March 9, 2003

First Sunday of Lent

Genesis 9:8-17

 “Over the Rainbow”

     One of the best things about leading a Bible study are the surprises along the way, those time when those I teach open my eyes to things I hadn’t seen before.  A number of years ago, during a study of the Book of Genesis (our adult class is studying Genesis right now, by-the-way), I asked the group if they could find two separate creation stories in the book.  I was thinking of the first two chapters of Genesis where two distinct accounts of creation are told side-by-side - chapters one and two.  As my class sat there scratching their heads, trying to find that second creation story, Patti blurted out: “Noah!” 

     I never thought of that before, but in an instant I could see she was right.  The story of Noah and the ark is also a creation story.  Patti saw something the rest of us hadn’t seen, and even more remarkable, her clear insight came through the fog of a mental disability.

     It was out of chaos that God brought order and created a world for animal and human habitation.  That’s what the first chapter of Genesis tells us.  And again, as we read in the ninth chapter, God brought order out of the chaos of a great flood that swept over the earth.  Through the storm, God preserved life in the ark and a new day followed, one marked by a rainbow promise that God would never flood the earth again.

     Did you know that at least 214 cultures have ancient stories about a great flood covering the earth?  Finding references of such an event in so many different places certainly lends credence to the possibility that it really happened.  And now there are the discoveries of Dr. Ballard, the oceanographer from Mystic who has shown that the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins were forested and populated in prehistoric times and that a cataclysmic flood overwhelmed both areas in the ebbing Ice Age.

     But whether or not there is hard scientific evidence of a Great Flood or even reliable historic evidence of Noah and the ark for that matter, the point of the story remains the same.  This is a story about God preserving life through the worst of times, God making a way for the faithful.  It’s a salvation story, as is the entire biblical witness when you step back a bit and take a broad look at the whole – a salvation story reaching a crescendo with the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning.  God preserves life through the worst of times and makes a way for the faithful.

     Really?  Does this really happen in real life?  Or is this just the stuff of fantastic fables about Noah and a floating zoo?

     Let me give you a recent example…as recent as Friday night.  Our son, Jon, was supposed to fly from a training program in St. Louis to Miami Friday evening and then out of Miami Saturday morning to hook up with a cruise ship in Panama where he is to be working as a chef.  On Friday morning I got one of those phone calls parents dread: “Dad, I have a huge problem – I think I left my passport in Pawcatuck!”  Well, I found it in his bedroom and raced to Providence to get it on a plane to Miami at the very last minute.  Later that evening, Jon called again: “Dad, I have another problem – they lost my luggage!”  It was eventually found.  Later, there was another call: “Dad, I have another problem – I picked up my passport from the cargo depot but now I don’t have enough money to pay my cab fare!”  After I asked him to please give Jon a hand, the cabbie reduced the fare.  Later: “Dad, now I can’t get to the hotel because the shuttle has stopped running.”  It was 2:00 AM by this time, but the hotel lined up a cab for him and paid the fare.  And when one of his traveling companions saw that Jon was broke, she offered to cover his expenses until he got on the boat.

     Jon was in quite a mess.  Some of it was his own fault and some of it wasn‘t.  But where was God in all that chaos?…in a father’s determined advocacy and a mother’s prayers until two in the morning…in a clerk at an airport shipping desk who went out of his way to see that Jon’s passport would be sent…in a baggage claim agent who gave my upset son sound advice…in a cabbie who lowered his fare and another cabbie who helped Jon laugh about his circumstances…in a hotel clerk who went out of his way to arrange late night free transportation…in a newfound friend who gave Jon a loan.  When the flood rolled in, God didn’t stop it.  God worked for good through good people through the flood and showed the way to higher ground where the waters subsided.  As a cab driver told Jon at 2:00 AM, “Things are looking up – it’s a new day!”

     The rainbow promise of Genesis was not a promise that bad things would never again happen to God’s people, it was a promise that God would never again restart the entire creation and that he would always preserve life no matter what sort of mess his people made of the world.  That’s good to know, especially considering the mess we sometimes make of our lives, considering the mess our world is in right now.  God will work for good through good people and will bring salvation to the faithful. 

     The story of Noah and the ark is a salvation story.  The entire Bible is a salvation story.  Trusting God, our lives become salvation stories, too.

     Psalm 27:1:

 “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

     This is Amistad Sunday in the United Church of Christ, a day to remember how God worked for good through good people (many of them Congregationalists from this area) who in 1821 prayed for and supported and lobbied for the release of the Mende people who landed in New London.  They were Africans taken into slavery and shipped illegally to this country, but who revolted and took charge of the Amistad.  They were not sailors and were tricked into making landfall here, but faithful Christian people rallied to their aid.  Eventually, they were released and taken home to the part of Africa we now know as Sierra Leone.  The Mende people suffered long an hard through frightening and uncertain times, but God acted through faithful people on their behalf.  A way was found through the storm and a new day dawned for them.  The Amistad story is an African story, an African American story, a Congregational and United Church of Christ story and a salvation story.

     Last Sunday I spoke of the view from “the mountaintop”.  I spoke of God calling us to let go of the past and embrace the future, to release our control of people and things and let him lead our lives.  They were challenging words, difficult words to speak and hear.  But today I also want you to know that there is more than challenge before us.  If we will allow God to show us the way, there will be a salvation story before us, higher ground, a great new day.  There is no promise that the way will be easy, just that God will work for good through good people.  And we will journey there together, wherever “there” might be, for this salvation story is not just for some, but for the whole people of God.

     Isaiah 43:19:

 “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”