Now there are always many angles from which to approach a Biblical text
We look at the Story of the Flood
and we could concern ourselves with the problem of evil – and note that God has demonstrated for us the unalterable truth that evil can not be destroyed.
We could look at the story and wonder about the nature of God – whose wrath seemingly resolves itself into unconditional love as demonstrated by the flood followed by the rainbow covenant.
But recently one small image from a poem turned my thoughts to Noah. It is a poem I wrote earlier in the spring for a friend. And while some people may not equate rescuing plants with rescuing animals, ultimately, each aspect of God's creation holds a particular and valued place in the ordered universe. My friend Krys rescues plants, her sister rescues dogs and so the title is:
my sister rescues dogs
i gather abandoned plants, and
seeds
wrapped in fibrous tissue
or bare,
gleaming as if shellacked.
a compulsion? perhaps
but why should these fragile lives
be obliterated by demolition
crews making room for the latest condo?
seeds find their way from my pockets
to small crystal bowls.
variegated vegetation in flimsy black
containers, blue over-sized sandbox pails,
clay pots, anything
that will shelter their roots, support their stems
surround, become, my home
without regard to size, colour, or horticultural status.
something in me recognizes
the necessity of belonging,
withers,
knowing
the yards of grass smoothed 'round
neighbouring houses have usurped wildflower terrain;
that the peculiar beauty of a weed
is out-competed by the uniformity of lawn.
in summer my front yard
provokes controversy,
occasional hate-mail
but my rescued plants,
like a city skyline, punctuate the air
a stem of cosmos eclipses
delicate columbine stars
and wild strawberries scatter
the imagination of the garden-proud.
one day
my new yard
will resemble the wilds i left behind on oxford street,
this oasis of irrespectability will be understood:
a celebratory noah-project
rescuing, diversity.
What is to be your Noah project? What is to be mine?
I can think of several different ways in which I could imitate Noah...
for instance, I think of the importance of milkweed growing in our country garden. The seed pods get a bit ragged looking at times, and they can take over space intended for other plants. Ah, but think of the monarchs. They need the milkweed to survive. If we all weeded out all the milkweed in each of our yards we would lose all the monarchs and if we lost the monarchs, who/what else would be affected? The natural order would be disrupted – The quality and beauty of this world would be diminished.
So on this ark of a earth, I must safe-guard the monarch butterflies and their relations, I must protect their natural habitat. And what I would do for monarchs, I must do for all creatures.
If we are to be like Noah, we must also have the courage of our convictions. As Christians we are called to order our priorities in such a way as to value life and relationship more than objects and ideologies. We may have to endure suspicion, even contempt – we may have to become involved in controversy - for God's sake. In a culture that often emphasizes appearances without regard to quality we might be ridiculed for seeking to lay good foundations; for taking time to see a job is done thoroughly, and with integrity. We may be laughed at for being concerned about the welfare of those who provide us with the food we eat, the clothes we wear... We may be pitied because we still value honesty and personal honour while so many around us have slipped into dishonest practices enticed by the thought of easy money.
Like Noah, we must be prepared to lose everything, to trust in the mercy of God. Confronted by evil; in the very real presence of grave danger and despair - even our desire to hope for the return of goodness and safety becomes an act of faith.
We are told that the righteous live by faith.
But righteousness doesn't means “flawless”
even Noah had his problems...
and yet at the critical moment in time, he was obedient to God's call.
I doubt that Noah could imagine the magnitude of what was to befall his world -
who can imagine such devastation? and yet he yielded his will to God's will;
created the ark, gathered the animals and his family
and endured the rain and the lonely journey into the strange new world.
Sometimes there are events that fall upon our lives like a devastating flood. It would be easy to falter or even to feel damaged beyond redemption, and yet by grace, though faith we have a true and trustworthy companion who is also our grounding, our foundation.
(yesterday) I happened to hear part of the Vinyl Café – and Stuart McLean was explaining how when he thinks of Niagara Falls he can not help but think of the 7 year old boy who went over the falls 43 years ago and lived. Being Stuart McLean, he decided to try and find the man who had been that boy. Well, Roger is still alive and he told his story to Stuart, who in turn told us.
A friend of their parents, Jim, took Roger and his sister out in his little boat... evidently they travel past what the locals knew was the point of safety and then hitting a shoal, the boat capsized in the rough water and they were all separated. Roger's 17 year old sister knew she would have to swim with the current if she was to have any hope of surviving. I will spare you the incredible suspense with which Stuart McLean told the story and say that when the men who rescued the sister were pulling her up out of the current, she asked about her brother. One of the men looked out over the water and as he whispered in her ear, she clasped her hands to her heart. What did the man say? Simply, “you need to say a little prayer for your brother.”
Meanwhile Roger had been battered by rocks, sucked under and released; he had a moment to catch his breath, a moment of anger when he saw onlookers and no one trying to help him, and then he saw the emptiness ahead of him, and suddenly knew he was going to die. And he wondered what his parents would do with his toys. And he felt surrender.
It was a particularly moving story but even more poignant was the moment when the 51 year old Roger spoke from his home in Alabama. It became evident that grace had been present in that horrific moment, and while as a small child he had no concept of heaven or hell, the experience had transformed him.
I think of that girl praying the way only the innocent can, all heart – throwing away any doubt, laying claim upon the Universal heart that holds us all. I see that prayer cradling her brother in the mist as he went over; guiding the captain of the Maid of the Mist to rescue him.
“You need to say a little prayer.”
It becomes a powerful metaphor for our lives as Christians. We are all the characters in the story, we are the boy caught up in the tumult, we are the the sister who prays, the men who rescue.
This contemporary story mysteriously opens us to the story of Noah and the flood. The powerful and potentially deadly waters a symbol of the challenges we face. The ark is our faith, which cradles us and sustains us. It is also meant to be a symbol of the church. The question is: do we provide one another with this sense of safety – do we nurture faith within one another?
Are we like Noah? Does our obedience to God inspire us to commit deeds of love and daring, even if they might seem to be controversial? Do we see the gift of unconditional love in the gift of the rainbow?
Earlier I when suggested that in this story God demonstrates that evil can not be destroyed, I also hinted that it might be that from our perspective, because of our own tendencies toward rage when confronted by evil or loss, God seems to be wrathful, to repent of this wrath and then offer the rainbow sign of promise,
I would like to suggest that even while God, who holds all life in this world and the next, was offering us an object lesson that evil can not be destroyed, God was also laying the foundation of faith, God was showing us that through our work of faith - our confidence in God's gift of the rainbow and all that it represents - we participate in the grace of God,
and it is finally only grace, only love that can confront evil and heal it; transform the fear or the isolation that gives rise to evil.
How do we express our own calling to be like Noah? Do we dare by God's grace to participate redemption? Let us surrender our fear and despair, ever trusting in God's unconditional love!
