PROMPTINGS: Through the Water

I am so glad that so often in life we get a second chance.

Growing up I used to build models – model airplanes, model ships, model cars – I think I dabbled in all of the different venues of model building. But the lesson I never learned was how to read the instructions. So inevitably, I would begin a model, get lost in the number of pieces and the complexity of it, and then get frustrated and have to start completely over. The second time I would read the instructions and the model would turn out perfectly.

I wonder if this is the frustration that God felt with the world when it finally came to that point we read about in Genesis chapter six where God becomes fed up with the world that he has only recently created. Now granted, God can’t be criticized for not reading the instructions – he wrote them – but things were going badly for the people he had made. The Bible says that the God saw the wickedness of humankind on the earth was great and the thoughts of the hearts of the people God had made were only evil continually. And then comes the flood.

The loving creator begins with a design in his infinite wisdom to create human beings and to provide for them a world where they have all that they need to enjoy life to the fullest. All they have to do is follow a simple set of rules – to live within some very simple boundaries – like loving one another, respecting one another, and remembering where they came from and where they were going – that’s all they have to do. And the human beings blow it.

One can only imagine what the world must have been like for God to be so grieved. One can only imagine. I mean what could have been so bad? Were their marriages families disintegrating? Were they fighting with each other over small and insignificant pieces of land? Were they cheating poorer workers out of their pensions while their CEO’s lived in huge houses with life-long golden parachutes? What could have been so bad? Were they dishonest and hateful to each other? Do they use people to satisfy their own ends? Did they stop praying to God and seeking a relationship with him? What could have been so bad?

Whatever it was – and here the Bible searches for some human language to portray the agony of God at the sight of it –God was GRIEVED to his heart. God was GRIEVED to his heart.

And yet…in the midst of all this… one man stands out. It’s a scene from an old western where after the shootout the smoke clears and one man is seen rising above the chaos. In the middle of all of this the story-teller tells us that “Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.” In the middle of this moral carnage, Noah is set apart in scripture for being RIGHTEOUS and BLAMELESS.

What’s interesting is that in the middle of the story – these two words – RIGHTEOUS and BLAMELESS – aren’t defined. It’s assumed that we, the reader, know what’s being talked about as if we really do have the most basic idea or impulse built in to us about how we can follow God and be faithful to him.

But whatever that basic impulse might be, the people of Noah’s time chose to ignore what they knew to be right and instead chose the path of evil. And God is faced with looking at his once beautiful creation… and seeing what human beings had done with that creation…and having to choose to start over.

“For my part,” God tells Noah, “I am going to send 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.” These are perhaps the harshest words of the Bible. Our image of the loving, caring, nurturing, second chance God is completely blown with these words. More than anything though it should help us to understand the extent of God’s frustration with humankind. These creatures had the free-will and even the built-in idea to know how they should respond to God. And they had chosen instead to live in rebellion to God. God at this moment chooses the water as his instrument for starting over with his new creation.

But this time, something significant happens. A word pops up that we haven’t seen before in the Bible until now. God tells Noah, “I will establish a COVENANT with you.” A covenant is a sort of agreement that two parties will be faithful to carry out certain duties with regard to each other. Up until this point – human being’s covenant with God was sort of understood – it was built in – if you follow God and his very simple rules all will go well for you. But now, this covenant becomes expressed as a covenant. God doesn’t want for there to be any misunderstanding – human beings are in a covenantal relationship with their creator.

And the rest of the story we know very well. Noah, because he is righteous and blameless is spared the coming flood by building an ark. Not just any boat mind you. But a boat that is designed of a certain kind of wood and to be of very precise measurements and is to hold two of every kind of animal. It’s almost as if God is testing to Noah to see if this righteous and blameless man can follow some very simple rules. And Noah does. And he build the ark.

“And the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household…And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.” We’ve really been looking so far at how God must have felt during all this. But what about Noah? Imagine the scene we talked about… a world gone awry where no one follows after the good, but every inclination of the heart is evil. And you’re the only one who gets it. Wouldn’t it have been easier for Noah to give in and be like everyone else? Imagine the names Noah must have been called – self righteous, goody-goody, God-freak. His family would have been laughed at, ridiculed, and even abused by their contemporaries. And now, this God who is responsible for so much abuse at the hands of his neighbors is asking Noah to have just a little more faith, and build an ark.

If I had to guess – I would think that Noah was probably at his wits end. And like us so many times he probably questioned whether or not the choice to be faithful to God was really worth it at all – worth the exclusion, worth the ridicule, worth the sacrifice of those things that everyone around us deems to be of value.

But, the story-teller tells us, “Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.” And you know the rest of the story. God sends the flood and Noah and his family are saved. God establishes his covenant with Noah which we remember as people of faith whenever we see a rainbow in the sky.

Well, if you haven’t already guessed my motive in relating to you this story of Noah then I’m about to tell you straight-up. The fact is that each generation since Noah’s is a sort of Noah generation. Honestly, I’m not sure if there was much difference between the people of Noah’s time and the people of our time. Just simply that God has been infinitely more patient with us than he was with Noahs’ contemporaries.

Each generation conducts itself in a way that is displeasing to God. Each generation of people acts selfishly – looking to satisfy their own needs over the needs of others. Each generation has shown disregard for the poor who so often live at the whim of the powerful. Each generation has forgotten in its own way about God and has become absent from those places where God is worshipped. Each generation has sought to fulfill its endless appetite for sex, wealth, power, status, and security, without thought for the very simple God-ideas that are in all of us. In short, every generation has grieved the Lord.

But are you ready for some good news? Even in the middle of the moral chaos, as the smoke clears, and we look around to see who is left standing – God offers us a chance to be one of those people. God offers each generation a chance to be redeemed.

The apostle Paul lived in a time, in a generation, when it seemed that few were left who would be faithful to God. Immediately following the death and resurrection of Jesus, it seemed that only a few people realized the significance of that event. God had come in the person of Jesus Christ and once again and decisively offered humanity a chance to return. And by and large people weren’t getting it.

Paul in the middle of his own time’s moral chaos writes words that echo the story of Noah. Paul knows that the God idea in each person should have been the starting point toward faithful living within the covenant that all human beings have with God. His words are clear and abrupt. God’s nature is plain to us from the beginning of our existence here on earth.

“For the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his eternal power and divine nature, though invisible they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as god or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.” (Romans 1:18-22)

But this isn’t the end of the story for us. For Paul knows that in the person of Jesus we have been offered a new covenant, that God is demonstrating his ultimate patience with us by giving us the opportunity to return to what we knew about God all along. Indeed God has other plans in store for us.

“For there is no distinction since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…He did this too show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.”

…that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. This is really the key phrase. For even though we know instinctively what is right – that God has put an idea of himself in each of us – we still choose to live as the world lives. But through an act of faith – through an act of believing that even though we can’t see or touch God – that God is there and he cares for us, and wants a relationship with us where he can BLESS us. And if we as humanity didn’t get it when God made us leave the garden of Eden, or if humanity didn’t get it when God sent the flood and saved Noah because he was righteous, and if humanity didn’t get it when God gave Moses the law and delivered a people from slavery, or if humanity didn’t get it when the prophets cried for justice as the delivered people lived in captivity because of their unfaithfulness – if humanity didn’t get it at any one of these times – God has sent Jesus so that once again we might yet ‘get it.’

But ‘getting it’ means more than having an idea in your head. ‘Getting it’ means completely giving one’s life over to Christ even when those us don’t understand how we could be so fanatical, or self-righteous, or Jesus-freak, or even simply religious.

In fact ‘getting it’ for the Apostle Paul means dying a death through water and starting over. Hmmm….

He writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:1-4)

This is odd, particularly for those of us who lost a sense of how ritual works in a culture. Baptism for Paul is symbolic of our experience of death and resurrection. We go down into the waters the old person – the person who buys into the values of the world – greed, selfishness, lust for recognition or status – and we come up out of the water a brand new person – clothed in the spirit with love, mututal affection, oriented toward God. Paul says that through baptism we become dead to sin. And we come out clothed with Christ. In a very symbolic way, God has cleaned house, he has wiped the slate clean, and he has given us a second chance. For this reason Paul instructs the Chrsitians in Rome – don’t go back to the life you once lived – but live now on THIS side of the water – in covenant with your God.

What does this life look like? What is life on the other side of the water? Paul, again, in giving direction to new Christians in the middle of a morally chaotic world offers some guidelines.

First, he says, set your mind on the things of the Spirit. (Rom 8:6). While the world around you clamors after the impermanent, illusory, temporary satisfactions, you think on the things that are lasting, that have real value, that are true to the idea of God that has always been inside of you.

Awaken the gift of the spirit that is in you (Rom 12:3-8). When you accepted God through Jesus and in faith, God gifted you to minister to the world in some fashion. One of the ways of living on the other side of the water is to identify your spiritual gift and to use it so that others might find life in Christ.

Let your love be genuine. (Romans 12:9) In a world where love is based on how you meet my needs, Paul tells his new Christians in Rome to be different. Let YOUR love be real and unconditional. Let it be focused on the other person because they belong to God and God loves them. In other words, be real with people.

Bless those who persecute you. (Romans 12:14) Paul is watching the world around him destroy itself as people fight over turf or ego where the only value is might makes right. But the way of Jesus is different. Paul’s church is to bless the one’s who would persecute them. Love the persecutors and in loving them help them to awaken the God-idea that exists in them and can be known through Jesus.

And finally, Paul tells his church, “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:21) The only way evil can be overcome is (1) if people know what is good and righteous and blameless, and (2) if they stick together. In the moral chaos of his time, this church in Rome has been instructed to name evil for what it is and to work together to help each other discover and live for the good – the good that God wants all of humanity to know and experience and live for.

And for Paul this is life on the other side of the water. That like Noah we trust God enough to take us through the water and on the other side offer us new life, a blessed life, a life filled with the Spirit of God.