The Flood, the Future, and God's Redeeming Covenant, LSTC Echols, March 29, 2022

This was my sermon for the 2022 James Kenneth Echols Preaching Celebration at LSTC. It was delivered over Zoom, as I was still in Arizona, preparing to move to Chicago for Clinical Pastoral Education in June. I was selected as runner-up for the prize in 2022.

If someone asked you what is the saddest phrase in the Bible, what would you pick? How could you choose?

This is not some hypothetical question. One can find many responses to this same question online in Biblical blogs. Some people think the saddest phrase comes within the first chapters of Genesis: “So the Lord sent them out of the Garden.” Others select “there was no room for them at the inn” from Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ birth. Still others point to some later words from Luke, spoken by Cleopas on the road to Emmaus: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Or many people name those two words in John, chapter 11, “Jesus wept,” upon the death of his friend Lazarus. Or perhaps you can think of others.

All of these are tragic commentaries: on the brokenness of humanity, a lack of hospitality, the hopelessness of Jesus’ followers after his crucifixion, the sting of death that even shattered Jesus’ heart.

But after reading today’s lessons again, I can find nothing more heart-wrenching than the phrase that begins the flood story, the introduction to the narrative that concludes in today’s lesson. From Genesis Chapter 6, verse 6, “God was sorry for making humankind on the earth, and it grieved God to the heart.”

Only six chapters into the Bible, sin had so thoroughly ravaged humanity that God regretted creating us, not just a fleeting moment of regret, but such unbearable grief that God contemplated obliterating us – not just the troubled human species, but every living thing.

Genesis 6 doesn’t go into the specifics of humankind’s depravity. The text leaves it up to our imagination what humans were doing that disappointed God so deeply.

However, God revises the original plan and decides to redeem Creation by selection. One human family. Pairs of all types of animals. And the rest of God’s creation, well…

This flood story – Noah and the Ark – is not really what you want to paint on your congregation’s nursery wall. Not the best story for toddlers in Sunday school. Despite a torrent of artistic picture books and a deluge of kids’ songs, this narrative, allegory, or myth from the beginning of the Hebrew Bible is at its heart a Creator’s dilemma. Let humankind continue in its evil ways and perhaps destroy all living things or commit near genocide to try to redeem Creation.

Flood stories, as well as fires, stars falling from the sky, shaking earth, and exploding mountains are common to every civilization’s history. Geomythology was the way our ancestors tried to make sense of massive planetary events.

However, geologic evidence never has been found for a global flood that covered earth’s highest peaks and every continent. But geologists have found massive floods, including a large regional one in Mesopotamia that may have corresponded with the account from Genesis, chapters 7 through 9, and the nearly identical account from the Quran. Theologians have surmised that the Priestly writer of this section of Genesis spun together this regional flood and the account of God’s despair. This has led to deep divisions between those who would see the story under a lens of Biblical inerrancy and others who ponder the story as a glimpse at the complex and compassionate nature of God.

Compassionate may not be the word some might choose to describe the metaphor of a disappointed deity who decides humans are behaving badly, and the corrective action is to wipe out all living things. But at its heart, this IS a redemption story, a covenant story, not just between God and homo sapiens, but between God and humankind and the whole earth.

In the story, God does not reduce the earth to clay again, but saves humanity and life itself by choosing a family set of each species to repopulate the earth, a reset so to speak, a reboot of Creation itself. In effect, a third Creation storyline. And when the water recedes, God doesn’t throw out a bunch of punishments or rules. It is a merciful, thoughtful God who meets Noah’s family in Chapter 9, having taken the biblical measure of 40 days to determine how to proceed from this new starting point.

“Never again,” is God’s opening line. And three times God repeats “Never again.” Never again will I send a flood like this. Never again will I destroy life to restore it. Never again will the earth be a weapon against living things. And this arc of color, set against the gray and black forces that are storm clouds, this will be the seal of my promise to you, to all living things, to Earth itself, that henceforth, these clouds will provide needed rain to nourish the earth, not to annihilate it. Look to the sky, when you see storm clouds building and fear overtakes you, and remember this covenant. Never again.

As far as covenants go, this covenant following the flood, sometimes called the Noahic Covenant, is somewhere down most people’s lists of the most important covenants. God’s covenant to make of Abraham and Sarah a great nation, the covenant through Moses to provide a land and promise to God’s chosen people, God’s covenant to David to make him the beginning of an everlasting royal lineage – those are the Covenants people recall from the Hebrew Bible. And Christians add to that list the New Covenant, spoken by Jesus to his disciples, “for you and all people,” on that last night in the upper room. The New Covenant – the restoration of relationship between God and God’s people for all time.

Yet, the covenant from today’s text is not one that we should dismiss lightly. It is not a bilateral covenant, requiring a commitment and action from both sides. Like the New Covenant, it comes with no strings attached, a gift of grace for all people, for all time. Out of the depth of God’s grief, a gift of grace, as God bridged the gap between Godself and Creation. And unlike the others, this covenant was not between God and Noah, but between God and all living things, as well as the earth itself. God’s heart was broken, but God acted to restore humanity and protect all the Earth.

So, how does this covenant speak to us today, millennia later? Is there a promise in these words for us as we ponder the broken environmental accords, witness species after species of God’s creation becoming extinct, and see the clock ticking toward time when our planet may no longer support life as we know it?

While God did not ask our opinion in creating this world or restoring life through the creative waters of rain and flood through the ages, God said this covenant was “everlasting” and “for all future generations.” God was looking ahead, knowing that this covenant would speak to people in difficult times. In times of brutal dynasties. In times of World Wars and bombs that could destroy life itself. In times like today when our nation’s leaders and citizens are not on the same page on dialing back climate change.

Perhaps our role in God’s rainbow covenant meshes with one final covenant: the one spoken in each of our baptisms. In our baptismal flood waters, in which we were washed and welcomed into God’s family, we were baptized into faith in action, living with and loving one another, striving for justice and peace in all the earth. This is the time for God’s people to live into those words, and help assure the promises “for all future generations.”

The opening line was perhaps the saddest one in the Bible: “God was sorry for making humankind on the earth, and it grieved God to the heart” The story of God and God’s people is one that still is being written with us. Perhaps it is our thoughtful, every day actions of living together, loving one another, and striving for justice and peace that will change that sad opening line to a different kind of ending, for all future generations.

Amen.

Promises Made, Promises Kept, Ex 12 NL YR3-4, October 4, 2020

 We’ve skipped over centuries of history from last Sunday to now, from Joseph bringing his family to Egypt because of the famine, to the enslavement of the Israelite people by the Egyptians. More than 400 years has passed as the Egyptians progressively made Israel’s sons and daughters lives more miserable with brickmaking and fieldwork. Egypt’s Pharoah has tried to weaken the Israelites, ordering midwives to kill the sons of Israel’s women. Instead, the enslaved people have multiplied, causing the Pharaoh to fear the Israelites will side with one of Egypt’s enemies. The stage is set for something inconceivable to happen, for God to use this occasion to keep a promise.

Promises. Do you remember a time growing up when someone important to you made a promise and kept it? Maybe it was that day, but maybe it was a promise that took months or even years to keep. Or maybe a time when someone broke their promise. You remember those moments. People expect people to keep their promises.

I remember when Mike and I first moved to Arizona. It was 34 years ago today – I remember, as it was my 23^rd birthday. We had driven straight through from Wisconsin, through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and finally, through New Mexico. Almost there. The sun was just coming up as we came over a rise on Interstate 40, and the horizon was FILLED with hot-air balloons. We turned on a local station to discover it was an annual event, the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival. Mike promised me that some year, we would come back and celebrate my birthday there, on the ground, surrounded with the colorful spectacle of thousands of balloons lifting off around us.

Working here in Cottonwood for the Verde Independent, my job was especially busy in the fall months, with schools and sports stories galore – we never could get away. It wasn’t until 2008 that we finally spent the weekend there, viewing the mass ascension, the balloon glows, and meeting up with a former co-worker who had moved there. Not only was it wonderful beyond our imagination, but because it didn’t happen immediately, our son was able to share it.

Promises kept are an important part of relationship building.

Imagine being an Israelite family in Egypt. As long as anyone could remember, they had been in bondage to Egypt. Despair had set in, and God’s promises to make Abraham’s children a great nation mocked them. How great was this? Their songs and stories in worship tasted bitter and empty.

But finally, God lifted up Moses to deliver them. Plague after plague, hope returned. Maybe this would be the one. Soon, Pharoah tired of the plagues. “Fine – you want to play games, I’ll keep you too busy to play games. Gather your own straw for the bricks. But keep producing the same amount.” Pharoah expected the Israelites would turn on Moses. But God was ready to keep God’s promise.

Moses gave the people God’s instructions: prepare your homes and families. Select an appropriate lamb to sacrifice, mark your doorposts, pack your things. Prepare your bread – but don’t expect to have time for yeast to rise. We need to be ready to move. It’s finally time for the Lord to deliver us.

And when the Egyptian first-borns died and the Israelite households were passed over, the Pharoah told them to go. Go! Now, before your God strikes more of us dead! Leave, now! And prepared by God’s instructions, they were ready. They were on the move before Pharoah changed his mind. Finally, God had kept God’s promise.

But were God’s people ready to live into that promise of being God’s freed people? The story of the next 40 years looked nothing like a grateful people who trusted in God’s promises to keep providing for them. Time and time again, God’s people turned away, ready to turn back to Egypt and worship idols rather than trust in God’s provision. Over and over, Moses reminded them of how God delivered them, how God provided manna and quail and water when they needed it. Every year, they took time to remember the Passover, when God passed over their homes, struck down the Egyptian’s will, and allowed them to escape bondage. When God kept a promise that they would be God’s own chosen people.

 It would be a few more generations before Joshua led them into the promised land, their own land where they could live, multiply and prosper. Even then, God’s people would fail to trust, over and over, and would fall back into bondage. It was centuries later, during a period of Roman occupation, that God again kept God’s promise … this time, the promise of a long-awaited Messiah.

On that night in the upper room, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. The Passover Seder is a time when Jewish families remember God’s great faithfulness. In the centuries old tradition, Jesus reminded them of God’s promises – promises kept, from the matzah bread, the bitter herbs, the lamb. And then after supper, Jesus changed the script. He gave his disciples his own promise. As he held up that third cup of wine, the cup of redemption, he told the disciples that  HE  was the fulfillment of that promise, the new covenant that through his life, death and resurrection, they would be God’s people forever. And again, that word. “Remember” – Do this to remember me.

Jesus already had made them promises. He told them that he was going to prepare a place. He shared that he was going to die, but on the third day, he would overcome death. And on this last night together, he made them another promise, that he was going to bridge the chasm between them and God for all time. God’s grace was enough, and God’s kingdom was theirs.

In these days of uncertainty, perhaps promises don’t ring true to you. Maybe you’ve been hurt too often by family, friends, employers, politicians -- the world in general. 2020 has been a difficult year. Our faith in promises is shaken. The pandemic numbers keep rising. Nothing we hear sounds trustworthy. Let me assure you: you’re not wrong. The world’s guarantees have never been anything but empty words, shifting sand under our feet. In this time of hopelessness, we need to grasp God’s promises tighter than ever.

On most Sundays, we would remember God’s new covenant again in our Lord’s Supper. Today, instead, I invite you to meditate on all of God’s promises, promises we make in the confession, the creed, in our prayers, in our hymns. And next week, when you join together with Pastor Sharon in the feast, listen to the words and REMEMBER how you fit into God’s story – promises of God’s faithfulness, from the beginning, to now, and to the end of time. In that you CAN trust.

Amen.