Sermon for May 29th 2005 The Revd. J. Michael Povey at St. James’s, Cambridge, MA
Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19 + Psalm 46 + Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28, (29-31) + Matthew 7:21-29
I have always thought that the story of Noah and his ark is a strange one to tell to children. Ah yes, there is the “cute” factor, with the animals and all that, but it is also a story of judgment. it starts with God in a bit of a snit, ticked off with the human race, and determined to scrap everything and start all over again. When I was a little boy I could never think about Noah and his family and the animals being saved; my mind always got stuck on all the people and insects and birds and animals which were supposed to have drowned.
But there’s perhaps a bit of humour in the story. God in a snit says “but if I am God I cannot be like that. Noah’s not a bad guy, I’ll save him and his family, and all the animals to boot”
Well it’s a story. In the best sense of the word it is a myth, that is, a story or legend by which we understand deep truths. These are truths expressed in stories and not in propositions - more like the tale of George Washington cutting down the cherry tree than the Declaration of Independence. The story is mythical - it conveys the truth that our first President was unimpeachable.
So what’s the truth of this story Of Noah and the Ark? It is that God judges and that God is merciful.
The judgment of God.
That’s not a popular theme. I hear so many people say that they were raised on a God of wrath, and now they believe in a God of love. I doubt it! I doubt it, especially of they are under forty years of age. The Church has been stressing the love of God for at least a couple of generations. So much so, that I challenge you to ask “when did I last hear a sermon on the judgment of God?” I’ve only mentioned it once in the nearly five years since I have been here!
We have so much stressed the love of God. That is good! But have we paused to think that the judgment of God is an expression of God’s love? I believe that it is!
And I want to say three things about God’s justice, or God’s judgment.
First, is this not something for which we long? We long that at the heart of the Universe there is a God of justice. We yearn for this in the face of the Holocaust; the Genocide in Cambodia; the Ethnic cleansings of our own time. “ Will those bastards get what is coming to them?” we think. And yet we know that human justice on an international scale often turns into vengeance, and we become like the very bastards we are trying to call to account.
Is it not a great relief to come to believe that God is a God of justice, and that the evil deeds of human beings will not escape the eye and action of God? If there is a God, and if there is a judgment, then I do not have to determine the fate of Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and a myriad of other tyrants, local, national and international.
(I take a risk here and suggest that this thought may help us to understand the Noah story. Perhaps it was human judgment which believed that all sinful people should be destroyed, and thus they told the story of the Flood. But perhaps it is just a story, a story in which humans grope towards a formulation in which righteousness is accepted and sin is judged. Perhaps it is just a story which points the way to a God who is just). This paragraph was not preached.
On God’s judgment: Second. We think so very often that judgment has to do with guilt and punishment. When we hear the word, our minds go to the Law Court, the prosecution and defence, the Jury and the Judge. We associate judgement and justice with punishment.
But the word has other meanings. Think for instance of what we mean when we speak of humans using wise judgment. When we use the word in that way it has nothing to do with guilt and punishment. What would happen if we began to think of judgment, and the judgment of God, in terms of wise choices!
And another meaning of the word “judgment” has to do with critique or evaluation. Think of a Juried Craft Show. Think of the “best apple pie” contest.
What if we thought, in personal terms, that God’s judgment of our lives is God’s critique, or evaluation of what we have done with the gifts of nature and grace we have been given. Why --- that tells us that our lives are worthwhile! We judge, evaluate, critique that which is worth judging, evaluation and critiquing! God’s judgment of our lives ought to suggest that we are worth something to God!
And third, (here I am indebted to a sermon I heard some fifteen years ago, by Kathy George, now Rector at St. Anne’s in the Fields in Lincoln). Kathy preached and asked us why we got so bothered when we heard of the anger of God in the Bible. “What good parent”, she asked, “has not become angry when she or he as seen her or his child make a bad, foolish or dangerous choice”? That parental anger is rooted in love!
And so it is that we know, from human experience, that anger can be an expressions of love. When we read or hear of God’s wrath, judgement or anger - when we hear this, dare we believe that it is consistent with God’s character and will. God’s character is love. God’s will is always for our best!
God’s character is love. That is the consistent message of what we call the “Old Testament”. “As a father cares for his children, so does the Lord care for those who fear him”. That’s a quotation from Psalm 103, which goes on to say that “the merciful love of the Lord endures for ever on those who fear him”. We should understand that word “fear” to mean the ability to accept with awe. Love is not love if it is not accepted.
“The merciful love of the Lord”. The story of Noah, the Flood, and the Ark, is a story of God’s merciful love. We should not suppose that Noah was a “goody-two-shoes” in the face of the wickedness of his age. Rather we should understand that Noah’s righteousness lay in his willingness to trust the merciful God.
And that is the key. For St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, points us to the One who above all trusted the merciful God. In the Cross of Jesus, the judgement which we could bear was born by another, so that we might receive nothing but mercy. But it has to be received! Received as a gift!
In a few moments we shall baptise Bryn. In that Baptism we shall accept for him what he cannot yet accept for himself - the mercy and grace of God.
Bryn is of Welsh stock, and in the lovely Welsh language, “Bryn”, means mountain or hill. You will know that word in “Bryn Mawr” College. We have two hymns today with Welsh tunes.
There is another with the wonderful name “Bryn Calfaria”. “Bryn Calfaria” - “Mount Calvary”. It is on Bryn Calfaria that we find both the judgement and the mercy of God.
Just as Noah was saved “through” the flood, so we are being saved through the flood of God’s judgement and mercy through which Jesus went for us on Bryn Calfaria. There is no flood for us. But there is an Ark. It is the Ark of mercy, found in the Church and known in the face of Jesus. Take a cruise in that Ark today!
Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19 6:9
These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. 6:10 And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 6:11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 6:12 And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. 6:13 And God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. 6:14 Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 6:15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 6:16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. 6:17 For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. 6:18 But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 6:19 And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 6:20 Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. 6:21 Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them." 6:22 Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.
7:24 And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred fifty days.
8:14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. 8:15 Then God said to Noah, 8:16 "Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. 8:17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh--birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth--so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." 8:18 So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. 8:19 And every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out of the ark by families.
Psalm 46 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 46:2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; 46:3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah 46:4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. 46:5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. 46:6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. 46:7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah 46:8 Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. 46:9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth." 46:11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah
Romans 1:16-17, 3:22b-28, (29-31)
1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "The one who is righteous will live by faith." 3:22b For there is no distinction, 3:23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 3:24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 3:25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 3:26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. 3:27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 3:28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. 3:29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 3:30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 3:31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
Matthew 7:21-29
7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 7:22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' 7:23 Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.' 7:24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 7:25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. 7:26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 7:27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell--and great was its fall!" 7:28 Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, 7:29 for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.