Genesis 8:20-9:29
Psalm 1

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, grace to you and peace from our Creator God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray.  We give you thanks, O God, for in the beginning your Spirit moved over the waters and by your Word you created the world, calling forth life in which you took delight.  Through the waters of the flood you delivered Noah and his family and through the sea you led your people Israel from slavery into freedom.  At the river your Son was baptized by John and anointed with the Holy Spirit.  By the baptism of Jesus’ death and resurrection you set us free from the power of sin and death and raise us up to live in you.  Pour out your Holy Spirit, the power of your living Word, that those who have been washed in the waters of baptism may be given new life.  To you be given honor and praise through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever.  Amen

Please open your Bibles to Genesis Chapter 8.  In verse 20, we see that Noah and his family and all of the animals are safely off the ark and returning to normal life.  We also see that Noah immediately takes time to build an altar and offer sacrifices to God in thanks for being rescued from the flood.  This is the first reference in the Bible to an altar and sacrifices to the Lord.  The worship of God is beginning to look more like what has been known as the “traditional” Jewish worship patterns.

There are also several promises that God makes and a very important covenant is established with Noah.

In verse 21, God promises, “I will never again curse the ground because of humanity … nor will I ever again destroy every living creature …” As I mentioned last week, humanity’s carelessness and even selfishness can cause harm to the world in which we live – our sins do have a direct impact on God’s creation.  But in this passage, we are reminded that the damage done to creation is NOT a punishment from God because of human sin.

It may seem completely obvious, when we read this passage, and yet it is easy to fall into the habit of attributing tragic happenings to God.  The next time circumstances seem to be against you or someone you love, see if you catch yourself thinking or saying, “it must be God’s will”.

We sometimes go even farther and blame God outright for causing, or at least not preventing, the terrible things that have come upon us.  And, yes, I am saying “we” because I have been known to do this also.  I take out my anger and frustration and pain upon the most convenient target – God.

Fortunately, our God is understanding and merciful.  God very patiently listens to our complaints, and responds with love and compassion and promises …  We hear in verse 22, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”  God will continue to bless Creation with the ability to function in the way it was designed to function – no matter what we humans do in relation to our God.  Crops will continue to grow, seasons will continue to happen in their proper order, day will continue to follow night.

In Chapter 9 verse 1, God renews the creation once again.  “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”  As we heard in the creation story, God gives this blessing once again to humanity.  And at the same time, there is a recognition that the wonders of the Garden of Eden have been lost.  All of the animals will fear humanity.  Why?  Because all of the animals are potential food.  In verse 3 we read, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.”

Again, this is a reminder that the covenant with Noah takes place before the time of Moses – before the establishment of the Law – so that there is no distinction between clean and unclean animals for the humans to eat.  All plants and all animals are fit to be eaten.

The command in regard to the animals is about how they should be killed – do not eat meat that has the life-blood still in it.  Is this a means of saying, “show respect for the animals, even those you use for food”?  Or is this a reminder that the blood is to be poured out as a sacrifice to the Lord, so that the respect is shown to God who provided the food for us?  Or is it both – a reminder that God is to be thanked for providing what we need and that creation is to be respected because without the life around us, we would be in dire straights?

In verses 7-11, we get a repeat of the covenant and we can see that this covenant is totally one-sided.  God promises not to obliterate Creation again as a response to the sinfulness of humanity.  There are no demands that humanity must adhere to.  Noah is NOT asked to make any promises or to fulfill any vows.

And then the covenant is sealed with a sign – the rainbow.  It is a sign that God gives, not one that humanity must create in any way.

This covenant with Noah was preserved and taught throughout the ages, and many of the Gentiles who came to worship the Jewish God would follow the Noahide Covenant, rather than that of Abraham or Moses.  They could worship God with sacrifices and without the necessity of circumcision or following the rules for Kosher meals.  We, ourselves, are benefactors of this covenant – as we also worship God without following the covenant made with Abraham or the Law given through Moses.

We see in verse 12 that this covenant is made with Noah and his descendants and all living creatures – for all time.  This covenant includes all of us.

At this point, my sermon took an odd twist that I didn’t see coming.  I tried to “fix” it; I tried to stick more closely to the text itself; but these next pieces of teaching continued to work their way back into the sermon.  So, I am going to trust that it was the guiding of the Holy Spirit that they should be presented today – perhaps because this is something that we often talk about in Confirmation.

I mentioned the duplications in the story of the flood, for example, that the covenant is repeated in chapter 9 verses 7-11.  Many commentaries talk about the two traditions that were handed down among the Jews – two traditions because after King David and King Solomon reigned, the Kingdom of the Jews split into north and south – each following a different son of Solomon.  The Northern Kingdom was called Israel and the Southern Kingdom was called Judah, and each continued to teach the traditional Jewish faith.

When the Torah was eventually written down, the traditions were preserved separately through both the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom, and eventually these two traditions were united into the narratives that we now have in these chapters in Genesis.  This theory of how the Bible came to us would account for the two creation stories.  It would account for the many duplications of information within the story of the flood.  It would account for many other duplications that we will see in the weeks to come.

Regardless of how the duplications were incorporated into the story, we have what we have – scripture as it has been handed down through the people of faith for thousands of years.  Scripture that talks about God’s work in creating the universe, Scripture that talks about God’s promises to the people of faith, and Scripture that talks about the signs that God has provided to remind the people of God’s faithfulness to those promises.

For us, in the modern world, we know that a rainbow is formed when sunlight strikes raindrops at a specific angle and the light is refracted or bent in such a way that the colors of the spectrum are revealed and then reflected so that we can see them from the ground.

And then we are left with a lot of questions …
o	Can a rainbow be both a totally natural phenomenon and also a sign of a promise that God has given to humanity?
o	Does the scientific explanation of how the seasons happen due to the tilt of the earth on its axis and the position of earth as it revolves around the sun negate God’s promise that the seasons will continue for as long as the earth exists?
o	Does the scientific explanation of day and night and the movement of the stars negate God’s promise that these things will continue for as long as the earth exists?
o	Does a theory about how the story of creation and the flood were passed down through human hands eliminate the possibility that these same stories speak to us as the Word of God?
o	Can modern scientific theories and modern historical methods of investigation trump the promise of God’s love for us?  

I don’t think so.  God has a habit of working in the world through human beings.  Remember that the greatest revelation of God and God’s love is made when God’s living Word became a human being – Jesus of Nazareth.

I believe that God has always worked and will continue to work through human beings in order to reveal God’s ways and God’s truths.

Humanity can explain how a lot of things happen.  We can find evidence in history – through archaeology and other means.  We can explore amazing things through advances in technology.  And as much as we can explain “HOW” things function and “HOW” things were passed down through the years, we cannot explain why.

No amount of human exploration can explain why a rainbow is formed through the combination of sunlight and rain.  No amount of research can explain why the ancient stories of faith were told and retold and then written down and preserved through the traditions of two separate and sometimes rival kingdoms.

If we, in the modern world, were to write these stories of faith – they would sound different, they would use modern scientific understandings of how creation is connected together, they would be edited by people who would not allow duplications to exist side-by-side.

And as different as the stories might come out, they would still describe the power of God in creating the world as we understand it.  They would still describe the love of God and the signs that we have of that love.  They would still make the claim that God makes promises and that God keeps those promises – no matter what humanity does in response.

Because the book of Genesis is not a science book designed to give theories about the origins of the universe, and Genesis is not a history book designed to give an exact chronology of events that took place at the dawn of time, we don’t have to read it that way.  Genesis is a theology book, and we can read it as a theology book, designed to teach the people of God:
o	who God is 
o	what God’s relationship is to humanity, and
o	what it looks like to be people of faith in relation to this God.

A few weeks back, I asked if it was important to know each of the names and how many years the person lived and who the eldest son is – and I responded that it helps when you’re playing Trivial Pursuit.  

And here again I wonder if we place a lot of importance on exact details in order to claim scientific or historic accuracy for our heritage as opposed to that of a different culture or faith – when the point of the story has nothing to do with whose version of history is more accurate.

The point of the story is that God cares about humanity and God cares about creation.  God cares enough that the creation is designed with such beautiful things as a rainbow to remind us that God is present even in the midst of the storms and to remind us that terrible happenings are not God’s punishment delivered through the power of nature.  Which is an amazing assertion since many ancient cultures DID believe that natural disasters were punishment from the gods.

The point of the story is that God cares about every detail of your life.  The point of the story is that God cares about creation, too, and how we treat the other creatures that share this earth with us – both humans and animals.

The point of the story is that we – who are the people of God – who have received the teachings from the faithful people who lived before us – we have received the promise of God’s love, and we need to respond to it.

Some of our ancestors in the faith responded with rebellion.  Some of them responded with obedience.  Some of them managed to both obey and rebel – and I think that most of us fall into that last category of faithful people.

And when we don’t get bogged down in the details, we realize that we have a choice to make.  God is reaching out to us with every detail of our lives – we see it in the rainbows and in the stars and in the cycles of day and night.  We see it in the beauty of creation and the wonder of a tiny baby and the power of human love and compassion.

What is your choice?  Will you believe what the scripture says about God’s love and God’s promises?  Or will the mechanics of science and history get in the way of trusting that God can communicate through the ages and through the people of faith?

It is a challenge and a choice.  And as the faithful people of God, we welcome two more believers who have chosen to trust in God’s work through the community of the faithful.

Amen