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Morningside The Flood
Those of you who have walked past the pulpit this morning or who have an
unobstructed view might have noticed that I have a few props up here with
me. If you got a good look,
you might very well have already guessed what the topic of the sermon is
going to be. It’s
from our Old Testament reading this morning, it’s the story of Noah’s I
would suggest that without a shadow of a doubt the story of Noah’s Now I don’t know about you, but I find the popularity of this story puzzling, bizarre even, because if you stop and think about it it’s not really a nice story. It’s not a nice story at all. In fact, it is an appalling story, it’s a horror story. You only have to cast your mind back to the effects of the Indian Ocean Tsunami a few months ago to realize the true grotesque nature of the account of The Flood. You certainly don’t need me to spell out the details. So why is the story so popular? I suppose it has something to do with the animals and sailing in a boat – the story of the Flood is often portrayed as the tale of a sort of nautical Dr. Doolittle. The story’s popularity might also have something to do with the disturbing ability for human beings (us!) to be able to compartmentalize reality. To be able to see and hear the bits we like (the animals and the ark) and ignore the bad (the death and destruction of everything else). It’s a highly moral tale – where the ‘good guys’ are saved and the baddies get their comeuppance – and there’s something perennially compelling about this genre. It’s also a story of redemption – where good (Noah and the animals and plants are saved) comes out of a seemingly hopeless situation (the 2 floods – the flood of water and the flood of evil that is said to have covered the face of the earth in those days). The only fly in the ointment, so-to-speak, is the way in which God comes over in the story. Not very well, I feel.
Of
course one has to remember that the Bible was written by human beings
and so the God we see and hear described in its pages is not
necessarily God as He/She/They really
is/are, but rather how we mortals have/do see and experience God.
It’s easy to imagine, therefore, that people who
eked out an existence by farming or herding (as
they did in Ancient Israel) – at the mercy of the seasons, the
vagaries of the weather and exposed to death and
disease on all sides – could feel that God was capricious, angry, unfair
and unmerciful – One to be appeased and feared rather than endeared
and loved. Now, we might think that humanity has worked through these kind of ‘issues’ with God since the Old Testament was first written; that God and humanity get on and understand each other much better these days. But have we? Do we? I believe that in reality little has changed in the intervening three-and-a-half thousands years that separates us from the writers of this story. Instead of fearing a vengeful, capricious and angry God of the Old Testament today we are now concerned with the impersonal, relentless and equally unforgiving power of Mother Nature as narrated and documented by Science. Take, for example, the issue of Global Warming. At the beginning of the 21st Century we seem to be facing another Deluge, one that is less dramatic in its onset than the Biblical one, but no less devastating in it’s potential consequences. Scientists are telling us that as a result of global warming sea levels could increase by a metre or more within the next one hundred years. That may not seem very much, but when one considers that 3 billion people (half the world’s population) lives within 150 km of the sea and that over 100 million people (and rising) live less than a metre above sea level the situation comes into greater focus. And, of course, global warming isn’t simply about rising sea levels. There is the issue of massive changes in the world’s climate – which will bring about drought, bigger and more destructive storms… And the changes which will be brought to farming, fisheries and natural habitats… the destruction of vegetation and the increase in infectious diseases – the list goes on. It
is almost universally acknowledged that the primary cause of global
warming is the burning of fossil fuels by people.
Despite the fact the
A number of years ago I was asked to lead a workshop on
environmental stewardship as part of a large Stewardship Conference in the
North East US. As part of the
workshop I compiled a list of facts and figures to illustrate the current
ecological situation. One of
the more surprising facts that I stumbled across was from the UN Agency
for Development. It said that less
than 10% of the world’s population owns a car, but that the majority
of households in the “Everything we thought was good turns out to also to be bad. It is an act of kindness to travel to your cousin’s wedding. Now it is also an act of cruelty. It is a good thing to light the streets at night. Climate change tells us it kills more people than it saves. We are killing people by the most innocent means: turning on the lights, taking a bath, driving to work, going on holiday.” (The Guardian, ibid) As
I said, it seems we haven’t come very far in our thinking in 3500 years.
Just like the God of the Flood, Nature is presented as capricious
– the ones who suffer in the global south are not the ones (in the
industrialized north) who have created the problem.
She is angry – and we will undoubtedly suffer because of our own
poor choices. And Nature or
the forces of nature is/are most often presented as unmerciful and
relentless, “we can do nothing about the sea-level increase to which
the climate system is already committed.” (p.52 Time, So where does all of this leave us? Where is the Gospel? Where is the ‘Good News’? Well, if I am honest, I have to tell you that I can’t spell this out in minute detail. For one that would be rather hypocritical of me – after all I do have a People-Carrier parked in my driveway. And besides which, you aren’t children who need to be lectured. The answers lie in the depths of our own hearts and consciences. But I would suggest that the broad-brush strokes might look something like this: ·
Wisdom lies in faith that is lived out
in our everyday lives, in our values and choices about the most
ordinary of things – or as Jesus put it, “Therefore everyone who
hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like the man who
built his house upon the rock.”
(Matt Wisdom lies in faith that is lived out in our everyday lives as good stewards of all that God has placed into our care. ·
There is hope, because the future lies
in our hands – we might not have
been able to do anything about the first Flood, but we can certainly do
something about the second. Again,
I don’t want to spell out what that means in detail here, but I think
that the editorial piece I have already quoted from put it best; “…the
interests of global society will be served primarily by restraint.”
Restraint. Because we can
doesn’t necessarily mean that we should.
· And finally there is redemption because God – although He won’t protect us from the consequences of our actions – God will always love us and be with us – despite and in spite of ourselves. As it says in the story of the Noah and the Flood, “but I will establish a covenant with you,” (Gen. 6:18) God tells Noah. In other words destruction will not be the final word. With God destruction is never the final word. If I had to sum up the significance of the story of the Flood for me in three sentences it would sound something like this: Just like the people of the earth in the story of the Flood we, today, will bear the consequences of our actions. That is in the nature of things. Wisdom
lies in faith that is lived out in our everyday lives. Like Noah in the same story we need to be attentive and attuned to the way in which the Spirit of God moves and breathes through all things and speaks to us of love. “…the
interests of global society will be served primarily by restraint.” And, again, just like with Noah, God invites us, today, into a loving, creative and reciprocal relationship. With God destruction is never the final word.
Simon Justice |
Christ Church