Sunday 18 February 2018

Hanging Up the Bow, Slipping on Some Sandals (Genesis 9:8-17)


(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on February 18, 2017, Lent I)



Cranky Old Enlil


Enlil just wanted some sleep.  It seemed every time he lay his head down to rest, there was some new commotion.  This time it was the humans.  The other gods had convinced him that the humans were a good idea.  They would do all the work, so that the gods could enjoy their leisure.  At the time, that had made sense enough to Enlil.  So he had said, “Sure, let’s make some humans, and let them work the fields.”

At first the idea worked a treat.  Enlil grabbed a few good winks of sleep—around 1200 years.  But then the racket started.  The humans had multiplied exponentially, and now they were making all sorts of noise.

Rousing from his fitful slumber with a grumble, cranky old Enlil regretted that he had every agreed to the idea of the humans.  Something had to be done.  His sleep was at stake.  So he devised a plan.  He would flood the world.  That should do the trick.

And it did.  Except for one human who had caught wind of the news and built a boat.

A New Take on Old History

Such is the tale of the great flood according to ancient Babylonian tradition.  The oldest tablet of this story dates back to around one thousand years before the composition of the Hebrew Bible.  (If you’ve heard of Hammurabi, the Babylonian king famous for developing an organized code of law—this ancient tablet comes from around the time of his grandson Ammi-Saduqa.)  And this flood story is not alone.  There survive from other ancient Near Eastern cultures similar tales a great flood.

So the story that we have in the Bible is not new.  It is, rather, old history.  But it is a new take on old history.  It’s almost as if the writer of Genesis took what was common knowledge and then critiqued it, tweaked it, refitted it with a different understanding of God

Because in the biblical flood story, God looks very different.  Whereas crotchety old Enlil acts for selfish motives—for a few more winks of sleep!—God acts with the intention of helping the earth, rinsing it of the violence with which it has become filled (cf. 6:11-13).  Whereas cranky old Enlil floods the world out of anger, God floods the world out of grief.  Earlier in Genesis, the narrator explains, “The Lord was sorry that [the Lord] had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved [God] to [God’s] heart” (6:6).

And then in today’s conclusion to the story, God appears to grieve the great destruction that God has wrought.  Why else would God promise not to repeat the deed?  The flood hasn’t wiped out wickedness (cf. 8:21).  Humanity hasn’t changed.  But God has.  “Never again,” God says, apparently in grief.  Three times God says it: “Never again.”

Mechanics versus Meaning

This grief—this change of heart—this may satisfy some of us.  But perhaps there are others among us who still feel wary about this God.  A change of heart may all be well and good, but the fact remains that this God committed genocide—nearly geocide.  Is that the kind of God to whom we want to entrust our lives?  The flood is a troubling story, much more troubling than we make it out to be, when we tell it as a children’s story and show pictures of an ark and a rainbow and all the happy animals.  We don’t include pictures of all the bodies that must have been floating in the water, or washed up on the newly dried land.

But maybe reading this story as a historically factual portrayal of God misses the point.  Genesis alone is filled with historical contradictions.  Did God create humanity before plants, or plants before humanity?  Depends on whether you’re reading Genesis 1 or Genesis 2.  Did the flood last 40 days or 150 days?  Depends which verse you’re reading in the flood story.

Genesis, it seems to me, cares much less for the mechanics of what actually happened and much more about the meaning behind what happened.  I would say this true of the whole Bible.  Which is why for me, reading the Bible isn’t about determining the precise events of history.  It’s about listening for the heartbeat of God.  It’s about holding our interpretive stethoscopes up to the text and determining how another person or another people encountered the living God.

From a God Above to a God Beside

In the case of today’s scripture, I wonder if the ancient Israelites weren’t trying to make sense of what was common knowledge in their day—namely, that a great flood had come from heaven above.  The interesting part of the story, then, isn’t that there was a flood.  Everyone already knew that.  The interesting part of the story is the way that their understanding about God changes. 

In today’s scripture, as God repeats, “Never again, never again,” God also gives a sign of God’s promise: a bow.  This is the same word used for the weaponry of a bow and arrow.  Simply put, this God is hanging up God’s bow.  Never again will this God resort to violence against all the earth.  Instead this God decides to enter into covenant, into relationship, with humanity and all of creation.

So maybe the real drama of the flood story is not what historically happened, but rather how the character of God undergoes a profound transformation in ancient Israelite consciousness: from a warrior God to a relationship God, from a God who grumbles about sleep to a God who grieves about life, from a distant and detached God to a caring and faithful God, from God above to God beside, from a God of fear to a God of love.

Good News for the Wilderness

In my mind, this is especially good news as we enter the season of Lent, a season of wilderness, when we honestly face up to our lack of control and our losses.  Perhaps in such a season, our first desire is for a God who is in full control, a sky god riding on the clouds with his bow and arrow, imposing order from above through fear and power.  But the ancient flood tales remind us the full implications of such a god.  Genocide.  Nearly geocide.  What comfort is that to us who walk in the wilderness?

The good news of today’s scripture is what ancient Israel discovered long ago: that God does not carry the bow, but rather hangs it in the sky.  That God does do not declare war on the world but rather enters into relationship with it.  While the rest of the world imagined a God above who ruled with fear, Israel encountered a different God, a God beside them whose rule was love.

That is the good news that we see most clearly in Jesus. It is the good news that we do not walk alone in the wilderness.  In fact, that’s precisely where we see Jesus today in our Gospel scripture.

What Gets Us Through the Wilderness,
What Makes Us Who We Are

If you weren’t here this last Wednesday, you might be noticing for the first time that the paraments are missing in our sanctuary.  There is very little color.  This is a symbolic absence.  The emptiness of our sanctuary mirrors the emptiness of the wilderness.

But the table is still here.  As the sky reminds us that God has hung up the bow (was never really carrying the bow in the first place), the table reminds us that God has gone a step further: in Christ, God slips on some sandals and walks beside us in the wilderness. We know that God loves us not only because of the bow God hangs in the sky but also because of the steps God takes by our side…in the person of Jesus, who joins us in the wilderness, shares our sorrows and our joys, and shows us the way by the simplest actions, like breaking bread and giving thanks and forgiving others and washing each other’s feet.

And if the story of Jesus is any indication, the wilderness is in fact a place of great transformation, a place where through our lack and our loss we discover who we really are and who God really is.  In the wilderness, Jesus rejected dominion over the world and displays of supernatural ability: he rejected fantasies of power and prestige.  I think he was relying instead on the words that he heard just before he entered the wilderness, “You are my Son, the Beloved.”  Love was what sustained him in the wilderness and defined who he was to become.

May it be so for us this Lenten season, as Christ walks with us in the wilderness. 

Prayer

Creator God,
Who does not grumble
But grieves;
Whose way is not control
But covenant and companionship;
May the bow above us
And the table before us
Be our sustenance in the wilderness;
May your love define
Who we are becoming.
In Christ our companion.  Amen.


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