Hall Farm Lydford, Rogation Sunday, 13 May 2012
Many ancient religions have creation stories which feature a great flood.
Each of them describe the flood as an event which cleanses humanity in preparation for its rebirth. The flood is a act of creation, it is the creation of a new world.
Some of these ancient flood stories have heroes. And none of these heroes is odder, or better loved today, than Noah, the good man who God chose to bring about a new creation by building a little boat. The scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam all tell the creation story of Noah and the ark.
Why do we love Noah and his family and his animals and his ark so much? Maybe because we relate to them, keenly, happily, deeply.
For those of us who love animals - Noah’s careful gathering of each of the earth’s creatures is a wonderful act of caring husbandry.
For those who work with our hands, the craftsmen and women among us - Noah’s skilled creation of the simple boat we call the ark, is a work of art we greatly admire.
For those for whom family is important - Noah’s bringing-together of those closest to him is the right thing for him to do.
And for those of us whose lives have in some way been touched by the love of God - Noah’s salvation speaks deeply to us of our own salvation, of how the God of the flood becomes the God of the olive branch, the God of the rainbow, in his forgiveness of our sins and his renewing of our lives.
Let us not neglect the horror in the story of Noah and the ark - the flood was a terrible act of destruction by a God who was so saddened by the world that had gone wrong that - I imagine with great tears running down his face - he decided to put an end to it all and start again.
Genesis says, ‘When God looked at the earth, he saw that people had ruined it. Violence was everywhere, and it had ruined their life on earth. So God said to Noah, “Everyone has filled the earth with anger and violence. So I will destroy all living things. I will remove them from the earth.’
This is a God who used violence to remove violence from the world - which doesn’t make sense when you think about it. It seems like that was the problem in the first place, people using violence in response to violence, which just made the world more troubled every time, just as it does today. God, in his wisdom, must have seen the terrifying irony in that. Seen that that way of life was unsustainable. For things were different after the flood.
For just as the flood did something cleansing to the world, just as the flood did something healing to humanity, so the flood did something to God. When he brought the rainbow out into the sky above Noah’s stranded mountaintop ark, God said the rainbow was a sign that he would never again use violence against humankind: never again destroy the world. Instead, he blessed creation. ‘Be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it,’ he told Noah and his family and all who came off the ark.
The God who emerged after the flood re-created himself in love. God broke the cycle of violence which had previously consumed the world - its gossiping and bickering, its petty rivalries, its scapegoating, its warring. God made possible a new way of life in which love for creatures, love for family could expand to include love for neighbour - even the awkward neighbours, the ones who seem to be not like us; and even (in the words of Jesus) love for enemies. This is a new world indeed, for all who seek to share it.
This world will be yours if you get on board with Noah, the man who did what God told him to do.
And this is what God wants you to do: to walk away from the world’s cycle of violence - to turn your back on gossiping and bickering, on petty rivalries, on scapegoating, on warring, and to walk on board the lovely little boat of forgiveness, loving friendship and salvation.
The little boat of God’s salvation seems like an eccentric craft on which to negotiate a world which is still wrapped up in trouble. But as Noah, his family, and all the blessed creatures of the earth discovered, it is the only craft which is fit for purpose. It is the jolliest, loveliest, most sensible and safest boat of all. Get on board!
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