“A CHANGE IN GOD’S HEART”
Genesis 6:5-22; 7:24; 8:1,14-19
(06-01-08) Communion

Near the end of our time in Malawi last year,
on the way back from the hospital in Ekwendeni to the capital city of Lilongwe,
our mission team stopped by a craft market on the side of the road.
And as we stopped, what looked like deserted stalls suddenly sprang to life.
Curtains were rolled up, doors opened and vendors came out of nowhere,
dusting off their carvings, unfurling their paintings
and arranging their drums for our inspection.
I was particularly taken by a number of wood carvings depicting the story of Noah’s Ark. These were delicate carvings, done by hand, in rich dark wood,
of the ark and a set of animals which fit nicely inside the ark.
The vendors tried desperately to make a sale,
and while I found them beautiful to look at,
ultimately I reasoned that I didn’t have the luggage space to carry them home,
and in truth my kids hardly needed another toy,
soon to be cast off into the black hole of forgotten toys.

And isn’t it true that many of us think of the Noah’s ark account as a children’s story,
the animals entering the ark two by two and the rainbow at the end.
How many baby’s rooms have I seen decorated with this motif?
When our first child Jacob was born,
among the many gifts we received was a lovely Noah’s ark with all the animals
and it had a wind up mechanism which played a beautiful tune.
But over the past few years, with the Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina
and most recently Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar,
we have been bluntly reminded that floods,
especially ones of large scope, are a force of terrible devastation,
and not the stuff of some cuddly children’s story.
The story of Noah and the flood
is an account of immense sadness and terrible destruction,
but ultimately it is also a story of merciful grace.
The opening words of our reading this morning from Genesis 6
contain some of the most poignant words in scripture.
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth
and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.
And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth
and it grieved him to his heart.
And so the Lord said, I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created…
for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Imagine what it took for God to be grieved in his heart,
for God to be sorry that he had made humankind in the first place,
so sorry that God concludes that the only appropriate response
was to blot out all life from the earth!
Two weeks ago Rev. Walker preached from the creation account in Genesis
and we heard that when God created the earth and all that is in it, including humankind, God saw that it was good.
But all the good intention in the world, even God’s good intention,
wasn’t enough to keep the free will of humankind from rejecting God’s purpose
and embracing corruption and violence.
And so God determined to reverse the process of creation.
At creation, the waters of the earth were separated by the formation of a dome, the sky. In the flood, the waters were released from the sky,
the windows of the heavens were opened, says scripture,
and all the fountains of the great deep also burst forth.

But in the midst of this deluge, there is a small island of hope.
Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, Noah walked with God.
And so, despite God’s sadness, despite God’s grieved heart,
God still found room for mercy and compassion.
This is what makes the flood story one of hope and grace.
Our reading from Genesis does not cover the entire flood narrative,
it is quite long and detailed.
But it would be accurate to say that God is angry,
God is quite purposeful in what he does.
God has made up his mind to undo what he has done in creation.
The waters raged for forty days and nights
and for one hundred and fifty days the waters swelled on the earth.
But then something remarkable happens.
God remembers Noah and all the animals that were with him in the ark.
The words of scripture are unmistakably clear.
God remembered Noah.
In the past I have said that there is a condition which is worse than death
and that is to be lost to God
and that there is a condition which is better than life
and that is to be found by God.
To be lost to God, to be forgotten by God, is our worst nightmare.
When we suffer, when we doubt, when we are overcome by pain and tragedy,
often our frustrations and fears are expressed in the cry, “God, where are you?”
When life seems too difficult to endure
it seems as if God himself has forgotten us.
But we also have known what its like to be found by God,
to be remembered by God.
We’ve also known times when from the bleakness of despair
we have come to know a love and a compassion, a hope and a healing,
which brings light from darkness and meaning from confusion and uncertainty.
We come to realize that God remembers us,
or maybe its that we remember God
and we are reminded that God is faithful.

Our belief in God’s faithfulness is rooted in what God has done.
The Biblical flood story is seminal for our understanding of God
and God’s relationship with us.
There are plenty of flood stories from the same area of the world
which are contemporary with the Noah story.
Babylonian, Sumerian, Assyrian and Egyptian to name only a few.
Perhaps my favorite flood story is from the Kikuyu tradition in Kenya
which says that the old spirits destroyed a town by flooding it with beer,
while the inhabitants took refuge in caverns nearby.
I always wonder whether that should be caverns or taverns.
While there may be many different flood stories
and while there may be some sharing within these differing stories,
there is something profoundly unique about the Biblical flood story,
the image of a God who is not flighty or cruel or weak,
but one who is compassionate and moved to mercy.
(Kate Huey, Waters of New Life. i.ucc.org)
This unique revelation is what makes scripture sacred and inspired.

There is a balance to the flood story which is not obvious at first glance.
But when we study the text we find a remarkable symmetry
which suggests a clear agenda.
First, God resolves to destroy, then Noah builds the ark.
Next, God orders Noah to enter the ark and the flood begins.
The earth is flooded for 150 days.
Then God remembers Noah.
As he does, the waters recede from the earth, another 150 days.
The flood ends and God orders Noah to leave the ark,
just as he had ordered him to enter the ark.
After leaving the ark, Noah builds an altar,
balancing his act of building the ark.
And finally, the God who began the whole process by resolving to destroy,
resolves never again to destroy.
At the center of all this is God’s remembering Noah.
God faithfulness leads to a change of heart.
God will not destroy again, but he will recreate.
Noah is the new Adam and through him and his family,
God will not forsake his creation.
Noah is told to go forth, be fruitful and multiply,
just as Adam and Eve were told in the Garden of Eden.

God is faithful.
The problem is that we are not.
Our human corruption and violence
led God to consider just ending the whole sad saga of humanity.
But even in his righteous judgment,
God found room for compassion,
God found room for grace.
Because of Noah, God had a change of heart.
The decisive point of the flood story
is that God rejects violence as the answer to violence.
Humanity’s rejection of God led to a just decision of God to reject humanity.
But the God of Noah is not like the other gods of the time.
He is merciful, he is gracious,
because his heart can, and does, change.

Don’t think that God isn’t moved,
to anger, to grief and to joy, by our human behaviour.
God isn’t some sort of monolithic stone, once set, never to change.
Abraham negotiated with God to spare a city for the sake of ten righteous people.
God spares Nineveh because the people of that city repent.
God is moved by our behaviour.
And so I believe that God must be very grieved at what he sees today on our earth.
Humanity is broken in so many ways.
In Calgary this past week, we have known that brokenness in such horrifying ways.
And sadly, there is so much more.
How many more stories are there in places around our world that we just don’t hear about, that just don’t affect us on such an intimate level?
Violence still reigns in so many parts of the world.
Conflict, corruption, contradictions are ubiquitous.
Humankind’s inhumanity towards one another never ceases to shock us.

I cannot doubt that God must be grieved in his heart.
God must be so sad at so much of what he sees.
But as I said earlier, the uniqueness of the Biblical flood story
is the revelation of a God who is compassionate and moved to mercy
in spite of his grief and sadness.
The good news, the hope for us and for our world is that God,
who in Noah had a change of heart and vowed never again to destroy,
is faithful.
He is true to his word.

And when Noah as the new Adam didn’t change the trajectory of human behaviour,
God found still another way.
This morning we gather around this table
in remembrance and in hope of God’s gift of his son Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the new Adam,
this time once and for all, fulfilling God’s intention for creation
by taking on himself the brokenness of our world,
its violence, its corruption, its sin,
and redeeming us by his death and resurrection.

This table is about hope,
its about the promise of a God whose heart is changed
because God remembers and is compassionate and merciful.
This table is the promise
that in a world in which there is such great sadness and tragedy,
where we often wonder where God is,
whether God has forgotten us,
God does remember,
God is faithful.

Every time we think that God doesn’t care,
can’t bother to be involved
or is powerless to do anything about our situation,
we are invited to come to the table and remember
that God cares so much that he gave us his own son,
that God chose to be involved with us
at the most intimate level in Christ’s incarnation,
that God has done in Jesus,
what we are completely powerless to do,
which is to bring hope from despair, life from death.

In our pain and in the face of senseless tragedy and suffering,
this table is the reminder that God knows what it means to suffer
and it is the promise that suffering, pain and hardship will not be the final word.
In our brokenness, in the violence of our world,
this table is the reminder that God knows how it feels to be broken,
God is very familiar with the violence we humans can inflict,
but it is also the promise that God is a God of healing,
of restoration, of reconciliation and of peace.
Noah’s story is the story of a God whose heart is moved toward us,
which finds its ultimate fulfillment
in the gift of Jesus Christ, God’s own son, for God’s creation.

My friends, this is the table of our Lord.
It is a visible reminder of God’s faithfulness to us in Jesus Christ,
yesterday, today and for all eternity.
Whatever your need is, wherever you may be,
God invites you to know his forgiveness, his healing,
his love, and the promise of his peace.
So come and do this in remembrance of Jesus Christ, God’s son,
just as you are remembered by God.

And to God be the glory, now and forevermore, Amen.