In this sermon, I take a deeper look at how our interactions with “the floods” of our modern lives can be changed by reflecting upon the promise found in the ancient tale of Noah’s flood. I do not suggest that no one ever drowns, or suffers, or dies. In the real world, people do. Yet, thanks be to God, not even death need be the end of our story. This sermon was preached on the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 11, 2022) at Christ Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg, VA. You can listen to the sermon on my companion podcast: S1, Ep19.
That such ancient stories as Noah’s ark should apply to us today, or even encourage us, might surprise some people…especially when the story of Noah is so violent and filled with death. If we think about it, despite the many baby rooms decorated with arks, animals, and rainbows, we don’t discover a children’s story. We encounter our God who goes to war against a prideful, self-centered, violent humanity. One point of the flood was to destroy and kill. (That does not seem like a very warm and fuzzy bedtime story to me.) Yet, we also should keep in mind that this God (our God) who judges, punishes, and destroys so often in the Hebrew scriptures is the same God who has come to save us. If we look deeper, we find God’s justice in tension with God’s mercy. We can find both law (a kind of accusation or judgement against us in our sin) and gospel (good news of God’s love come to save us). Remember, God also used the waters of the flood to make all things new.
As humans, we tend to be myopic and dualistic in our thinking. We like to have things clearly labeled good and bad in our minds, but when the world is at its worst – if we step back – we find it is often somewhere in the in-between. In my own life, I know I can struggle with this at times. Some of you know that I have had a lot of challenges over the recent weeks. I could easily make a list of all the personal struggles and losses I have faced. Beyond personally having complications with COVID due to some immunity issues, I also had two extended family members die from COVID while I was recovering. That was sobering and a heavy burden. And while still ill, my truck broke down not once but twice. My trash disposal stopped disposing, and my air conditioner stopped conditioning on a ninety-degree day. There were other troubles too. I was like, “Where’s that kick me sign on my back. I want to get it off,” but I never found one. I was feeling overwhelmed and wondering what was going on.
Yet as I thought about it, I recognized that this is just kind of the way life goes sometimes. At times, problems do seem to come fast and furious, and things don’t work out. And, we actually know from research – and what we learn in the Bible bears this out – that if we can accept that we live in a fallen world and there are problems…if we can accept them, not meaning we never fight them by trying to do our best amidst them…yet if we accept them in the sense that we don’t dwell on them and recognize that God loves us and cares for us no matter what is going on…we actually can prove more resilient. We can do better fighting disease and in our relationships. We live in a troubled world, and sometimes troubles will come. We will be ok.
Yet even in the best of times, I could make a very long list of troubles at almost any time, because as a fallen human, my heart can easily focus on the bad, the fearful, my need for hope. Woe is Lou. Certainly, such troubles – some passing and some not in this life – can capture our attention. At some level, they need our attention, but we can go too far. We can dive to deep into our troubles. We can give up hope while focused solely on the bad, even though “no temptation has overtaken us except what is common to all of humankind.” And as Paul further suggests, when we are so tested, “God will provide us a way out.” (See 1 Corinthians 10:11-13.) These are common struggles and feelings that pop during dark or troubling times. My goodness, look in the Psalms and you can find such dilemmas of faith. Even Jesus on the cross (quoting the psalms) asked, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He might not have given up on God the Father, but Jesus in his humanity hurt. Although fully divine, he was fully humane too. His heart hurt, and he felt alone.
Like a horse, we humans tend to have blinders on while God wants us to take them off to see the bigger picture…so that we remember God’s promises. Instead, genetically, we tend to focus on the threat before us because that seems to need our attention most. Yet unlike the horses using blinders for protection (to keep them focused on their task), they don’t work so well for humans. We can miss opportunities and options with blinders on. We can overlook the good of God at work around us…the promise from God through Jesus that all things will work for the good of those that love God. It is a promise still being worked out even in the worst of times. We might forget that our story isn’t over yet…that God is still speaking…acting…loving. Indeed, God is still with us amidst any annoyance or suffering, even when we don’t see God. Jesus promises to always be with us to the end of the age.
So, how can a cataclysmic story like Noah’s help refocus our gaze….or help shape our own lives for the good that is promised us? Well, first off, in this story, we meet a God who isn’t far away…disengaged and thundering in the clouds. Our God cares…always cared…for us. Creation has come. The Fall has happened. Yet God doesn’t give up on us. God was paying attention to this world and its creatures, and God noticed there was a problem. Humanity had become consumed by evil thoughts and actions. Violence reigned in the world, and God cared that the fallen human condition did not reflect God’s will for humanity or even the tiniest of creepy crawly things crawling on the earth.
True, God’s sense of justice was pushed toward a breaking point back then. God was close to starting things over. Yet, God noticed one person, a man named Noah…just one in a world of many…and God’s own heart was moved to mercy. We hear that Noah found favor with God, not so much because Noah is perfect…we see later in scripture that he was not…but that Noah was righteous. “Noah walked with God,” we are told. In the Hebrew way of understanding…and remember this is a story preserved in the Hebrew scriptures…righteousness is not an abstract notion but rather consists in doing what is just and right in all relationships.[i] What is the fulfillment of the law? Not rigid perfection, but loving God with all that we are and our neighbor as ourselves. Noah finds favor with God because of his open heart…and thus God gifts Noah with unmerited grace.
Through Noah and his family, God will seek to correct humanity’s course…but not just humanity’s…all of creation’s course. And isn’t that also partly why we as Christians are told that we are gifted with God’s grace and saved through faith? Jesus came for the renewal of a fallen world…the ultimate creation of a new heaven and earth where we will live with our God forever. Notice…Noah’s call and Jesus’s own purpose are united in a shared goal. God’s vocation (so to speak) is seeking the welfare of the wider world, and we, as Christ’s body are invited to also play a part. We are part of that same story.
While the human heart can still turn from God and often tends to ignore God’s love, God turns toward the world and would not give up on it or us. Seeing the human heart in conflict with God’s own, the scriptures tell us that God’s heart filled with pain. God grieved and suffered much as a loving parent might when a child goes astray. Yet instead of turning away, God at the time of Noah decided to enter our brokenness[ii]…which of course, he will do even more intimately and ultimately through Jesus.
No question, the flood was a horrific event with great loss from the human perspective. Yet, the flood also served to make all things new. People of that age saw God as a warrior, much as other gods were envisioned and understood at the time. And so, it is no small thing that God puts his bow down in the sky to declare peace. God covenants (or promises) to never destroy the world or its creatures in such a way again. God commands with steadfast love (as God first did at creation), “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 9:1).
God’s decision for the flood was no arbitrary act. Amidst the flood, we find, as one scholar suggests, “a God who expresses sorrow and regret; a God who judges but doesn’t want to, and then not in arbitrary or annihilative ways; a God who goes beyond justice and determines to save some creatures, including every animal and bird; a God who commits to the future of a less than perfect world; a God open to change and doing things in new ways; a God who promises never to do this again.”[iii]
With the flood, there’s no real difference made in humanity, just less humans around.[iv] We remained sinners. Yet with God, through God, love has grown.[v] A new way is possible now. God commits to love us, not in spite of our sin, but because of it. Through the flood, we see the tension between God’s sense of justice and mercy resolved as God wills not to destroy but rather to save.[vi] And now, wrapped within that loving promise, Noah and Noah’s descendants can move forward through any challenges and horrors with confidence and hope…if they dare to believe.[vii]
When we face challenges…when we face pain…when we experience want or loneliness…we may encounter the same powerful God as Noah. We are asked to trust in God’s promises. Our hearts may cry, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” Yet we should try to remember that God’s heart is oriented toward us in love even then… perhaps even more so then. Why are we afraid, we of little faith? Why do we only look for the bad and the fearful instead of to the hills for God’s coming help? At such times, our worry can become a flood,[viii] and those floods might seem to last for too long a time. Yet God’s love for us is more enduring still. God will never leave us to drown. Jesus who has power over wind and wave has power over death itself, and he wills to claim us as God’s own forever. He died to make it so. Amen.
[i] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/righteousness
[ii] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol 1. (1994). Nashville: Abingdon Press, p. 395.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Narrative Lectionary 324: Flood and Promise, a podcast by Working Preacher. September 2, 2018.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] The New interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 1 (1994). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] “Flood” by Jars of Clay.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations for this post are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation.
© 2022 The Rev. Louis Florio. All content not held under another’s copyright may not be used without permission of the author.
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