Dee
March 7th, 2006, 09:45 AM
God tells us through the biblical story that God created the world and God created it good. The crowning achievement of God’s creation is the human being who was made in God’s image. As the Psalmist says, “When we look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established, what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them. Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given us dominion over the works of your hands, you have put all things under our feet.”
God created us because God desired to have fellowship with us, but we wanted to go our own way. We wanted to be our own gods so instead of acknowledging God as God and worshiping God as God and living in God’s image, we strove to be the self-made man and the liberated woman. Like Adam and Eve, our inclination is to eat the forbidden fruit. We decided it was in our best interest to eat, drink, and be merry as best we could, even though the doctor keeps telling us that in order to live a full life, we should eat right, exercise, and grow spiritually and intellectually. God wants us to live in harmony with him, with our fellow brothers and sisters, and with our planet. But we desire to be number one, to create discord, to stand up for what we consider to be our rights, which means we will see to it that we get our fair share. If need be, we will rise up and kill our brother Cain.
God created the world and it was good, but something happened. The world did not turn out as God wanted. Especially human beings did not turn out as God wanted. God noticed human beings and they had a dark side. The inclination of their hearts was evil. So God decided since humans were not living up to God’s intention, God would destroy all flesh; but there was Noah. Noah lived as God intended. Noah was righteous. Righteous does not mean that Noah was morally perfect, but it does mean that Noah knew he came from God and to God he was going to return. Noah sought to live in harmony with God. Noah gave credit to God. Noah was obedient. So God decided to save Noah. He instructed Noah to build an ark. God gave Noah meticulous direction and meticulous dimensions, which Noah followed to the letter. Then he instructed Noah to save his family and all the creatures. When the rains came Noah, his family, and all creatures boarded the ark. God gave them safe passage through the sea of destruction. When the flood was over, God realized that Noah and his descendants had the same inclination to evil. So God said, “I will never again destroy human beings because of their evil inclination. I will seek to save them by other means.”
So God sends Abraham to create a people that will live as God intended. The chosen people who are to be a light to the nations, but they too have an evil inclination. So God sends Moses and God gives Moses the commandments to teach the people how to live. But the people break the commandments. They fashion the golden calf. So God sends David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah; finally, God sends his only Son to die on the cross so that we might know God’s love, believe in God’s love, and reflect God’s love.
In this story, who we are ultimately matters to God. As Jesus said, we are so important that God has the hairs of our heads numbered. To know God’s love we have to admit our desire to live our lives apart from God. We have to call upon God to save us from our evil inclination. We have to realize that God goes with us and desires to save us from the floods that threaten to destroy us.
Now, picture a shelter for women, like our Women’s Crisis Center. You are there when the van brings a 2nd grader back from the public school. She grabs the plastic cup of juice, stuffs the allotted cookies into the pocket of her jeans, and quietly settles onto the floor in front of the wooden ark and its plastic animals. She kneels solemnly, as if at an altar, surveying the toys with practiced eyes. Then she lines up her troops - first the large mammals, then the apes and domestic animals, then the smaller creatures and birds, and finally, the things that slide and slither. Pair by pair and time after time she marches them onto the ark.
You wonder if she knows anything at all about the biblical story of the ark and its cargo. When she and her mother were admitted to the shelter, fleeing the drunken, abusive man they lived with, they hardly seemed the kind of people who might have gone to Sunday School. The mother had devotedly parented her drug habit, and the only motivation for rehabilitation the staff had detected in her was a desire to escape the wrath of a dangerous man. The mother’s treatment was not going well, and the child was silent, except for the regular clicking of plastic hooves up the ramp of the ark.
Finally you ask, “Where are the animals going?” You ask with grave politeness. She looks at you with bewilderment, as if your question could not be more absurd or more obvious, “They’re going home.” Of course. Home is where animals want to be. Home is where all God’s creatures long to be. Oh, you mean God will give them a home. No, God will be their home.
The rhinos teeter for a second at the top of the ramp, then clatter into the hold. A pair of wart hogs comes next, followed by a couple of antelope, until the whole double line of creatures rests safely in the ark. The ship is setting sail. It pulls away from the dock. The destination is God. They are going home.
While other vessels steer by the sun and stars, this one sets course by a rainbow and a promise, a wing and a prayer. Though a rainbow may be as evanescent as mist, the ancient and fixed stars are unreliable for this voyage. They belong to the drowned world from which we have been rescued. A rainbow isn’t much, but it’s as much as we get. That, and the promise: “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. I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth."
Out of the rainbow and the promise we construct tentative spiritual dwellings for our journey. Although Noah was relieved to finally abandon his ark, we seek to keep ours fit for a voyage home. The rainbow invites us to hope for our final true home, where there is nothing to harm us and everything for which to be thankful, where wondrous creatures gather around a throne, that is surrounded by a rainbow that looks like an emerald.
We long for what the young girl wants – an ark that will safely deliver us from our earthly home to our eternal home. God has given us that ark. It takes us through the waters of baptism as a foretaste of our true home. For you see, the ark that will deliver us safely home is Jesus Christ who lives and reigns now and forever. Amen.
God created us because God desired to have fellowship with us, but we wanted to go our own way. We wanted to be our own gods so instead of acknowledging God as God and worshiping God as God and living in God’s image, we strove to be the self-made man and the liberated woman. Like Adam and Eve, our inclination is to eat the forbidden fruit. We decided it was in our best interest to eat, drink, and be merry as best we could, even though the doctor keeps telling us that in order to live a full life, we should eat right, exercise, and grow spiritually and intellectually. God wants us to live in harmony with him, with our fellow brothers and sisters, and with our planet. But we desire to be number one, to create discord, to stand up for what we consider to be our rights, which means we will see to it that we get our fair share. If need be, we will rise up and kill our brother Cain.
God created the world and it was good, but something happened. The world did not turn out as God wanted. Especially human beings did not turn out as God wanted. God noticed human beings and they had a dark side. The inclination of their hearts was evil. So God decided since humans were not living up to God’s intention, God would destroy all flesh; but there was Noah. Noah lived as God intended. Noah was righteous. Righteous does not mean that Noah was morally perfect, but it does mean that Noah knew he came from God and to God he was going to return. Noah sought to live in harmony with God. Noah gave credit to God. Noah was obedient. So God decided to save Noah. He instructed Noah to build an ark. God gave Noah meticulous direction and meticulous dimensions, which Noah followed to the letter. Then he instructed Noah to save his family and all the creatures. When the rains came Noah, his family, and all creatures boarded the ark. God gave them safe passage through the sea of destruction. When the flood was over, God realized that Noah and his descendants had the same inclination to evil. So God said, “I will never again destroy human beings because of their evil inclination. I will seek to save them by other means.”
So God sends Abraham to create a people that will live as God intended. The chosen people who are to be a light to the nations, but they too have an evil inclination. So God sends Moses and God gives Moses the commandments to teach the people how to live. But the people break the commandments. They fashion the golden calf. So God sends David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah; finally, God sends his only Son to die on the cross so that we might know God’s love, believe in God’s love, and reflect God’s love.
In this story, who we are ultimately matters to God. As Jesus said, we are so important that God has the hairs of our heads numbered. To know God’s love we have to admit our desire to live our lives apart from God. We have to call upon God to save us from our evil inclination. We have to realize that God goes with us and desires to save us from the floods that threaten to destroy us.
Now, picture a shelter for women, like our Women’s Crisis Center. You are there when the van brings a 2nd grader back from the public school. She grabs the plastic cup of juice, stuffs the allotted cookies into the pocket of her jeans, and quietly settles onto the floor in front of the wooden ark and its plastic animals. She kneels solemnly, as if at an altar, surveying the toys with practiced eyes. Then she lines up her troops - first the large mammals, then the apes and domestic animals, then the smaller creatures and birds, and finally, the things that slide and slither. Pair by pair and time after time she marches them onto the ark.
You wonder if she knows anything at all about the biblical story of the ark and its cargo. When she and her mother were admitted to the shelter, fleeing the drunken, abusive man they lived with, they hardly seemed the kind of people who might have gone to Sunday School. The mother had devotedly parented her drug habit, and the only motivation for rehabilitation the staff had detected in her was a desire to escape the wrath of a dangerous man. The mother’s treatment was not going well, and the child was silent, except for the regular clicking of plastic hooves up the ramp of the ark.
Finally you ask, “Where are the animals going?” You ask with grave politeness. She looks at you with bewilderment, as if your question could not be more absurd or more obvious, “They’re going home.” Of course. Home is where animals want to be. Home is where all God’s creatures long to be. Oh, you mean God will give them a home. No, God will be their home.
The rhinos teeter for a second at the top of the ramp, then clatter into the hold. A pair of wart hogs comes next, followed by a couple of antelope, until the whole double line of creatures rests safely in the ark. The ship is setting sail. It pulls away from the dock. The destination is God. They are going home.
While other vessels steer by the sun and stars, this one sets course by a rainbow and a promise, a wing and a prayer. Though a rainbow may be as evanescent as mist, the ancient and fixed stars are unreliable for this voyage. They belong to the drowned world from which we have been rescued. A rainbow isn’t much, but it’s as much as we get. That, and the promise: “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. I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth."
Out of the rainbow and the promise we construct tentative spiritual dwellings for our journey. Although Noah was relieved to finally abandon his ark, we seek to keep ours fit for a voyage home. The rainbow invites us to hope for our final true home, where there is nothing to harm us and everything for which to be thankful, where wondrous creatures gather around a throne, that is surrounded by a rainbow that looks like an emerald.
We long for what the young girl wants – an ark that will safely deliver us from our earthly home to our eternal home. God has given us that ark. It takes us through the waters of baptism as a foretaste of our true home. For you see, the ark that will deliver us safely home is Jesus Christ who lives and reigns now and forever. Amen.