Lent 1B, the appointed readings can be found here
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On Ash Wednesday, I told y’all about how we, as children, were assigned the task of watering down the driveway in order to tamp down the dust. The incessant, insistent, dust that would get everywhere—and the water that would drip, run, and puddle. The dust contained, for a moment.
A moment, that in my mother’s opinion was not long enough. For soon enough, the dust would return. Coating everything. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…all over everything.
I spoke to this, and I spoke to how the cloud of dust that announced the impending arrival of someone come home—how that cloud served as a happy harbinger of return. A physical reminder of home and the truth of enduring love.
What I didn’t speak to, was how, a good chunk of the time…we weren’t happy about the return so much as desperate to plead our case. Because, like many siblings, when my parents left the house, chaos reigned and fists would fly. My brother, would tack fire crackers to door frames so that when an unsuspecting little sister ran through the door, she’d be cowered by the noise and smoke. My sister, coming at me, clawing like a wild cat in response to some arrogance or insult. And, me. I was no innocent. I could fling words like daggers while remaining infuriatingly calm, and I was relatively secure in my position as the “good one”.
So, when that cloud of dust rolled up—we would run.
Run, to plead our personal case. Pretty sure, that whomever got to the door of the truck first, whomever, managed to corner a bewildered parent and plead their case first, whomever presented the most compelling accusations…that they, they alone, would escape unscathed from parental judgement.
I can still picture my Dad’s look of exhaustion as he was confronted, yet again, by wailing self righteousness…
I say all this because, once again, I find myself troubled by the “rainbows make it all better” conclusion of the Flood narrative. I know I’ve spoken of this before, and perhaps you’ve tired of my critique—not specifically of our narrative, but of our neglect to mention that God just destroyed everything and we’re fine with that because Noah and his family were okay and since they were OUR ancestors, yeah, we’re cool with that…
I suspect I’ve now officially ruined any fond childhood memories you may have had about your Tupperware Ark floating about the bathtub and you will never again hear the song, “The Lord said to Noah there is going to be a floody floody” the same way again.
Because, seriously?! We’ve sanitized the flood narrative, just as we’ve sanitized the story of the first Thanksgiving, the pilgrim’s landing, the overthrow of the Hawai’ian monarchy and the spread of colonial Anglicanism. The triumph of our ancestors silencing the voices of the devastated remnant left behind in the mud.
It’s tempting, isn’t it? It’s tempting to tune out from the hard truths and clean up the story to make it palatable to our sensibilities and our siblings. Siblings who may not wish to hear, or remember, the parts of our story that were about our cruelties. Sorry sibs, the truth of who we were wasn’t just about joyful returns heralded by a cloud of dust—it was also about impending vengeance, rubber slippers thwacked against our backsides, and slamming doors.
To note—because these services and sermons are recorded, I may be hearing from a couple of my siblings later. So, Sara, Michael, William, we were AWFUL to each other and adult me is horrified. That said, I forgive you. I hope that each of you can forgive me as well…
Not, so that we can tell some happily ever after and make light of what was. Rather, so that we can continue to do better. Do better to each other, our children, and our children’s children (because, ahem, some of y’all have children’s children).
We need to tell the ugly parts of the story, the hard parts of the story, the muddy, devastating, and wilderness parts of the story. These parts of the story matter and when we dig into our painful pasts we can find meaning. When we look around us and confront the suffering in this world we are gifted the opportunity to change the future’s stories. And, in this, the hard parts of the story and evils we renounce when we look beyond our own narratives, can help us grow into the full stature of Christ—not in spite of these stories but BECAUSE of these stories.
So, lets go back to the ark and rewind the tape.
Rewind to that moment when Noah is informed of the impending flood.
And, God said, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them…
Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.”
And, Noah said, “okay.”
[pause]
Okay, so that’s not really what Noah said. The Bible simply says that Noah did everything the Lord commanded him. Noah doesn’t say anything!
Moses pleads with God on behalf of his people. Abraham, pleads with God on behalf of his people. Noah?
Noah doesn’t say anything.
And, that’s the problem.
The wandering rabbis of the 13th century who brought us the Zohar, a book of interpretations of biblical stories in the Jewish tradition, focus not on God’s destruction but rather, on Noah’s failure in pleading the case for creation. In the Zohar, before the rainbow there is a reckoning,
I lingered with you spoke to you at length so that you would ask for mercy for the world! But as soon as you heard that you would be safe in the ark, the evil of the world did not touch your heart. You built the ark and saved yourself. Now that the world has been destroyed you open your mouth to utter questions and pleas? (with thanks to the Rev. Suzanne Guthrie for her work at Edge of the Enclosure)
Now that the word has been destroyed you open your mouth to utter questions and pleas. Now that you see the work that lies ahead. The work to restore all that you failed to intercede for. Now you are angry?
Noah failed. He failed to plead the case for creation. Noah failed to intervene. Noah never asked God to cease and desist. Instead, Noah built the ark for his own family, loaded it with what was needed for their survival, and escaped the flood. Which leaves me to wonder, was God’s covenant with us made not because of God’s regret but because of God’s awareness that, left to our own devices, we will fail to keep covenant with each other?
Because arguably, it is when we are comfortable and secure that it is easiest to acquiesce to evil. We say nothing because we are unwilling to risk our own security. As for me and my house…as if, me and my house are all that matters. Meanwhile, somewhere else, there are, quite literally, folks who face rising waters, freezing temperatures, collapsing infrastructure, and the destruction of all they have created for themselves and for their neighbors.
As for me and my house…
And, this is our temptation—to plead only for ourselves, to care only for ourselves and to present our case for personal salvation to God. Our personal salvation without care for the salvation of the world entire.
Let us learn from Noah, let us learn from the dusty road, let us learn from our stories—the beautiful and the terrible. Let us learn in this Lenten season, how to plead for the world.
Amen.
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