Text: Genesis 7: 1-5, 11-12

We are halfway through our summer reading program, at the midpoint of Beach Reads 2.  For first time worshipers or vacationers who have returned from summer sabbatical, we are enjoying four Bible beach reads.  Beach reads are those wonderful stories that we read on vacation, books we can’t put down, novels that show up on annual summer reading lists and the Bible has its fair share of great stories.

Last summer, we looked at three Bible beach reads which included water and sand.  This year, we are studying the foundational stories that come from the prologue of the Bible, the first 11 chapters of Genesis.  These chapters are considered pre-history because the people and events within these chapters are not found in the historical sources of culture and archeology. Prehistory stories are archetypal, the message of the story is more important that the facts. They speak to the deepest questions about being a human being, offering timeless truth whether your live in 21st century or are sitting around a campfire in the ancient near east 2000 years before the birth of Jesus. What are those questions?

Who are we? Why am I here? If there is a God, what is God like?  Our first week’s answers from our first story about Adam and Eve are:

Who are we? We are created in God’s image with ability to choose.

Why are we here? We are here to be in relationship with a partner. 

What is God like?  God is the God of consequences and the God of grace.

It was our starting point two weeks ago. Last week, the story of Cain and Able expanded on these answers.  In the second Bible beach read, we learned that we aren’t just in relationship with a partner but we are our brother’s keeper, we are to care for one another.  It becomes the foundation for loving your neighbor as yourself, a concept that develops throughout scripture.  We also learned that God agonizes over poor decisions.       

You can see that these two stories are progressive and the same will be seen this week with the story of Noah. It is one of the most familiar and the most challenging to understand as an archetypal story because we hear stories every couple of years about people finding Noah’s Ark. This spring a group of Chinese Christians named Noah Ark Ministries International claimed they found the Ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey.[1] Within two days, it was discredited as a hoax.[2] I have to admit that I roll my eyes every time I hear one of these stories.

I was talking about this with one of our members this week and he said, “So you don’t believe in Noah or that there was a flood.” I said, “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.”  I’m saying that we get so caught up in looking at the facts of the story, in trying to find an Ark or figuring out how all of the animals in the world could fit on that one boat, that we miss the message of the story. When we do that, we end up using the story in a way that it was never intended. We get so caught up in did this happen that we completely forget that this story is answering questions about who we are, why we are here and what God’s like.  The Flood is a really important story when it comes to that last question---what is God like? We learn a lot about God in this story.

But just so you don’t walk away thinking, “he doesn’t really think there was a flood,” of all of the stories prologue stories, this one has the most evidence that we can point to from other sources.  Geologists have found from the study of the layers of rock that worldwide floods occurred from time to time and that sedimentary evidence indicates a large local flood in the Middle East that predates human memory.  A couple of summers ago, Ann and I were in Istanbul and took a boat ride on the Bosporus, the strait is the boundary between Asia and Europe and bisects that great city.  There is evidence of a catastrophic flood due to the rise of the Mediterranean Sea, wiping out all humanity, creating the straight and the Black Sea. Geological evidence of catastrophic floods is found in all of the world and because of that, flood stories show up in almost every society.  Some even predate the written account that we have in the Bible and some of them are incredible similar to the story of Noah.

For instance, there is a Babylonian story found in the Epic of Gilgamesh which in some ways sounds a lot of like our story and in other ways, not very much like our story.  So in the Babylonian story, Gilgamesh is speaking to a man who has been turned into a god. He asks him how this happened and the god, Utnapishtim explains that there were many gods living in a city on the bank of the Euphrates and a dispute arose among them and some of the gods were doing evil. The “great gods” decide to bring a flood but they warned Utnapishtim to build a great ship in order to save his family and animals from the flood. He did and eventually runs his ship aground on top of a mountain, sends out a dove and a raven and even builds an altar and offers a sacrifice as he gets off the ship.[3]      

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? This story is written down at least 800 years before the story of Noah is put to paper around 1000 BC.  But predating this story by another 800 years is a very similar story in the Sumerian culture. Someone asked, “Doesn’t that bother you?” No, it doesn’t bother me; rather, it encourages me. It gives testimony to the universal nature of God’s truth and validates scripture. The story of the flood is a universal story, an archetypal story but the biblical story is God’s inspired truth and it helps us to understand who are we, and what God is like.

We discover quickly an answer to the last question as the story begins.  “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” (Genesis 6:5-6).  

Have you ever had that experience when you’ve made something and you think it is pretty good and then you discover that it’s not?  We think we do something well and then somebody comes along and says, that’s not good. Maybe it’s a school assignment as a kid. Maybe it’s a work project turned in at the office. Maybe it’s a recipe that turns out bad. Maybe it’s a relationship or a job that goes sour. We have a time of sadness and grief which can be intense, maybe even life altering. Imagine what it must have been like for God to have this experience about creation.   Do you remember the way Genesis 1 describes God’s joy during creation?  After every day, he would stop and say, “This is good” and then at the end of the 6th day, just before God models a day of Sabbath rest, God look at his 6 days of work and “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1: 31). God created the heavens and the earth and every living thing on it. Then he creates humankind, makes man and woman and gives them the assignment to care for the world and to care for each other. Instead of living out their assignment and creating a loving, caring world, God sees wickedness and evil.  “And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Genesis 6:6). 

That just pains me whenever I read it. God is sorry that He inflicted humankind on the earth and it deeply grieves Him.  Just in that sixth verse we begin to understand something more about God. God doesn’t just agonize over a bad decision; God grieves over our condition and character and over the way we care for creation.  God created humankind as the final act of creation and gives us the assignment to care for every creature and all of creation and to be our brother’s keeper. Instead, God sees violence and wickedness.  “And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth.” (Genesis 6:12).  The word here for corrupted is the same word used for spoiled, like spoiled meat or something that has gone bad.  If you smell it, it would make you sick to your stomach. That’s the word that is used here. Literally, humanity’s wickedness and sin are a terrible stench in God’s nostrils and it grieves God. It hurts to watch human beings act the way they were acting.

Paul gives us a clue about the wickedness that was going on. In Ephesians he says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God… Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice” (Ephesians 4: 30a, 31).  Do you see how everyone was treating each other?  Last week we were asked the question, “am I your brother’s keeper” and the answer was clearly yes. Humanity wasn’t being the brother’s keeper and it grieved God so much that he had to do something to change things and God decided to cleanse the earth of humanity, to literally wash creation. 

As awful as things were, it is a wonder that God didn’t just push the giant “do-over” button. But God still believed that his creation was good, that humanity had the capacity to choose well, to care for creation and to be our brother’s keeper. God is the eternal optimist when it comes to humanity because God understands our capacity. We can live the way God wants us to live and the proof in this story is Noah.  “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…Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:7-9).

God saw the character and quality of Noah’s living. In the midst of a crowd, Noah stood out, was distinctive. It is one of the places where Evan Almighty got it right.  It was a sequel to Bruce Almighty, with Morgan Freeman playing God and Steve Carell playing a modern Noah. God knows Noah, in this case Evan, down to his penchant for being a clean freak and his childhood fear of Gumby.[4] 

Who are we? We are each individuals who God knows. As we’ve said from the outset, these are foundational stories that all of scripture build upon. We don’t have a disengaged God who sees humanity as a mass. We have a God that knows that character and being of each individual human being. So many, many years later, the Psalmist writes, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.  You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways” (Psalm 132: 1-3). 

God knew that Noah was righteous.  The Hebrew word for righteousness is “tzedekah.” Tzedekah is a major theme in the Bible. Jewish scholars throughout the ages have written thousands and thousands of documents interpreting what it means to be like Noah, to be a righteous man, to live “tzedekah.”  There is really no good English word to translate tzedekah. The same word is used to describe animals that are suitable for sacrifice because they are unblemished. When used to describe a person, sometimes, it is defined a charity, as gift giving, as being generous, as putting other people’s needs before your own. That’s building on the story from last week when Cain was tightfisted and Abel was open handed and generous. Tzedekah means doing the right things for the right reasons at the right time. It means fitting into God’s creation.

God found this one man who acted this way, who thought about other people before he thought about his own self, who had a heart for God and a heart for people.  He found one man. No stood out in a generation that was violent.  Remember, there were no laws. The Law comes many, many years later. It was about living his life in such a way that in everything and in every situation he sought to do the right thing. He was a blessing to those around him. Do you know people like Noah, who every time you are around them they are a blessing, an encourager, who live their life in such a way that they radiate care and compassion for you, the world, who reflect God’s love. 

God saw this in Noah and says, “I want his character, his DNA, his quality of living to be what gets passed on to the future generations. I want them to live in righteousness so I’m going to cleanse the earth with water and leave Noah and his family as the remnant.”

After Noah builds the Ark and loads it up with the animals, “waters of the flood came on the earth….all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. (Genesis 7: 10a, 11b-12). It’s not just rain. It is a recreation. God lets loose the water of chaos that he separated from the heavens and the firmament; God undoes what he did in the second and third day of creation when he creates the heavens and the watery abyss and then he separates land from water.  It’s a reversal; God hits the redo button, a reforming all creation with the exception of the little Ark with a righteous captain. Water rains down and gushes up.

Do you remember how Genesis 1 describes God’s creative power?  It says, “…the wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1b). We know from Jesus that the wind is the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God that Jesus promises will be offered to live among believers.   Now, listen to how the Flood ends.  “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; (Genesis 8:1). There is the wind of God again, the Holy Spirit recreating the separation between the heavens and the watery abyss, making dry ground and oceans and sea, like the Black Sea.

You know the rest of the story.  The Ark comes to rest somewhere on the top of the Ararat mountain range in Turkey, where people are constantly trying to discover the Ark. Noah sends out a raven and then doves and the dove comes back with an olive branch. Noah and his family leave the Ark and the first thing they do is build an altar and worship God with a sacrifice and it was pleasing to God.  So he encouraged Noah and his family to be fruitful and multiply and then God painted the sky with a beautiful rainbow and said, “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. 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” (Genesis 1: 11, 16).

This is the first mention of the covenant between God and humanity and it is announced with three words.  God remembered Noah.  It’s not saying that God forgot about Noah and the Ark floating along on the face of the angry waters. It saying that God turned his attention, presented himself to Noah.   Throughout scripture this phrase shows up again and again when God established and renews his covenant.  When historical stories begin, “God remembered Abraham” (Genesis 19:2) and established his covenant with Israel. When God’s people are oppressed in Egypt, “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Exodus 2:24).  When “God remembered Noah” it was the beginning of God’s full and complete desire to be in covenant with humanity, to remember us, and it comes solely at God’s initiative.  Noah doesn’t have any requirements placed upon him.  It is entirely an act of God’s grace to promise that he will never again destroy the earth by water.

There is a new order to creation which takes into account human nature, arranging creation in such a way as to permit it with the least harm until God brings in His final fulfillment.  God is now in covenant with humanity.

It is a wonderful story which far too often ends up being misinterpreted. Too often it is the little delightful children’s tale or is a terrible act of violence by God. But that’s not what the story is at all. It is a story about the human condition and God’s covenantal commitment to us.

So let’s look at our questions and discover what new information has been added.

Who are we?  We are created in God’s image with ability to choose and because of this story about Noah, each of us are special and unique.

Why are we here? We are here to be in relationship with a partner, to be our brother and sister’s keeper, and this week, to live in righteousness

What is God like?  God is the God of consequences and the God of grace who agonizes over poor decisions. But now we know that even though God grieves humanity’s flaws, God is in covenant with humanity.  God remembers. 

It’s a great beach read and teaches about us and about God. But like our first beach read, it too comes down to two words.  God remembers. God remembers and God did. God remembered you and me, remembered His relationship with humankind, His promise never to destroy but to save humanity. Throughout scripture God kept remembering until finally, God sent Jesus about remembering. Through his outstretched arms on a cross and his bloodshed, Jesus says, God remembers. It’s no small wonder then that he says at dinner, remember me.