to clear away the wreckage so that a new creation can start over. And so in
essence, God says, OK if you’d rather have chaos, then have it your way.
And so the protecting wind from God ceases to protect and the waters of chaos come rushing
back in. God chooses Noah and his family to be the bearers and caretakers of the new
creation that God hopes will work out better.
The flood comes. Everything but what’s on the ark is destroyed – and most importantly, at
least so God hopes, evil is destroyed.
But a funny thing happens along the way. God begins to realize that ultimately human nature
itself seems to often prefer working against God’s purpose of shalom. In a verse we didn’t
read this morning, it says this – God saw that the heart of humans was inclined to wickedness
– that was after the flood.
So if people didn’t really change – and by the way it only takes a few pages for that to become
clear – if people didn’t change, what did change that made God decide to make this new
covenant? If God doesn’t think the people will do any better with the new covenant than the
old, why make it?
Well, here’s the thing – no, humanity doesn’t change. But God does.
God changed God’s mind about the solution to the problem of evil. The only way to crush evil
turns out to be to crush all of humanity. And yet God loves those stubborn and willful people
– desperately. The difficulty for God is his commitment to the very humanity in which evil
resides.
And so God hangs his bow up. God puts away his weapon. And makes a new covenant with
Noah. The bow is a sign that God has opted out of the nuclear option.
God’s will and God’s desire is for creation – namely us – to be turned toward God in worship
and love. But God won’t force it. God gives up the idea of using divine power to bend
creation to his will.
So God concedes that the world of shalom is not to be, at least for now. And that the battle
against chaos will continue to rage.
But there’s a huge difference now – instead of being opposed to us, God has cast his lot with
us and will work alongside us to battle the chaos that threatens to destroy us. Even when
we’re the ones that bring chaos on ourselves.
God started this creation project with a heartfelt longing to be a covenant partner with a
people who would respond to God in love and worship. But after the flood, God moves to a
willingness to be a covenant partner with a people who will never get it right.
Now, of course that doesn’t just mean after the flood, people could do whatever they want.
Just because God recognizes the impossibility of destroying evil without destroying us doesn’t
mean God just accepts evil.
All through the Old Testament stories we will work through, we’ll learn God’s continued
efforts to mold people into shalom sort of folks instead of tohu sort of folks. God establishes a
people - Israel…God gives the law…God sends the prophets…
All of those things are God’s continued work to mold and shape people and draw them into
the life of shalom God intended from the start.
God of course continues that work even now. But God’s commitment to us was so great that
God opted to become one of us to overcome evil – by himself going through the ultimate
chaos - death. By willingly suffering the ultimate chaos and rising again, Jesus made it clear
that chaos will not win.
But we still live in the time before God’s new creation is complete. Chaos continues to
threaten. Good golly just look around us. Iraq is once again a war zone. Russia and
Ukraine…Israel and Palestine…Ebola…famine and starvation…poverty…crime…plane
crashes…natural disasters.
And closer to home, in our own lives and those around us – family conflict and even
violence…betrayal by those we trusted…shattered
marriages…sickness…addiction…accidents…poverty.
Chaos still pounds against God’s protective arm. But in the midst of the chaos God fights
alongside us, for us.
AND…God continues to shape us and mold us into people who choose shalom over tohu –
people who aren’t quite so mean to each other and who care for the creation instead of
gobbling up every resource for ourselves. Sometimes fighting against chaos means removing
from us our own tendency to choose chaos.
And interestingly enough, the way God shapes us also starts with water – the waters of
baptism. And although baptism may not look as violent as the flood, our understanding of
what happens in baptism, and what God does in us daily – is in fact death and resurrection.
Daily our tendencies toward violence and selfishness are drowned in the waters of our
baptism, and we are raised out of the water to live in God’s new creation – as people of
shalom.
And through the Holy Spirit we receive in baptism, God actually works through us against the
chaos around us. Anytime we participate in community building – like with the pork bbq/block
party – instead of tearing down other people, we are working alongside God against chaos.
Anytime we pray we are working alongside God against chaos.
Anytime we feed the hungry or stand up for someone who is ignored or picked on or anytime
we advocate for the poor we are working alongside God against chaos.
Anytime we catch even a little glimpse of real shalom – we have seen God at work, bringing
shalom out of chaos and life out of death.