Flood Warning

Amazing, isn’t it, how a little sunshine can buoy our spirits?[1] But I was working away last Tuesday or Wednesday when it seemed like it never would stop raining. I received an email from Dave Jacob. Of course, it was raining hard that day and he was wondering if the lectionary lesson for this week was the story of Noah and the ark. I replied to his email that strange though it may seem, the assigned Old Testament lesson for today was in fact the story of the flood. I also mentioned that several weeks ago I decided that I would be preaching from that text today. Little did I know then that this sermon would come right in the middle of what feels like our own “forty days and forty nights” of rain.

Noah and the flood is one of the most famous stories from Genesis, the Bible’s first book. And I’ve decided between now and August that I’ll work in Genesis on all the occasions that I have to preach. I often encourage you to read the whole book or whole sections of books from which I’m preaching. I don’t know if you ever do it but I will keep encouraging you to do it. It might seem a little much to read the whole of Genesis over the next few months when I’m only preaching from a half dozen of its stories. But if you do read all of Genesis, it will certainly set these sermons in a helpful context for your own understanding and blessing.

The first eleven chapters of Genesis set the scene for the arrival of Abraham and Sarah, the forebears of the Hebrew people. And within those eleven chapters we have, of course, the creation stories in chapters 1 and 2 and in chapters 3-4 how God’s good creation became corrupted by human sinfulness. The story of Noah and the flood takes up most of chapters 6-9 and has a twofold theme: (1) God judges a corrupt creation, and (2) God saves and brings about a new creation. We only have time to read excerpts of it but let’s turn to Noah’s story beginning in Genesis 6.

[6.5-8] The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord 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.” But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.

[6.13-22] 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.

[7.11] In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

[7.18-8.2a] The waters swelled and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. The waters swelled so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; the waters swelled above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings. And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred fifty days. But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed.

[8.14-9.1] In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God said to Noah, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. And every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out of the ark by families. God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

[9.12-17] God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Just as there are two creation stories — Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 — which reflect differing perspectives on what it means that God created the world and humankind, there are also two versions of the flood stories. However, in the case of the flood, the versions are woven together rather than kept in separate chapters. Bible scholars are able to discern this because among other things, the two versions use different names for God, present a different chronology of the flood, and describe different animals that are taken into the ark. Now this approach to reading Genesis — generally speaking it’s called the documentary hypothesis — can be and has been overdone. But in its simplest form it’s quite clear that one version of the flood story comes from what is called the Yahwist tradition (because it uses the name Yahweh for God) and the other tradition is called the Priestly (because it speaks in ways that were clearly important to Israel’s priests).[2]

What is interesting about this, I think, is that on a whole variety of subjects, we will often hear people say “the Bible says this” and others will say “the Bible says that” and “this” and “that” do not agree. The reason for this is that the Bible is not like an algebra textbook where, after you’ve done the problems, you can look up the answers in the back. No, the Bible is more of a book that involves us in the conversation about the problems. Even those who wrote and edited the Bible wrestled with different traditions and perspectives and in doing so tried to listen for God’s voice.

So I have two questions this morning. First, how do we hear God’s voice in the Noah story? There are many possibilities.

There are those hear God’s voice to be about the historical evidence for and the dating of the flood. I don’t think the flood story is historical writing but it seems that many folks do. This was apparently the point of a man named George Jammal who said on a television special back in the early 1990s, “This piece of wood is so precious — and a gift from God.” He spoke those moving words with great reverence as he displayed a relic of wood that he said had come from Noah’s ark.

Jamaal’s appearance was one of the highlights of “The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s Ark” which was a two-hour prime-time special on CBS in February 1993. I didn’t see the program but it was so impressive that one of the members of my church then sent away for a videotape of it so I could watch how a group of intrepid believers had discovered the real ark on Mount Ararat.

The problem was that the show was a complete and utter hoax, much to the CBS network’s later embarrassment. George Jammal was an actor hired to play the part. The piece of wood he was showing was just a hunk of pine he had soaked in juices and baked in the oven of his Long Beach, California home.[3]

Others, however, have read the flood story in symbolic rather than historical ways. For example, the great Augustine interpreted the flood story allegorically. He said, “Undoubtedly the ark is a symbol of the city of God on its pilgrimage in history.” He argued that the wood of the ark was a symbol of the wood of the cross. The door of the ark symbolized the spear wound in Christ’s side. The square timbers of the ark symbolized the “foursquare stability of a holy life, which, like a cube, stands firm however it is turned.”[4]

An eighth-century theologian known as John of Damascus (676 - c.754), one of the leading thinkers in the early Eastern Orthodox Churches, thought the Noah stories supported the necessity of chastity. God told Noah to “take your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.” John of Damascus argued that by listing them separately, it meant that Noah kept his sons separated from their wives while on the ark “so that with the help of chastity they might escape the ocean’s depths and worldwide destruction.”[5] Sounds like John was overly concerned about the floods of sexual passion. Of course, he was a monk and maybe that had something to do with why he read the story that way.

The Canadian author Timothy Findley also reflects on sexual motifs in the story. He wrote a novel in 1986 called Not Wanted on the Voyage in which he deals with sexual and other tensions in Noah’s family, everyday life aboard the ark, and the rebellion of Noah’s wife.[6] Shakespeare, Jules Verne, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence and dozens upon dozens of other writers, both theological and secular, have penned analyses or interpretations of the flood stories. And I mention this simply to make clear that the flood story is so open and powerful that one often goes away from this text mostly with what one brings to this text.

Which leads to a second question and that is, what do we bring to the text? It’s possible, of course, just to bring a weary cynicism. One writer quipped a long time ago, “The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.”[7] We might agree. The world is a nasty place. Always has been. Always will be. Not much we can do about it.

But I think there is more than that in the flood story and if it’s true that we go away with what we bring to it, what is it that concerns us when we read this story?

There is a danger in answering this question because there may be as many concerns as there are people in the sanctuary. But if I had to give an answer from what I know of myself, from people with whom I council, and with whom I talk, my answer would be that we are concerned mostly about the floods that can overwhelm our own personal lives.

These floods come in many forms. There are external floods caused by storms and accidents and freak occurrences. Or we can be flooded by illness and disease. Marriage and family difficulties can overwhelm. So can financial problems, some that we cause ourselves and some that come from an increasingly uncertain economy. Sometimes our own souls can be drowned by the sorrows and pain of others. The floods come in many ways and, even though we smile cheerfully at church, we fear what does come and what may come.

And with the fear of floods there is, I think, an even darker fear. And that is that we won’t make it on the boat. The ark is going to sail and we won’t be allowed on it. I read a sermon not long ago where the preacher talked about a boyhood friend who had recently died. “He was part of our gang growing up,” the preacher said. “We were all buddies through the seventh or eighth grade. I lost touch with him after high school. I heard he made it big in business, made a bundle in real estate. Then I heard that he died, but not unexpectedly. ‘Drank himself to death,’ they said. ‘There was the real estate slump in the 80s, and when business got bad, he cut corners, deceived clients, eventually was charged, convicted, jailed for a time.’ A friend’s verdict on him was this: ‘When it got tough, he showed what he was made of, down deep. Not much, unfortunately. His fall was swift.’”[8]

That sounds so righteous if you know absolutely that you’re tough enough down deep to always make it with God. But to me that preacher comes across as moralistic and self-righteous. He had lost touch with his friend. He no longer knew what it was like to walk in his friend’s shoes. Who can say they are strong enough to never fall? I cannot and I suspect you cannot either. And that’s the flood that we fear. Not only will the waters overflow us but if there’s an ark, we won’t be let on. This may be what we bring to the text.

And if it is, there is a word for us from God. The word is at the very beginning of the text, in chapter 6, verse 6: “And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” You see, this story isn’t about an enraged, aloof God sitting up in heaven, looking down in disgust, and saying, “I’ll just get rid of those loathsome things.” No, what we find in the story is not an angry tyrant but a troubled parent who grieves over what is happening.[9] When the text says that it “grieved [the Lord] to his heart,” there is a word used in only two other places in the entire Bible[10] and the most important of those is Genesis 3.16 which talks about Eve’s grief in giving birth. In other words, God’s grief in birthing creation is like a mother’s grief in birthing a child, a grief that does not end when the physical pain of childbirth is over but continues forever. For there is no bond in the universe like the bond of a mother to her child. And no true mother ever abandons or forgets her child.

So in the midst of the flood, the text pronounces the divine word: “And God remembered Noah and all the animals that were with him in the ark.” (Genesis 8.1) No matter the flood, God remembered. And no matter the flood that overwhelms you my friend, God remembers you and grieves over you seeking to birth a new creation within you. God remembers. If we bring to the text our fear of being overcome, then take away from the text that God remembers us and is with us, no matter the floods and no matter the fears.

And isn’t it just like a mother’s remembering love to make the sign of remembrance a rainbow?

Have you seen a rainbow lately? We know they are meteorological phenomena. They have been present ever since there was rain and water vapor and air and sunlight. But we need to also know that in the ancient Bible times, the rainbow was thought to be the weapon of the god Asher, and lightning bolts were his arrows. The rainbow and lightening were weapons of the gods against humankind.

So imagine the surprise and delight of the Hebrew people to hear that the rainbow was not a symbol of a warrior god, but the a symbol of a God of compassion, a deity who established through Noah and his sons a covenant with all living things.[11] The rainbow is the sign of a God who remembers us. Even in the floods of life we are remembered. Thanks be to God.

[1] May 2005 was one of the wettest months on record for the Boston area.

[2] Walter J. Harrelson, ed., The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003) 17. The Yahwist version indicates the flood is caused by heavy rainfall that lasts 40 days and 40 nights. Seven pairs of each clean animal are taken into the ark. The Priestly strand uses the generic name for God, the flood arises from the disintegration of the orders established in creation, and it lasts a year — 150 days plus 150 days. Also, only one pair of each animal (clean and unclean) is taken into the ark. The New Interpreter’s Study Bible assigns the flood texts in this way: Yahwist strand — 6.5-8, 7.1-5, 7.7, 7.10, 7.12, 7.16b-17, 7.22-23, 8.2b-3a, 8.6, 8.8-12, 8.13b, 8.20-22. Priestly strand — 6.9-22, 7.6, 7.8-9, 7.11, 7.13-16a, 7.18-21, 7.24, 8.1-2a, 8.3b-5, 8.7, 8.13a, 8.14-19, 9.1-17.

[3] Leon Jaroff, “Phony Arkaeology,” Time 142.1 (1993): 42.

[4] Andrew Louth, ed., “Genesis 1-11,” Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament, vol. I (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001) 131.

[5] Louth, 133.

[6] David Lyle Jeffrey, ed., A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992) 288.

[7] Nicolas Chamfort, online, http://www.quotationspage.com, Internet, 15 May 2005. Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794), born Nicolas-Sébastien Roch, was a French writer and man of letters.

[8] William H. Willimon, “A Tale of Two Houses,” Pulpit Resource 33.2 (2005): 40. I often quote Willimon favorably. But he concluded this sermon with, “Those who have ears to hear; let them hear.” The sermon was on the wise and foolish builders at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. But Willimon’s interpretation turns the Sermon into a works righteousness screed. The gospel isn’t just for those who are “tough down deep.” How can any of us ever know if we’re “tough enough” to make it with God?

[9] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982) 77, 82. “The narrative has a dim view of the human heart. The question is not whether people are ‘good-hearted’ in the sense we call ‘nice,’ but whether in the deep places of life, human persons and the human community are capable of saving themselves. Can human persons transcend calculated self-interest which inevitably leads to death? Is the source of new life ordained in our bodies? Or is humankind dependent upon a gift of grace which we cannot give to ourselves nor even to each other? Our answers to these questions have largely been self-deceiving. Freud has understood about our capacity for self-deception. Marx has seen clearly our fascination with our own interests. This narrative permits the believing community to create an island of candor in a ‘flood’ of self-deception. The candid vantage point permits a glimpse of the human imagination as it actually is.”

[10] Genesis 3.16 and 5.29.

[11] Aha!, online, http://www.joinhands.com/aha_online/, Internet, 24 Mar. 2003.