First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Genesis 6:1-8. 9:6-17
January 23, 2005
Illinois. Michigan. New York. Massachusetts. The rest of New England and the northeastern seaboard. Buffeted by snow. Buried in snow. Blitzed with a blizzard of snow. It is clear that God is venting his wrath and visiting his payback upon the blue states. If, at the last minute, the storm were to miraculously bypass Ohio, there are some of you….or a few of you….well, maybe two or three of you….who might actually believe that.
And when the next storm misses us….by riding north of us or dipping south of us….others of us will wipe our brows and say: “Praise God” or “Thank you, Jesus,” without ever giving a moment’s thought as to what, if anything, God or Jesus had to do with it.
On Sunday, January 9, the psalm designated by the Common Lectionary (for churches and preachers that adhere to the Common Lectionary) was Psalm 29, verse three of which reads:
The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.
The glory of God thunders upon many waters.
Which is followed by verses seven, eight and nine:
The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness,
makes the oaks to whirl,
strips the forests bare.
And in his Temple, all say “Glory.”
Well, on the very day when lectionary preachers had reason to read that (or even preach that), the people of at least eleven nations fronting the Indian Ocean were not crying “Glory,” so much as “Uncle” or “Enough already” or simply “Help us and save us.” While on that same Sunday, the rest of us were praying for victims, even as we began digging deep so that others half a world away could begin digging out.
I was not the preacher of record on Sunday, January 9. Carl Price was at 8:15. Jeff Nelson was at 5:00. And Bishop Jonathan Keaton brought forth the word at 9:00 and 11:00. None of them read Psalm 29. None of them equated earthquakes and tidal waves with divine authority or activity. And none of them suggested that an appropriate response to the tsunami might be to shout “Glory.”
The bishop clearly said (I mean, I heard it twice) that he saw God at work in the outpouring of compassionate response….its immediacy….its generosity….its universality. In those same services, I stood in front of you, appealing on behalf of UMCOR (and the opportunity it afforded you). And you responded (to date) with gifts in excess of $50,000.
And I planned to say no more, given that pretty much everyone I was hearing was saying the same three things.
That nature is capable of incredible brutality.
That human beings are capable of incredible generosity.
And that if you want to find out where God is at work in that equation, look to the generosity rather than the brutality.
But then the articles began. First a trickle. Then a torrent. About the whereabouts of God….the purposes of God….the capability (or lack thereof) of God….the humanity (dare I call it that?) of God….even the existence of God. Some writers wanted to know what, if anything, God did. Others writers wanted to know where, if anywhere, God was. Was God the architect behind it….powerless to stop it…. indifferent to it….or (worse yet) ignorant of it?
Those are the questions of suffering and pain….the kinds of questions that begin, “Why me?”…. gradually expand to “Why us?”….and sometimes even to “Why them?” In my youthful years of academic games playing, I toyed with them. In my middle years of anguished pastoring, I chafed under them. And in my later years of trustful surrendering, I have made increasing peace with them. As concerns such questions, neither Job nor Billy Graham got an answer. So why should I?
And I could have left it there, had not others jumped into the fray, trumping my mystery with their certainty….especially as concerns God’s utilization of nature to execute God’s will. Depending upon the source, I heard it suggested that the tidal wave was God’s way of punishing sin….God’s way of sending a message….God’s way of warning the faithful….God’s way of prefiguring the Second Coming….or God’s way of wiping out Muslims. Given the fact that there are more Indonesian Muslims in Asia than Arab Muslims in the Middle East, the “punishment upon Islam” argument was particularly appealing to certain selected Christian clerics. Although it must be acknowledged that certain selected Muslim clerics attributed the tidal wave to Allah punishing his own.
It doesn’t take much memory to recall when Jerry Falwell suggested that the AIDS epidemic might very well be God’s way of venting divine displeasure upon homosexuals. And the public outcry concerning his insensitivity did coax an apology from Jerry. But it was one thing to regret having said it, but a very different thing to renounce having believed it. Clearly, he did the former. But he never did the latter.
But the bigger question is this. Where did we get the idea that God uses nature to punish humans? Well, from the Bible, that’s where. You may not like it. And I may not want to admit it. But there’s ample evidence of it. So what do we do with it?
We have to start by looking directly at it. In Genesis 19:24, “fire and brimstone” are said to have rained down upon an entire city, so much so that “the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.” And it was clearly claimed to have been God’s doing. Which sounds, if you read between the lines, like some form of volcanic eruption. Leading to all kinds of questions:
Was the volcano a one-of-a-kind experience in that region, or were volcanoes commonplace in that region?
Was God’s name associated with the volcano because, at that time and in that region, there was no better way to explain a volcano?
And if the volcano was of God (meant as an instrument of judgment), did God create it….trigger it….or conveniently use it (in effect, putting a theological spin on something that was about to happen anyway)?
Clearly, the biblical suggestion is that God was “ticked”….and that people were destroyed as a result of God’s anger. But not without an escape route for a remnant….in this case, a remnant of four (Lot, Lot’s wife, and their two daughters). Lot’s wife, of course, didn’t make it. She was assaulted. But that’s another story for another day.
But if this story line sounds familiar (angry God….mass destruction….escape route for a remnant), it should. For this is the plot of the flood story found earlier in Genesis….that story that we love to tell children under the heading “Noah and the Ark.” After all, children love boats. Children love animals. And, at an early age, this story gives them a boat and lots of animals. They can put animals into the boat. They can take animals out of the boat. And they can sing that rollicking little song about the boat and the animals….that song which many of us still remember:
The Lord said to Noah, there’s gonna be a floody, floody.
The Lord said to Noah, there’s gonna be a floody, floody.
Get those animals out of the muddy, muddy,
Children of the Lord.
So rise, shine, and give God the glory, glory. (etc.)
It’s an altogether lovely story until we remember that it begins with a denunciation of humankind as being “utterly and thoroughly wicked.”
Everything they do is bad.
Everything they think is bad.
Everything they are is bad.
Leading God to say:
Nothing good will come of them.
Nothing more can be done with them.
I regret ever having made them.
So I am left with no choice but to destroy them.
All of them.
The whole lock, stock and barrel of them.
Except (of course) for a handful of them.
With whom I’ll start over.
Which is not a very pretty story. So we do not tell that part of the story to little children. And when we give them all those animals to float in the boat, we do not give them an equal number of human beings to float face down in the water. Why? Because those human beings will soon be dead, don’t you see. And that wouldn’t be very pretty. No, it wouldn’t be very pretty at all.
Jeff Nelson is on a retreat this weekend. But when he saw my topic and text this morning, Jeff said: “I can’t imagine how you are going to handle that, given that your text forces you to start with a story that says God did wipe everybody out….or almost everybody.”
The story of the flood is incredibly complex. And, concerning it, we could spend an entire evening in Bible study and never exhaust all the elements of it (or opinions concerning it). But there is general scholarly consensus concerning this much of it.
The story probably preserves an ancient historical recollection of severe watery inundation, although not likely in (or involving) Israel.
Most floods in that area occurred in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. Those names (Tigris and Euphrates) should be familiar to you, given that they are rivers in Iraq. Then, however, the region was known as the Babylonian Empire.
This flood story….our flood story….is far from the only flood story in the religions of the Middle East. And the events of our story (Genesis 6-9) directly parallel an earlier Babylonian story known as the Epic of Gilgamesh….in which the Noah hero bears the grand name Utnapishtim.
The story in our Bible (Genesis 6-9) is not one story, but two….written in different eras by different authors….later stitched together by an editor with little concern for the internal consistency of detail.
In one version of our story, two animals of every kind are taken onto the ark (male and female). In the other version, only seven pairs of “clean” animals and one pair of “unclean” animals are invited aboard the ark.
In one version of our story, the flood is caused by rain….which lasts forty days.… and subsides after two or three seven-day periods. In the other story, the water gushes up from fountains below the earth and gushes through windows that have been opened in heaven. In that version, the time of “watering” is 150 days, and is ended in another 150 days.
But the most important thing in both versions of the story is God’s promise that God will never do it again. Clearly, whoever the editor was, it is this promise that was of greatest interest. Whether we deserve extinction, it is not in God’s nature to do it. So concerned was the editor that the story articulate this point, he (she) skated right past lesser questions concerning how many animals, how many days and how much water. The purpose of the flood story….or the flood stories….is to say that no matter how bad it gets (or no matter how bad we get), God will not give up. And that the renewal of life….fresh starts, new beginnings, old slates washed clean, that sort of thing….is not simply a promise that was, but a promise that is.
And then follows this business about the rainbow….the rainbow as a sign of the covenant God makes to never again destroy the earth or the creatures that live upon it. For years, we have pointed to rainbows as signs of God’s fidelity to his Word. But if you read the Hebrew carefully, you will find that the word is not “rainbow” (as in a colorful arc of beauty after cloudbursts). Rather, the word is “bow”….as in “bow and arrow.” God, the story seems to be saying, has chosen to disarm himself. No more arrows shot earthward. No more blood let, hearts pierced or dreams shattered. “As proof that I’ll never do it again, I’ll hang it up. My bow, I mean.” And people who are into archery tell me that when you hang up a bow, you don’t hang it up by the string. You hang it by the wood. That way the curve of the bow is turned upward….the way a rainbow appears in the sky.
All things considered, I do not believe God sent the tsunami….meant the tsunami….or bent the tsunami to use as an instrument of his avenging will. I do not believe it is God’s intent to wipe “them” out….or wipe us out.
But the sad fact remains, many were wiped out. And will be again. So doesn’t God care? Of course, God cares. At least, I hope God cares. So why doesn’t God do something to prevent it? I wish I knew. You wish you knew. Both Job and Billy Graham wish they knew. From time to time, all of us have “issues” with God.
Is God all powerful? One wants to believe so. I want to believe so. The alternatives are unthinkable. At least, they are unthinkable to me. Three unthinkable alternatives come quickly to mind.
That God is kind, but impotent.
That God is mighty, but indifferent.
That God is still fighting for control against an adversary who is just a fraction less powerful than himself.
For me, the only answer that hints of any sense is that the all-powerful God….our all-powerful God….voluntarily self-limits his power, so that the same freedom God affords human beings is presupposed by freedom that is offered all the way down to atomic and sub-atomic levels of life. Which means that the bumper sticker is right. From time to time, Stuff Happens. Which God dislikes, but allows. Because the only alternative is absolute domination and total control. Which, as any married person will tell you, is wonderfully efficient, but snuffs out all possibility of love.
So what do you do with disasters? Four things.
You mourn them.
You address them.
You learn whatever can be learned from them.
But you do not ascribe them to any greater divine purpose.
Earlier, in speaking of Job and his fist-shaking attempt to hold God accountable for the terrible things that have happened to him, I said that Job did not get an answer from God. But, if you remember the story, Job did get an audience with God. And that was sufficient.
Leading to this from the beloved Elie Wiesel:
Three rabbis in Auschwitz convened a court of law and put God on trial for the slaughter of the Jews. After the conclusion of the testimony, they pronounced God guilty of horrible crimes against humanity. Then, glancing upward at the darkening sky, one of them said to the others: “Enough of that. For the time has come to say our evening prayers.”
Note: I am indebted to all the usual biblical commentaries for their treatment of the flood narratives. Among them, I would cite Genesis: A Commentary by Gerhard Von Rad, Genesis: The Anchor Bible by E. A. Speiser and (especially) From Faith to Faith: Essays on Old Testament Literature by my Old Testament professor at Yale Divinity School, B. Davie Napier. I also read a number of articles and editorials about the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, including pieces by Susan Ager, Ann Whiting and William Safire. As concerns the wonderful story by Elie Wiesel, it resurfaced in one of the aforementioned columns as well as in the Christian Century. I especially appreciated John Buchanan’s editorial in the Century related to all of the above and his helpful references to various perspectives on the problem of evil.
