"Not Your Typical CEO"

Genesis 8:20 — 9:17

Romans 3:21-26

Introduction. The story of Noah's Ark in modern times: The Lord said to Noah, "In six months, I'm going to make it rain until the earth is covered with water and all the evil is destroyed. I want you to build an ark and save two of each animal species. Here are the blueprints for the ark."

Six months passed. The skies began to cloud and rain began to fall. Noah sat in his front yard, weeping.

"Why haven't you built the ark?" asked the Lord.

"Oh, forgive me," said Noah. "I did my best, but so many things happened. The blueprints you gave me didn't meet the city's code and I had to change them. Then the city said I was violating the zoning ordinance by building an ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the planning commission. The Forest Service required tree-cutting permits, and I was sued by a state animal rights group when I tried to gather everyone up. Just when I got the lawsuit dismissed, the EPA notified me that I couldn’t complete the ark without filing an environmental impact statement. And the Army Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed flood plain. To top it all off, the IRS seized all my assets, claiming I was trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country. I'm sorry, Lord, but I can't finish the ark for at least five years."

Suddenly the rain stopped, the skies cleared, and the sun began to shine and a rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up hopefully and said, "Lord, does this mean you're not going to devastate the earth?"

"That’s right," said the Lord. "It appears that the government already has."

(from www.crazydoodle.com/jokes/j-66.htm)

Move 1. In the actual Bible story of God’s destruction of practically everything in the flood, the violence of the story makes us uneasy, on the one hand–even terrifies us; on the other hand, a brand new start seems in some ways a good thing. That a new start hasn’t been initiated today by God, as it was in Noah’s day, sometimes surprises us, for a new start is something that we can understand.

The mess of the world today gives us reason to wish things were different. The war, disease, crime, and corruption of current times cause some of us to remember with fondness better days gone by. Of course, the annihilation of the world is not something we want, though Mark Twain did remark that "Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat." (Robert Byrne, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, 2003, no. 1835) But something that could give humanity a second chance, to go in a different direction, would be nice.

A new start is something that, in our own personal lives, we have sometimes yearned for. A fresh beginning is often wished for in relationships–a parent/child relationship that is navigating the rocky shores of independence and authority; a marriage that is running aground on unforeseen dangers; and more. What if a new beginning could be made, and things could just start over? A new direction could be charted, mistakes could be avoided. What if?

A new start is sometimes desired in our human projects. Starting over is what I wished I could have done in college with a year-long project I was working on pertaining to new religious ideas of the Renaissance as seen in the paintings of the period. The project was interesting, but I failed in a number of ways–I didn’t narrow the focus enough; I didn’t get enough advice from my professors; I didn’t begin it in earnest until the spring semester. I wound up staying up until 3 a.m. many a morning, bleary-eyed, wishing I had done things differently, and that I could go back in time to start over. A fresh start would have been wonderful.

So God’s new start with the world long ago, though catastrophic in many ways, is something to which we can relate. Though not always, not even usually, possible, a new start can erase mistakes, it can be a platform for new possibilities, it can set the stage for new directions. It is something we can understand God wanting for the world.

Move 2. But, God established an unchanging covenant with humanity through Noah. God made a promise with humanity long ago that God has never broken since.

God made the promise, as we know, never to destroy life on earth. God said, "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." But this wasn’t just a loophole, a careful choice of words allowing God to destroy things in way other than flooding–for God also said that "I will never again curse the ground because of humankind…nor…destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." God made a promise, a covenant with Noah on behalf of the whole world, into the indefinite future.

Note that God gave this promise as an unconditional deal. In other words, God didn’t say, "As long as humans begin to act better, I will not destroy." God didn’t give an "if…then…," conditional promise. Instead, God promised that no matter what, God would not destroy everything again.

In addition, note that God made the covenant with "all flesh," "with birds

and animals and the earth itself." (Terence E. Fretheim, The New Interpreter’s Bible,

1994, p. 401) God made promises to non-humans. God cared for their lives and sought to impress on Noah, and impress on us, the importance God placed on animals, not as things to use and abuse without concern, but as fellow creatures of the covenant.

God promised; God covenanted; and God signed this unchanging oath with God’s signature, the rainbow.

Move 3. Interestingly, though the promise made is unchanging, a change occurs in God in this whole saga of Noah and the flood.

The change is described this way by one theologian: "The flood has effected…an irreversible change in God….It is now clear that…a commitment (to the creation) on God’s part is costly. The God-world relation is not simply that of strong God and needy world. Now it is a tortured relation between a grieved God and a resistant world. And of the two, the real changes are in God." (Walter Brueggemann, found in Fretheim, p. 396)

The change in God comes, not in spite of human failure, but because of human failure. It comes because God recognizes, as it says in verse 21 of chapter 8, that "the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth"–further elaborated by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"--and that a flood doesn’t alter that reality. One person remarked, "The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless." (Byrne, no. 1,275) But more than that, change in

God comes because God recognizes that "the way into the future cannot depend on human loyalty; sinfulness so defines humanity that, if human beings are to live, they must be undergirded by (a) divine promise." (Fretheim, p. 396)

The change in God is one where God agrees to eternal self-limitation. It is one where God decides not to use any and all means to get what God wants. It is one in which God recognizes God’s power, and recognizes that such power should not continue to be used however and whenever God wants.

The alteration in God’s attitude reveals God’s desire to continue a relationship of love with the world. It involves God’s decision to continue to have relationship with creatures resistant to God’s will. And therefore, it makes God a very unusual boss; not your typical CEO who might fire people like us, but a God who is loyal despite human disloyalty. (ideas from Fretheim, p. 396)

Move 4. Now that God has changed, can we change? Can we become the people of the promise in a way that honors that promise? Are we able?

Even though the covenant made with humanity is not a conditional covenant, we note that God does have hopes for humanity. We see that God requests of Noah and his family to "be fruitful and multiply," a request that I dare say has been carried out. We see that God requests that when humans eat flesh, they do so having drained the blood, probably a move away from the ancient belief that the blood of another gives life, and toward a belief that in reality, only God is the giver of life. We see that God takes life seriously, and hopes to prevent the needless killing of either animals or humans.

We are asked to take life seriously, as well. We have a promise from God that God will never again destroy the world, but we certainly are not promised that God will prevent us from destroying it. We live in an unprecedented age of nuclear power, biological weaponry, looming environmental catastrophes, all of our own making. We are not always the best stewards of life.

But we also have the ability to turn around, to repent, to make positive changes. In the 1991 movie City Slickers, three middle-aged men from the city, friends since childhood, go on a cattle drive for some adventure. But they also go through some serious challenges along the way. At one point, they are discussing their lives. One of them is in tears. He has committed adultery and has lost his wife. Because the store he manages belongs to his father-in-law, he has lost his job. He has nothing more to live for. But one of his friends says, "No, that’s not true. Remember when we were kids and we would play ball, and someone would hit the ball and it would get stuck in a tree- we’d all yell ‘do-over.’ And we’d get the ball out of the tree and do that play all over again. Your life isn’t over. It’s a do-over. You have a chance to turn your life around."

(from www.catholic-church.org/holyname/03-06-01.htm)

We see that through Noah, the world is given a "do-over." And we see that because of God’s promise, that do-over is not just a one-time do-over, but a do-over every day, a chance for a fresh start each day.

Conclusion. Life is a gift, given by God. It is waiting to be received and lived with respect and with joy. Life, abundant life, is not required to be received by the God the giver–but it will continue to be offered by God no matter our situation, no matter our schemes. When life is received, and lived out with respect and joy, then the importance God has given it through the covenant is fulfilled by us who are creatures of that covenant.