Genesis 9:8-17
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 ‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11 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.’ 12 God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 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.’ 17 God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’
This story is so familiar as a children’s story (however inappropriate) that it is easy to miss some very important elements. In our preparatory conversations regarding this scripture, Tully asked the question: “How many of each animal did Moses bring onto the ark?” I thought: “Who doesn’t know that?” and I answered: “Two.” Unfortunately, my familiarity with the story had me answering before I really listened to the question. Moses didn’t bring any animals onto the ark. One of the realities of scriptural study and our very concept of God is that we bring our own lens to the task. When we unconsciously assume “That is how it is.”, it is easy to miss new information.
The ancients (and we) needed to understand God and to explain the world. The bible can be viewed as a history of that human endeavor. The flood story is an early attempt to explain the natural disasters of the world. 5 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. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 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.’ (Genesis 6:5-7). God is the agent of natural disasters, and such disasters occur because humankind ‘deserved’ it. Except for a tiny remnant of living things, everything and everybody is destroyed for there to be a “do over.” The destruction is indiscriminate. Even if humankind is somehow responsible, it is hard to explain the destruction of virtually all living things. As one young boy, when told of the flood, plaintively asked: “Even the puppies?” He grasped the horror of all the innocent puppies being drowned because of sinful humanity. Yet that is the story.
This is an image of God that remains with us in our day. It was not too long ago that hurricane Katrina was explained by the sinful lifestyle of New Orleans. Again, there was no differentiation between the deserving and the undeserving. The puppies were annihilated in that flood too. Likewise, a surprising number of abuse victims would rather be at fault than to endure the pain of being an orphan with living parents—and worse, having living parents who intentionally did them harm. This view of God sees God as frustrated and punitive to a flawed creation. If we use the image of God as the potter, he didn’t like what he made and shattered his efforts. If that is who God turns out to be, we are all toast.
Our scripture today, however, modifies this view. In these verses, God is presented as remorseful for the way he used his immense power. God is portrayed as having to decide how he will use his infinite power. He is really making a covenant with himself, and the rainbow serves as a reminder of his promise to act differently both to himself and to his creation. In today’s parlance, the rainbow is to remind himself of his promise not to be so destructive. It also serves as a public declaration that humankind can see. Such destruction will never occur again. I certainly would not worship a God who got so frustrated with what he had made, it was destroyed.
If God were human, we would say he realized he had a tantrum. He had reason to be angry, but he realized the need for restraint. This promise is deeply reassuring. It reflects a new understanding of God. Now we have an all-powerful God who chooses to limit himself. He retains the power to declare a ‘do over’ but he chooses to live with his flawed creation rather than destroy us in the hope they will do better on the next try.
This is a concept that is familiar to virtually every parent I know. Anyone with superior power must decide how to use it. We created these children. We love them. AND there are some times we lose it. We yell, sometimes we use physical force. We overreact. In this story a very common human predicament is projected onto God. What is modeled and promised is that just because we have the ‘right’ or the power, does not mean we should exercise that power—especially in destructive or hurtful ways.
12 God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, This God chooses us—all of us in a radically inclusive way—with the promise that his anger and frustration will not lead to annihilation. That is a God I can worship. That is a God I want to emulate. It is a struggle all of us have faced in our lives—anyone who has been a parent knows the experience of raw anger a child can evoke. And most of us as children, even in the best of homes, have experienced fear when a parent begins to yell.
In real life, I am frightened with how angry I can get at a five-year-old. When I am in that state, the only part of my brain that is engaged is my lizard brain. I take everything personally. I am adversarial. I engage in unproductive power struggles. The list goes on but the theme is I am functioning in my most primitive way. In such situations, the only relief is to detach—to create a pause button—to put a rainbow in the sky to remind myself of my higher values. I’ve made a personal rule not to yell—or to say “or else…” The rule reminds me to decline to use bullying to teach caring or to use intimidation to teach regard. I will also add the rule is easier to obey as a grandparent than a parent.
I will add a bit irreverently that God is portrayed as needing to restrain his own lizard brain. It shows a God who makes mistakes—by his own admission, he failed to create humankind in a way that worked for good. But this God decides to live with what is. And what is, is a stiff necked rebellious sinful people. In the following verses we discover that Noah, who was one of the righteous, gets drunk, embarrasses him self and then gets very punitive to Canaan—’‘Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.’ (This is convenient since the Cannanites were to be displaced by the Israelites—their displacement is justified because of Canaan disrespect of his father.) Notice that the victors write the history and somehow the narrative is self-serving.
In any case, though Noah was foolish, embarrassed himself and then reacted punitively to the son ‘who saw his nakedness’, God did not destroy him. Noah did not learn anything from God’s choosing to channel his power for his creation instead wiping it out and starting over. This is not the God of the flood story; this is the God of the rainbow story. God chooses to love us in the full knowledge of our selfishness, thick headedness, and sinful exploitation of our power. Which is another way of saying, this God accepts and loves creation. This God loves us as we are. Relationship with God is not based upon our being who we should be, it is based up God’s choice to love his creation.
This a good thing to remember as we begin Lent and remember that an even more radical evolution of our understanding of God is about to be revealed. We are about to learn that God joins us; God suffers with us; saves us and God does not hold our sins against us. And it is a good thing to remember as we celebrate black history month. We have a responsibility to show regard rather than using our position to maintain our position.
Our faith is both an enormous comfort and a frightening challenge. We need to restrain our lizard brains in the service of love. Let it be so.
