English Language Sermon – September 21, 2008

“Never Again” (Genesis 9:8-17)

September 21^st, 2008

Rev. Dr. David Andersen, English Language Sabbatical Interim Pastor

We live in a period where pronouncements on behalf of God and speech about God is over saturated with references to God’s wrath.. We hear it from both politicians and religious leaders. We hear it from both conservatives and liberals. We hear it from both Muslims and Christians. We hear God is not pleased with us, or God is not pleased with “them.” God is angry with us or God is angry with “them.” God is a God of wrath.

When Barak Obama scheduled his acceptance speech for the outdoor stadium of the Denver Broncos, James Dobson, a leading conservative figure, it was widely reported, called on God to rain down on the stadium the night of Obama’s speech. The next week when the Republicans met, Michael Moore, a leading liberal spokesperson, called Hurricane Gustav “an act of God visited upon the Republican convention.”

Meant to be humorous or not, both of these statements represent the tenor of much of our religious discussion, focusing on getting even, God’s wrath and punishment. And it is understandable how people might be taken in by this rhetoric, wondering, is God getting even with us, is God punishing us, is God responsible for all these calamities: the fires in California, the hurricane in Texas, the earthquake in China, the tsunami in Thailand? And what about religious dimensions of our wars – do they reveal God’s purposes? There are those who are able to ascribe God’s wrath to everything that happens.

But is it right to so speak of God? I understand how people might conclude that God is angry or that God’s wrath is being unveiled, but is it right to so proclaim or speak of God? Is there any other word from the Lord? Is there any other way to speak of God during desperate times? What is our message?

Strangely, for me, the answer comes in what has always been, for me, the saddest story of the Bible, the story of the flood and Noah and the ark. It is the story of such wholesale, universal destruction, that as a child, haunted by its images, and also as an adult, I have not been able to fully fathom or comprehend it.

Every living creature on the face of the earth, other than those saved on the ark, was destroyed. Oddly, as a child, and still as an adult, I view the scene mostly from outside the ark.

What I see are mothers holding babies being swept away in the rising currents of the flood waters. Animals swimming for their lives, desperately in search of land, falling exhausted beneath the water. The remaining birds in flight, hovering in the air as long as possible, but their wings at last giving out and they plummet to the sea and float upon the surface of the universal water.

Though I try to concentrate upon the security in the ark my mind will not protect me from seeing the images of what it must have been like outside of the ark as the waters rose. I hear the screams and cries, and see the bloated bodies and then the ultimate silence.

I know the justification is the evil that was in people’s hearts and lives. I know the book of Genesis starts in paradise, but after the disobedience of Adam and Eve, paradise is lost and the succeeding chapters of Genesis recount the spiraling down of human nature. It just gets worse and worse. Finally, the waters come and all is washed away and destroyed. I know the justification but I can’t get use to the severity of the sentence.

The ark floats upon the waters, a little ark in a vast sea. This goes on for days and months. Then at last the latch on the top is opened. Blue sky is seen above. How beautiful that sky must have looked. How holy the rays of sunlight must have seemed streaming inside the boat through the open hatch.

Still days and weeks pass. At last it is deemed save to open the ark and leave. The latch is unlocked and the door is opened. They begin to descend; the living creatures and Noah and his family. Above them is the blue sky, but what do they see on the ground?

Is it all green and lush or is there still mud and slush? And what of all the bodies, they haven’t been buried have they? And what of the empty towns and cities below the mountain where the ark rested? Does the wind blow through empty rooms and dry the mud caked on the walls? What of the pieces of cloth caught in a thicket when the waters receded or the half buried toy miles from the child who once played with it? What of all the evidence of a world that once existed?

Noah bows his head, walks through the debris, takes up twigs and branches, builds an altar, lights a fire, and offers a sacrifice. The smoke ascends onto the heavens, God receives it and the Bible records in His heart God says, “Never again.” It is the phrase that is used over and over at the end of this story, “Never again, never again.”

Even if all others choice to speak of wrath or call down wrath, I know these two words will always be for me the words I cling too, these two words of promise. It is in these two words I find my solace and offer promise and hope rather than judgment and condemnation to a world seeking the Word of the Lord. Here it is, “Never again.” After God vows in His heart he speaks these words to Noah and says to Noah, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendents after you, and with every living creature…never again shall all flesh be cut off…and this is the sign of the covenant – I have set my bow in the clouds.” The rainbow becomes the reminder – never again. The rainbow, not a mushroom cloud, is God’s symbol for our world.

Now some of you need to be reminded of God’s covenant. You need to be reminded of it in your own life. Your image of God that you live by is too cruel and harsh. You see everything negative that happens in your life as punishment from God. You fear God. You do not trust God. You keep thinking that God is some how going to zap you, that God is going to take every good thing in your life away from you. It simply is not true.

Others of you need to be reminded of these words as you look out upon the world. You are too quick to label every natural disaster as punishment from God and forget about the rainbow. You are too quick to call down the wrath of God. You are too quick to pronounce judgment in the name of God and to forget the forbearance and patience of God, the covenant of God who speaks the words, “Never again.”

Let me tell you what happened after God made this covenant with Noah. Noah went out and planted a vineyard. He grew grapes and harvested them. Then he made wine out of the grapes and when it was fully fermented he drank the wine and grapes until he became ripe roaring drunk. This is the Noah who God had seen as the one righteous person in the entire world.

Noah was drunk and he went into his tent, stripped naked and fell down and passed out. At the very beginning of this new creation, just as at the first creation, we are witnesses to the frailty of humankind.

Then Noah’s son Ham comes into the tent and the Bible says, “he saw the nakedness of his father.” What we must remember is these stories in the Bible were not originally children’s stories, even though this is how we often remember them. As adults, however, we have to revisit them to see how unblinking the Bible is in looking at human nature. The phrase, “he saw the nakedness of his father,” is a euphemism for something much more degrading. It is at this point a tragic tale of a righteous family gone astray. No sooner is the new earth started when the chapter of the fall is once more written.

Something there is that lies in the human heart that cannot be purged, and God in giving His covenant to Noah, knows this. For, even before Noah had fallen down drunk and his son had entered the tent, God recognized the inevitability of things to come saying, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth.” When God said, “Never again,” for his side of the covenant God knew the inevitability and continuing propensity of human being to commit evil.

It is the sad, sad tale of our history. We are sinners. Our history is bathed in transgression. “None are righteous, no not one.” It is true of you. It is true of me. It is true of all of humankind. Nothing you read in the paper should surprise you. No thought in your own mind should surprise you. We tend toward that which is wrong.

God has seen it all before, but what should surprise you is God’s response. Never again does God unleash the magnitude of his potential wrath upon the earth. Even when we create our own holocaust, never again will God walk away and seek to destroy that which He has created. Even with the saving of Noah in the ark, there was away in which God couldn’t entirely give up. He had to save a family. God can’t let go of us and won’t let go of us.

And there is one word we have for that holding on by God of us. It is the word, “Love.” It is the word “Love” and not “wrath” we should be proclaiming. In spite of our sin, In spite of our waywardness, in spite of our pride and arrogance, God can’t let go of us. God loves us, and never again does God stop trying. First, through Abraham God chooses a people, then God seeks to work through Prophets and Kings. And at last He sends His Son.

And when we mock His Son and put Him on a cross, even then God doesn’t give up on us, but raises His Son from the dead that He might be the way of our salvation. In the shadow of the ark is the story of Christ, because God knew in saying “Never again,” it would one day cost Him His Son. In saying “Never again,” God is in fact speaking words of redemption.

When you call down cursing, when you season your language with words of wrath, you are not helping God. The way you help God is by bringing His redemption closer by allowing the same love that was in Christ Jesus to be in you.

Oh, but you say, there is so much corruption, and it is true but let me point out one last word from the story of Noah. The flood is over, God has made his promise that never again will destruction supersede redemption, and then God instructs Noah after giving the covenant about the order of things and how to live. In those instructions God places a prohibition against taking a human life, and the reason God gives is the other side of why we do not give up. Earlier God had recognized the tendency toward human corruption and sin, but, now, God articulates the other side, the deeper part. God cautions Noah against the shedding of human blood because, “for in his own image, God made humankind.”

The other side of our sinful self is that we are created in the image of God. God never forgot this. You don’t either. Every human life is in the image of God. There is not one human being created who has not been created in the image of God. It may be so filthy with sin you cannot see it, but you cannot forget it and it is to that side you minister. It is that side you wrap in bandages and serve. It is that side you serve as though you were serving Christ.

You respond, but the times are so corrupt and fearful. What do we do when there are wars and rumors of wars? What do we do when there is so much suffering? The answer is, you put away the words of wrath, and now more than ever, you show what it means to Love. You bind up wounds. You help rebuild lives. You practice tolerance. You reach out. You build bridges. You seek understanding across cultural divides. You pray for those who persecute you.

And in your own life, you both go easy on yourself, accepting as God has accepted you, that we are all flawed, needing forgiveness and the change to begin again and again and again. And at the same time, you see in you, what God also sees, you are worthy, you are beautiful, you are created in the God’s image. You must never let the sin in your life or the sin in another’s life, keep you from relating to all people as those for whom Christ died and in whose image they were created. You live in hope just the way God did when God said, “Never again.”

Let us pray: Thank you God that in spite of our sin you never give up on us, never seeking to destroy but always reclaim and redeem. We praise you God for your forbearance and patience toward us. Amen.