July 5, 2020 - "You Asked For It" Summer Series - What happened to the people who helped build Noah's ark?
Deborah Laforet Genesis 6:11-22, 7:17-23, 8:1-4, 9:8-15
July 5, 2020
“The Flood Story”
I want to start by saying, God loves you. We are children of God and we are loved and included and accepted and affirmed for who we are, no matter what we do. I feel I need to share this reminder before I delve into the story of Noah and his ark.
This summer, Carolyn and I are preaching on topics suggested by the congregation, by you. This Sunday, the requested topic is: “What happened to all the people who built Noah's Ark; surely he did not build the huge boat himself? Did he leave them to drown in the subsequent flood and was this a proper Christian thing to do?”
The story of Noah’s Ark has been used as a children’s story. It has been used in children’s toys and prints to hang on walls, or in songs like “God said to Noah, there’s gonna be a floody, floody.” Why not, right? It’s a story of lots and lots of rain, with pairs of every creature on the earth, bears and crocodiles and giraffes and elephants, and it ends with a beautiful rainbow and God’s promise that no such event will ever happen again. But is the story really all that innocent? Is it a story for children?
There was a movie recently with Russell Crowe called Noah, and although the events in the movie were not true to the bible, the starkness and violence were probably more true to what’s in the bible than what we read in children’s storybooks. I mean, this is a story about God deciding to wipe out, to kill most of creation because God felt it had all gone awry, that “the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. [God] was sorry that humankind had been made on the earth, and God’s heart was grieved. So [God] said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (6:5-7) So the decision was made to do away with humankind, and most living and breathing creatures of the earth, except for the Noah and his family because Noah was the only righteous person that God found to be worthy.
So, in answer to the question, either Noah and his family built the ark on their own or the help that they enlisted was washed away in the flood. Was this the Christian things to do, for Noah or for God? First of all, Abraham came long after Noah, and Abraham and Sarah are the father and mother of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, so Christianity had nothing to do with it, but was it the right and moral thing to do? Good question.
Some point at this story as proof of God’s cruelty, as evidence of the violent and unmerciful character of God. Were there really no other people besides Noah and his family that God could save? Maybe a better question is how God could send such a flood to destroy so much life, regardless of whether they were evil people or innocent creatures.
There is some argument about whether this is a true historical story, whether it literally happened, with a real boat, a real flood, and real destruction? Maybe it did; maybe it didn’t. We’re not going to debate that. We’re going to look at this story and ask why it was written in the way it is written. There are books written on this topic so we won’t go too deep, but I want to share with you a hint of the powerful symbolism within this story.
First of all, we hear in our story that “God saw the earth and behold, it was corrupt. “ (6:12) In our creation story, back in Genesis 1, we have the exact same sentence structure but the opposite sentiment: “God saw all that had been made and behold, it was really good.” (1:31) God is grieved that his work of art has been corrupted and wants to start again. The story of Noah and the ark is a story of un-creation, a destruction of creation, but it ends with hope of a new creation or a re-creation.
It is believed that this story was written down during the time of exile, when the city of Jerusalem and their holy temple, where they believed God resided, had been destroyed, razed to the ground. The question they had to ask themselves now was had God decided to wipe out the Israelites for their sins? Had the predictions of numerous prophets sent by God to warn the Israelites come true and had God finally given up on them? Or was there still hope of a re-creation, of a new beginning?
There are hundreds of flood stories in the ancient world but one would have had the most impact on these exiled Israelites and that would have been the Babylonian flood story that we read about in the Epic of Gilgamesh. There are striking similarities between these two stories, but the biblical account differs in that there is one god as opposed to many and that the reason for the flood is moral evil among humanity rather than the disputes and conflicting interests among the gods. With the very first sin of disobedience in the Garden of Eden, to the first murder of Abel by his brother Cain and then the warring between tribes and increasing violence up to the time of Noah, God has had enough and decides to begin again.
God finds one righteous man and decides that this man and his family will be saved and will save a remnant of all that breathes on the earth.
Friends, we can look upon the details of who lived and who died, we can look at the contradictions with the story: how many days of rain did they get, how many of each animal was on the ark, how did they all fit, how were they fed, or we can look at the “why” of the story. Author Rachel Held Evans wrote in her book, Inspired, “Israel’s origin stories weren’t designed to answer scientific, twenty-first century questions about the beginning of the universe or the biological evolution of human beings, but rather were meant to answer then-pressing ancient questions about the nature of God and God’s relationship to creation.” This might seem odd to our minds of reason and logic, but maybe instead of looking at this story as historical, as scientific, like a text book or science experiment, we could look at it like a work of art, a painting hung in a museum. What is this story trying to tell us? What does it makes us feel? How does it speak to our lives today?
This is a story of redemption, mercy, and hope. It’s the story of a people who seemingly deserved their total annihilation but was given a second chance, was offered an opportunity to try again, with the promise that there would be no further interference from God. We are on our own, to make our own mistakes, continuing to be offered a third, a fourth, a fifth chance, as many as we need. The rainbow is a sign of that promise.
I’m not saying that God has left us. God still very much remains with us and we are surrounded by that divine love. We see that in our gospel stories, with Jesus teaching us, challenging us, empowering us to live lives of mercy and justice, compassion and peace. In fact, in the story of Jesus, we see another story of creation, un-creation, and re-craetion: in his his life, his death, and his resurrection.
We see this pattern in our own lives when we experience times of triumph and success wonder and euphoria, times of creating and loving, forgiving and embracing. Then we hit obstacles, snags, what might feel like a dead end. A loved one dies, we get sick, a relationship ends, a job is lost, mental health breaks down, an addiction gets overwhelming. You are broken. These are times when everything seems undone and it feels like you have nothing left to give. But wait. There is a glimmer, a sparkle, a hint of something more, an opportunity, a revelation. You notice that what seemed like an end is a beginning. You are different; life is different, but there is a new excitement and wonder for what is coming, for what is, for what might be discovered.
We have as many chances as we need, not to make our lives perfect, but to learn and grow and transform and create something new in ourselves, for others, and for this remarkable world.
When we see that rainbow, may we remember that God loves us and wants us to live lives filled with that love. May we take the many chances afforded to us to re-create ourselves, to grow into what we are called to be, and may we together bring the peace and the justice that was originally intended for this world when it was created and deemed “very good.” Thanks be to God. Amen.