Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Let us pray.
God our helper, show us your ways and teach us your paths. By your holy spirit, open our minds that we may be led in your truth and taught your will.
Then may we praise you by listening to your word and by obeying it through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
This morning's scripture reading comes from Genesis, chapter nine, verses one through 17.
God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground and on all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
Only you shall not eat flesh.
You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood for your own lifeblood. I will surely require a reckoning from every animal. I will require it. And from human beings. Each one for the blood of another. I will require a reckoning for human life.
Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed. For in his own image, God made humans.
And you be fruitful and multiply. Abound on the earth and have dominion over it.
Then God said to Noah and to his sons, with him, as for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants. After you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth. With you, as many as come out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations.
I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
When I bring clouds over the earth and the bough is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bough is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: So back in my seminary days at Fuller, I had a friend and housemate named Darrell. And one summer, Darrell was exploring internships, and I recommended my home church of La Jolla Presbyterian, that he could work in youth ministry at that church. And he said, that'd be great. We made the arrangements, and I even asked my parents, who live in La Jolla, live there and still do, if they would put him up for the summer. And they were delighted to do that. Darryl, for that particular summer, stayed in a room that had been my brother and my's room growing up. It was in the south area of the house, the southmost room, and it had a bathroom adjoining it. And this bathroom had a door that opened up to the backyard. And that door was often kept, at least a little bit, a jar, so that cool air could come in. You could basically get some fresh air. Well, one night at about 02:00 a.m. Darrell felt a very slight pressure against his right arm because it was so gentle, almost imperceptible. He thought, this is nothing. It's covers or something. And he drifted back to sleep. But then he awoke again with this slight pressure and a faint sense of movement.
So with one swipe of his arm, like you might swipe a fly, he flew his arm like this. And then he heard a whack.
Something hit the wall right next to the bed. Immediately, he sat bolt upright, turned on all the lights, grabbed a flashlight, and looked under the bed. And there, staring him back in the face, was an opossum with that long rat like tail.
That mouth with the thin little teeth was looking right at him. A younger opossum that had thought this was a great cuddle opportunity. I'm going to hang out with Darryl. Well, Darryl was able to coax this opossum out from under the bed. He made a little path for it to get outside, and finally drove it out in back.
Now, Darryl went on to tell that story many, many times, in fact, so many times that when I think of Darrell today, I can't help but picture him in bed with the opossum.
And I thought of Darrell's story the other day when I saw a really large and particularly ugly opossum. And I thought of Darrell's story as I'm watching this opossum and thinking of how that opossum also occupies the same plot of earth, was walking right by our house, I figured this opossum also calls this land, this particular neighbor, our neighborhood, its home.
I thought, this opossum and I breathe the same air. We depend on a common water source that we call the Los Angeles river watershed as our home. I thought of how, in many ways I am like Darrell, in bed with the opossum.
We read in the book of Genesis that this is actually how God designed the whole thing, that human beings would be in a significant way in bed with the opossum, or at least we'd share a home with the opossum and a host of other creatures. Last week, we looked at the agreement or covenant that God made with Adam. An agreement often called the first covenant in scripture or the adamic covenant. Adam, or man, as Adam is translated in the NRSV, is made of the dust of the earth, and he's meant to represent both the first person or human being and also, in many ways, humanity more broadly. And we read last week of how God planted a garden in Eden and placed Adam in that garden. God made to grow every tree that's pleasant to the sight and good for food and also put in the garden the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There was a river that flowed into this garden to give it water. And God gave Adam responsibilities and instructions. He was told to till and care for the garden, and he was told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for death would come with such an act. And then God provided even more bounty with this first agreement God makes with beings through Adam, God formed out of the ground every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man so he could name them. Now, the opossum is not mentioned specifically, but given that today, we think the earliest ancestor of the opossum dates back some 23 million years, why not imagine the opossum was part of the creation story to which Adam gave a name. We then read that after God made all these living creatures to share that home, that garden with Adam, God made a helper or partner or help mate. We read of God taking an I and making a we when it came to human beings.
We read of God taking a rib from Adam and from that rib, making Eve handcrafting one who is both like Adam, flesh of Adam's flesh, bone of his bone, but different as well. A powerful portrait of human community. And it's shaped by God in a garden with other creatures. That garden, it's like creation in microcosm or the earth in microcosm. We're shown a garden where humans depend not just on one another, but on the trees and on other creatures who in turn depend on humans. To till and keep the garden a healthy, vibrant ecosystem. But you remember how the story goes, of course, and Ashley talked about it as well. Human beings break that original agreement or covenant with God, and the shadows of exile and alienation and shame and death and violence all descend on this formerly beautific portrait of a garden that was God's design and gift.
We read then in Genesis of how God's heart was broken by what God saw. God's heart was broken. God observes that creation and that covenant God made with Adam and eve, with the human beings to be responsible for creation, observe proper boundaries within it. That complex web of relationships and commitments that was so good at the start gets all corrupted, messed up, and God determines to hit the reset button. You know, sometimes you gotta hit the reset button when you run into computer problems, right? Sometimes it's the only solution. And yet, when you're working on a crucial document or several crucial documents, and you don't want to lose those, you want to find some way to save what is most important. Before hitting that reset, you want a usb thumb drive or some way to save what is crucial, or you'll lose those in the reset, at least you fear. And we read that this is what God does. That God, before hitting some grand reset button, places a USB stick in the computer. And on that stick, God places not only human beings, not only representatives of humanity. In Noah and his family, God places on this usb stick, called an ark all living creatures.
If the first portrait of creation in microcosm was a garden, the second portrait of creation in microcosm is that ark. It shows not just humans, but every living creature. All creation and miniature, saved by God, protected by God in this web of relationships, cared for together by God. Part of a new creation. Human and animals shared a home in the garden. And when the flood comes, God saves them together by giving them a home together. Humans and opossums, even sharing a sleeping space.
No wonder children love to play with Noah's Ark. One thing I love about miniatures is it helps me to get my head and heart around something. Often buildings or a particular landscape is so big, tough for me to get my head around it. Miniatures can allow us to do that. And so children love this story because in part, it gives us creation in microcosm. Creation, saved by God. And so there are all sorts of toys related to Noah's Ark. I remember one from back when I was five years old. Arko gas stations were giving out free animals from Noah's Ark. A pair of plastic Noah's ark animals each time, you've got your parents to go and fill up at an arco station with at least eight gallons of gas. So at five years old, I'm watching this commercial on Saturday morning television with my bowl full of frosted flakes all hyped up, and I see Noah telling me, you've got to go to your arco station and get these pair of plastic critters. And so, of course I'm saying, mom, we got to go and get these miniatures. So if you want to, you can actually get these today on eBay, though they cost a pretty penny.
There's something powerful about Noah's Ark and how it presents us God's good creation in miniature creation God saw fit to save.
Now, if you find this story not simply a portrait of creation and miniature and how God works to save creation, but if you also find the story of Noah's Ark terrified, you're not alone. There is horror in flood waters, descending over creation and bringing about death and destruction, even as it's ultimately a story of renewal and rebirth. The story of Genesis six through nine, the story of Noah and the Ark, is portrayed as a grand cleansing of creation to terrifying cleansing. And so when we christians call the story of Noah's Ark to mind in baptism, it calls to our mind death, death and then rebirth, dying to sin, rising to new life in Christ. For that's the story we see in Noah, dying and rising sin judged sin, which leads to death. But by God's grace, we see all creation in microcosm. In that ark, humanity and every living creature saved by God's gracious hand. And I wonder sometimes if somewhere deep inside my daughter, she didn't sense the terror of this story of baptism, this story that recalls Noah's ark when she was baptized, my daughter Lucy was just three months old when Jill and I had her baptized. I was serving as an associate pastor out at a church in Connecticut. But for that particular service and for her baptism, I wanted to be the dad and not the pastor. So I asked the senior minister to perform the baptism. He agreed to do it. It was scheduled alongside two other families who were also baptizing little ones. Those other two families, their little ones, they were models of decorum and tranquility. They looked with awe and delight at all that the pastor did when the water went over their heads. They smiled and glowed and were quiet the whole time.
Not Lucy.
Lucy screamed before the baptism. She screamed during the baptism. She screamed after the baptism. My memory of that day is one long wail.
But I wonder if she didn't sense something that was true. There is a terror to dying and rising with Christ, a terror to a God who cleanses and renews all creation, as God did in the story of Noah. There is a terror to a God who judges sin and who allows us to reap its consequences, death. And yet, in baptism, we remember that same God brings renewal, not just to our hearts, though God does that, but also to our lives and to all creation on which we depend. And that depends on us.
Did you notice in today's passage how the covenant God makes with Noah, a kind of renewal or new covenant after the previous one God made with Adam? Do you notice how it includes every living creature? Time and again we read every living creature. I'm establishing my covenant with you and your descendants. God says to Noah, with you and every living creature that is, with you, every living creature. Never again, God says, shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. And God then marks this covenant with a rainbow, a glorious sign of the covenant. And God says, this is a covenant between me and the earth. Me and the earth. What a great phrase for this Sunday, one day before earth day, God acts to save and renew not just people, not all, just creation, not just the opossum, but all, all who share this common home. God makes a covenant with all the earth.
Now there is this provision. We read in Genesis nine that we did not read back in Genesis two, a provision that animals can now be used by humans for food. And yet the call to care for creation is still there. The call to honor the life and blood of every living creature is still there, even though this allowance is made, even though there's recognition made, that human beings have tremendous power over creation. And we do. God warns, human beings, honor the life of all creation, honor the blood. As if to say, this is important. You want to care for it?
God cares. We read through scripture for all the earth. God acts to provide for all the earth. God saves all the earth. And after the flood, after that death, creation endured. God made a promise, a covenant with not just humans, but every living creature pouring out new life.
As Christians, it's this very God we believe came to us in Christ, the God who acted back in the story of Noah to save all creation. God, we read in the book of John, so loved the world, so loved the cosmos, that God sent God's only son, that whosoever should believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That whosoever should believe in him might receive and then be a part of God's renewing, life giving, saving work towards humans and every living creature. That's the life we have in Christ by faith.
You recall how Jesus said to his disciples, consider the lilies of the feet. Consider the birds of the air. He was trying to tell his disciples not to be anxious about what they'll wear or what they'll eat. And he says, look at how God provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. Look at God's provision and care for them. Won't this God also care for you? Jesus says to them, remember, see before your eyes how God cares for all creation. It's that savior we believe rules over not just people's hearts, though God does rule over each of our hearts, but also over all the earth. And we read in Colossians how God is at work in Christ, reconciling all things to God through Christ.
It's that earth saving savior that we celebrate in baptism.
My baptism wasn't terrifying, but it was connecting, profoundly connecting with the earth. I wasn't baptized in a sanctuary like this one, but out in the Pacific Ocean. I was going through a pentecostal phase at this particular time. So I was baptized in assemblies of God church, a church that meant a lot to me at that particular time. And when I was baptized, it wasn't in a sanctuary like this, like my daughter was. And there's a part of me that wishes I was baptized in a sanctuary like this one. This kind of space and all of you who are in it have come to be my family, my community, my home. This is a place where I gather to worship. There is so much about places like this that are resonant and meaningful to me. But one benefit, I will say, of being baptized out in the children's pool of La Jolla is this. That it pointed in a wondrous way to God's love poured out in Christ, not just for me, but for all the earth. It reminded me that my thriving in Christ, my new life in Christ, was tied not just to human community, but all creation that nourishes me and that I'm called to care for and nourished. I was dunked completely in those ocean waters and then lifted up to see not just those from the church I was a part of at the time, but the seagulls and the waves and the sand. When I go there today, I see the many seals who've made that children's pool their home. And I think to myself, into those waters I was baptized into God's saving love for me and those seals and all the earth on which we depend.
Well, friends, in response to God's great love poured out for us in all creation in Christ. May we till and keep the garden. May we answer God's call in Genesis nine and honor the life of humans, each human being and the life of every living creature. May we answer the call of Christ to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. And so, in our shopping, in our choices around energy and transportation, in our eating and what we dispose of and how we dispose of it, in what we advocate for and against, may we answer the environmental crisis of our time with love, love of neighbor, human neighbor, and that neighbor we see in every living creature, even the opossum. May we care for that gift on which we all depend. And in doing so may we proclaim our savior and Lord Jesus Christ in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
