A Week Off

No lesson this week since I am not preaching.  Larry will preach on Matthew 6:24-34 and he calls it, Don't Worry ABout Tomorrow.

One of the fun things with having three pastors preach is how we sometimes feed off each other and other times we contradict each other.  Last week I talked about creation and our responsibility to take care of the amazing gift of creation and life that God has given us.  So basically, I said- PLEASE worry about tomorrow.  Now this week Larry says not to.  Maybe we could get Ruth to do the following Sunday on- What About Yesterday?

June 1st we will read some of the story of Noah and the flood and the Matthew 7:21-29 on Foundations.

I found this old sermon I did a few years ago on Noah...

May 29, 2005
The Divine “But…”
Genesis 6-9

As we move through the Book of Genesis we come to this well-known story of Noah and the ark. Next to the birth of Jesus, I would guess it is the most well known story in the Bible. There are children’s songs written about it, the one we sang this morning about the arky, arky, then there’s the Irish Roller’s Unicorn Song about the green alligators, the long necked geese, the humpty back camel and the chimpanzees. Bill Cosby did a famous comedy routine on the story. There are countless jokes about the stench on the inside being worse than the storm on the outside and Noah’s wife being Joan of Arc.

We know the account, or at least we know the sweet bedtime story version. But we manage to forget some of the interesting twist and turns this legend takes. Even the lectionary editors leave out some of the less desirable portions of the tale.

God creates the world and all that is in it and it is good.
But within moments the first humans are disobedient.
The second generation of humans let’s sibling rivalry lead to murder.
Soon the earth is full of evil people.
Humankind is wicked.
Every inclination of the human heart is evil.
God regrets ever creating us and grieves.
God decides to blot out all of creation
Humans and animals- all of them will be destroyed
But Noah finds favor in the sight of the Lord.
God has Noah build the ark and fill it with animals
And with his family.
Noah responds. Two of each animal, or seven pair of the clean animals depending on which verses you read, and Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives take up residence in the ark, the rains come.
For 40 days and 40 nights it rains
And rains
And people die
And animals drown
Cities are destroyed
Farms wiped out
The description is like the description of creation
Only backwards.
And for 150 days the waters swell
It is really not a swet child’s song or a funny skit
It is pretty nasty stuff
But God remembers Noah and everyone with him in the ark
They are saved
And finally they reach dry land.
They leave the Ark.
Noah offers a sacrifice to God in gratitude for his life and his family being saved.
God begins a new creation
Starting with Noah and his family
The animals from the ark
Everything has been cleansed and made new
The world is good again

God promises never to destroy the world again
The promise is sealed with a rainbow
God blesses Noah
All is right with the world
Humans will obey God from now on
We’ve learned our lesson.

But then, Noah plants a vineyard
He gets drunk and passes out naked in his tent.
Ham sees his father naked
And this new creation
This one family that will populate the earth is torn apart
A son’s unfortunate behavior
By a father’s curse
Jealousy, anger, and evil once again fill the human heart.

All that trouble
All that water
All those animals and all their mess
And nothing has changed
People are still the same
We still commit acts of violence
We still do stupid things
We still disobey God
We still violate creation
Nothing is different

We are going to be just as cranky and as rotten and as disobedient and as bull-headed and selfish as always. Then what’s been the point of all this?

Nothing has changed.
Humanity is just as rotten as it was before the flood.
Noah is even more rotten than before the flood.
He has become a drunk and abusive.

So given the facts – given the reality of the human race, surly God will withdraw the covenant.

But that is not the way the story goes.
That must be why we tell this story. Not because what it says about us. We are the same as always.
We tell the story because of what it says about God.
God is prepared to keep on with us.
God wants our help with creation
We are asked to work with God.

You know it’ll never work.
Given our track record, not a chance. Not a chance.

But it is not the legend of Noah and us, but it’s really a story about God. It’s a legend about God and it’s a legend about you. It’s a legend about the God of our childlike minds, the petulant childhood God who builds a house of blocks and knocks them down. It’s about the vengeful, punishing God we learned about in our youth.

This is about understanding God in a different way.
This is about our understanding of God growing up.

It’s a young and inexperienced God who makes a world and a people and then they all mess up, and God gets mad and decides...just like a kid...to wipe out the whole business and start over. It is the legend of the God who lives in our imaginations.


Then there is the promise. The legend grows and matures until the God we know becomes the God who calls us to be part of this creation, to love it, to care for it, to love each other and to love ourselves.

We have the rainbow, we have the promise.
God has decided to live with us.
God is even willing to love this crazy world of ours.
But the question is, are we?