Sermon: Noah, the enviroment and the sanctity of life.

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts, be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

I would like to begin with two news events that, among others, have dominated our thoughts this week. First, the deeply tragic  events in Cumbria, the shooting of so many innocent people, and the grief, anguish and trauma this has brought to so many communities - communities that in recent months have also had to face flooding and a fatal coach crash. And second, the continuing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, and the environmental catastrophe that has seen millions of gallons of oil spewing into the sea and causing havoc with the wild-life and the delicate environment of the coastlands.

The first concerns the sheer horror of inexplicable violence; the second, the risks that we take in pushing the boundaries of engineering in order to exploit natural resources, and we do well to remember that this too cost eleven human lives in the original explosion. Yesterday was World Environmental Day, and I was grateful to the Anglican Cycle of Prayer which directed me to the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, and through that to the impressive amount of reflecting on the environment by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Google: Anglican Communion and Archbishop of Canterbury - environment if you wish to know more. This reminds us of how we need to keep environmental concerns before us. They are part of our mission as expressed in the five marks of mission adopted by the Anglican Communion, the fifth being ‘to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the earth'.

This all seemed very close to home as I pondered the story of Noah, this morning's Old Testament Lesson.

There is so much that can be said about this magnificent narrative; like the rest of Genesis 1-11, it is not history in the normal sense of that word, nor is it merely parable. Rather, drawing on primeval flood traditions and possibly actual memories of  the reality and consequences of flooding, it is a profound exposition of the nature of the God of Israel. It seeks to account for life as it is; this is deep reflection on the human condition and deep conviction about the character of God.  

This morning's narrative comes at the end of the Flood story, as Noah, his family, and the birds, beasts and reptiles, leave the ark and re-inhabit the earth. Truly, this is a new start, a new start that is possible because, despite the sheer reality of human sin and wickedness, there was a man called Noah who was upright. The whole point of the story of the building of the ark, despite the scoffers, is that on the one hand, God is faithful and merciful to those who fear him, and on the other hand, that Noah was obedient; he did as God commanded him.

Certainly, the narrative begins with judgment. Humanity had become corrupt and violent, utterly evil, and so God determined to destroy it. There is a real grief in the words the narrative uses:

And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

There is almost a divine cry of ‘why?'- a cry that must have ascended thousands of times from stricken communities this week. Human beings were made in the image and likeness of God, as co-agents and stewards of creation, as God's masterpiece, and yet it has come to this.  And so, through tears, through as it were a broken heart, God determines to make and end of them. And this judgment on humans has consequences for the rest of creation; the flood will also destroy the plants and trees, birds and animals, reptiles and fish. It is as if a principle of waste has been brought into being, and the fact of waste dominates our human experience - wasted lives, cut short by violence, accident or illness; ruined crops, violence among species, and damage through human greed and folly. And the narrative is blatant about the consequences; time and time again it uses the language of ‘blotting out' every living thing, as if the watery chaos out of which God had first made Eden returns.

But God saves Noah, and a remnant of every living creature enters the ark and survives the flood. Noah in fact shows himself to be the true human being - caring for God's handiwork, and ensuring its safety.  But then note what happens. On the one hand nothing has changed - God still says - ‘the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth'; it is not as if Eden has been restored - it hasn't, as the narrative goes on to demonstrate in Noah's drunkenness and in the sin of his son. Indeed, there is a new dispensation that seems to have reduced humankind nearer to the animals. Previously, human beings were pictured as being vegetarians; now they are given the flesh of every moving thing to eat. And murder is still a reality:

            Whoever sheds the blood of a human,

            by a human shall that person's blood be shed.

A chilling text, which certainly underlines the sanctity of life and the utter sinfulness of homicide, can only point me forward to the death of that human, who died for all - and I am using ‘for' in a very strong sense - the vicarious death of the Son of God for the salvation of a race condemned to death because of sin.

So, in a real sense nothing has changed. But in another sense, everything has changed, because God has changed:

I will never again curse the ground because of humankind.....nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

And that change is linked in the narrative to the fact that Noah offers God an acceptable sacrifice.

And as I sign of that promise, that covenant, which God made not just with Noah, but also with every living creature, God sets his bow in the clouds, as a sign for humanity and as a reminder to himself; the rainbow. It is not without significance that in the Book of Revelation, a rainbow is set around God's throne, as a symbol of his perpetual mercy.

At the beginning of this sermon, I stated that Genesis 1-11 seeks to account for the world as it is; the harsh realities of human sin, folly and violence, the pushing of boundaries, typified by the Tower of Babel, as if humans can storm the courts of heaven and usurp God.  But it also accounts for the fact that the earth endures; it has not descended again into watery chaos, precisely because God is merciful and patient; he will never again abandon his creation, and he seeks after men and women like Noah.

You see, we could become complacent about God's covenant with humankind and every living creature. We could become complacent that seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease. We could take the gift of food, vegetables and meat, and see it as a right to be exploited, so that the welfare of animals and birds becomes of little concern or the fair distribution of food to all is of little importance.  We could simply shrug our shoulders at the phenomenon of waste, as if it didn't really matter; we could accept violence and murder as merely facts of life, without seeking to form our society after God's righteousness and ensure that life is protected and sanctified rather than degraded and callously destroyed.

So, the flood narrative invites us along the path of obedience, and invites to offer such sacrifices as will please God - not least ourselves, our souls and bodies, as a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice to God.

And the Flood narrative perhaps calls us forward to see a principle in God that looks to re-create, until in Christ we see a greater than Noah, whose self-sacrifice deals once and for all with human sin, rebellion, and folly, and re-makes in us the image of God's glory, and calls the earth into a new future, and restored what has been lost and wasted, in the new creation for which we long and pray.

People of Faith, for it is this picture of Israel's God to which we are heirs as Christians, are called to witness to these very things.  Worship renews in us the vision, as well as recalling us to our senses as we humbly acknowledge our sins, personal and corporate. We do not treat God's mercy with complacence or arrogance, for we too fall under judgment. Rather, ‘knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others.'

So, we commend those who have this week died in Cumbria to God's eternal purposes, and we pray for those who need to hear a word of hope, a word of comfort, a word of mercy. And we persevere in using our influence, and thank God we have such agencies in our Church and through our Archbishop a strong voice in public life,  to insist on the care of our planet, as a centre-piece of our mission, to restrain our greedy exploitation of God's wonderful and yet so delicate creation.