Scripture: Genesis 7:1-5; Romans 8:38-39; Matthew 11:28; Exodus 16:13-20 Series: 2021
Part of the 2021 ‘Songs of the Bible’ children’s-music series, this sermon on Genesis 7:1-5 moves past Noah’s ark as merely a cute story of animals and obedience. Using Hugh of St. Victor’s medieval reading of four arks—Noah’s boat, the church, wisdom, and grace—Wilson argues the ark matters here and now: Jesus calls all the diverse ‘animals’ into the church for protection; Wesley’s works of piety (prayer, fasting, Scripture, communion, Christian conferencing) keep us afloat as the ark of wisdom; and grace is the only power by which we love neighbor and enemy. Like manna, this grace and peace cannot be hoarded but must be shared, calling the world two by two into a ‘great big boat’ of welcome and love.
Illustrations: kids-animal-noises-ice-cream, hepburn-tracy-antediluvian, global-flood-myths, archaeologists-finding-ark, han-solo-carbonite, kant-duty-morality, hugh-st-victor-four-arks, barbecue-ark-pit, diverse-animals-ark, christian-conferencing-grow-group, offering-song-lost, manna-wilderness, index-fund-real-estate
June 13
Big Boat
The Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark with your whole household, because among this generation I’ve seen that you are a moral man. From every clean animal, take seven pairs, a male and his mate; and from every unclean animal, take one pair, a male and his mate; and from the birds in the sky as well, take seven pairs, male and female, so that their offspring will survive throughout the earth. In seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will wipe off from the fertile land every living thing that I have made.” Noah did everything the Lord commanded him. Genesis 7:1-5
Kids love ice cream. It is an amazing moment to watch a child eat ice cream for the first time. Especially on a hot day. They love it! Something else kids love are animal noises. I think part of it is any excuse to be loud, but kids love animal noises. I didn’t really think about this until I started writing children’s songs. This is even more true for smaller kids, 1 and 2 year olds. They can make an animal sound before they can speak. Noah saved the animals two by two. But is there anything else to the story of Noah beyond an excuse to make some animal noises?
My friends, we’re continuing the series on songs of the Bible that looks through the scriptures in a way guided and retold in music. There are a lot of explicit songs in the Bible, but it all can be turned into song. For God’s love for us is so great that we cannot help but sing. Today we are looking at Noah’s Big, Big Boat.
I have never preached a sermon on Noah. I have alluded to him from time to time, but never focused on this story. Usually, it is seen as just a story. An old word that you hear in old movies is Ante-diluvian, which means before the flood. It means something that is very old. I can just see Katherine Hepburn telling Spencer Tracy, you’re being so ante-diluvian” Another place the flood comes up is in some really bad interpretations of the Bible which talk about the curse of Ham and use that as an excuse to justify slavery and racism, but that is not what is going on here.
On the surface, with Noah, we have a nice story. There is a righteous man who obeys God and he and his family are saved. We also have a lot of animals, which are fun to think about conceptually.
A global flood is not a unique story to the Hebrew People. The epic of Gilgamesh from Babylon contains a global flood. The choctaw people had a flood myth. The Cree and the Inuit had a flood myth. The Egyptians had a flood myth, as did people in India and in what is now Malaysia.
The flood is not unique. The boat is not unique. Other myths had boats.Every once in a while, there will be news reports that Archeologists have found Noah’s Arc. This is fine, but our faith is not in the wooden remains of a giant boat but in the God made evident there. As a teacher of mine said in a different context, if you need evidence of a giant boat to believe in God, worship that evidence, don’t worship God. The point of the bible is not to offer us a series of facts about the world. The bible is God’s word to us. That doesn’t make it less true but more true. God’s word is not frozen in carbonate like Han Solo. God speaks to us this day from these words that are true.
A simple sermon about the flood is that Noah was obedient to God and we should be obedient, also. Even when the rest of the world is crazy or is laughing at us while we build a great, big boat
I think this is good for what it is, but “obey God!” doesn’t make for a good children’s song. Kids aren’t engaged by singing about obeying God or obeying their parents, no matter how much parents might enjoy hearing our kids sing joyfully about obeying us.
Some versions of faith move little beyond obedience. The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it. In the same vain, some philosophers (Kant) say that you can only do good for the sake of doing good or out of duty for it. For instance, they would argue that if you work at the Farmacy because you enjoy gardening, it isn’t morally good. To be morally good would be to work at the garden especially if you didn’t enjoy it. This is not how God shows us to live in the Bible.
When we dig a little deeper, we find a lot more than obedience and duty in the story of Noah and the Ark.
The vast tradition of the church shows us ways of joyfully finding God in the Scriptures in surprising places. For instance, the medieval Hugh of St. Victor read in Noah’s ark four arks that we should pay attention to.
The first is the ark that Noah made with his hatchets and axes, using wood and pitch. The second is the ark that Christ made by gathering his church together. The third is the ark that wisdom builds in our heart by the means of grace. And the fourth ark is what grace gives us to love powerfully in this world. The first is Noah’s ark, the second is the ark of the church, the third is the ark of wisdom and the fourth the ark of grace.
This story takes on a lot more depth now. We are not just talking about something happening a long time ago or fun animal sounds. Here and now, the ark matters for us.
The first ark of Noah matters because it shows the promise of God to the faithful. As well, the promise of the rainbow that God will not destroy the earth again. Barbeque lovers should also be big fans of Noah’s ark because it is after the flood that God allows humans to eat animals. I bet clever welders could design a pit that looked like an ark.
This is good and true but it is not the end of God’s message for us.
The second ark, the ark of the church, matters because when we read Genesis this way, we see Jesus as Noah and you and I as the animals being brought into the ark. We have been called by Jesus into the safety of the church in order to be protected and healed and comforted in the midst of the floods of this world that can tear at us. And so in the song, when Noah finds two monkeys and two bears, we are the ones Jesus finds. God includes the vast diversity of humanity within the ark of the church. The ark is not just filled with cute puppies and nothing else, but sheep and lions, bears and platypi. God tells Noah to find two of every kind, not two of all the good kinds. Snakes and wolves are there, too. We don’t pick who belongs to the church. The church is not a place for the in and hip crowd or folks who have their lives all together. Jesus calls us all. If we are truly being the church, when we look around at each other in worship, it only makes sense that we are together because of Jesus. The church is not a social club but the body of Christ called together here and now.
We next move to the 3rd ark, the ark of wisdom. Here, we can read in this story how John Wesley’s works of piety offer us an ark from the dangers of this world. That is, praying, fasting, studying the Bible, worshipping together, sharing communion, all of these keep us close to God so that we can hold on to the wisdom of God. We are not saved by works but once we see God’s love, we can understand that doing the things of God keeps us safe in the midst of this world. Prayer is always an act of faith. Prayer is an absurd action if there is no God. Prayer reminds us of God’s presence and love. Prayer keeps us afloat. Fasting is a practice that keeps us afloat when done out of faith. Fasting reminds us that we do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Studying the Bible, reading, taking time with God keeps us afloat. Wesley saw Christian conferencing as a means of Grace. That does not mean going to Christian conferences, but participating in something akin to a grow group: a transformational conversation about where God is and what God is doing in your life.
Finally, we have the fourth ark, the ark of grace and power, the ark of God’s graciously offered love. We need God’s grace to truly love and give of ourselves. This ark is not one that we build on our own. We are given the plans to love our neighbor, and the tools to do so: Grace. Grace is how we love our neighbor. Grace is how we love our enemies. Grace is offered to us so that we can rise above the flood waters of selfishness and narcissism. We are given the plans to love our neighbor, but we have to invite our neighbor out of love. And some neighbors are two monkeys, some are two bears, some are walruses, some are two hare’s or rabbits. Loving our neighbor is not about moral fortitude or finding the easy people to love. It is grace all the way down. We are offered grace in God’s power to love even when we are weak and feel like we are drowning in a flood.
God said to Noah build a great big boat. God says to us, you can’t do this alone, here is the heart of Jesus. Where you fall short, Jesus holds you fast. Where you are weak, he is strong. Where you are lost, he will find you. Like in the offering song, Lord I’m lost, be my way back again. Oh Lord I’m lost, be my way back. God offers us this shelter.
Jesus says, “go and love your neighbor. Go and feed the hungry. Go and clothe the naked. Not just for duty or obedience but to find me there.”
We are offered the great privilege of calling others into life with God amidst the turmoil of this world. The world of Noah was threatened by an overwhelming flood. What do we need protection from today? That is a deep and important question. People try to stoke our fears on social media, on the news, in politics, about who are enemies are and who we are threatened by. Who is the threat? Who is the enemy?
What we find in Jesus and in faith is that the threats that the world complain about do not come close to threatening the body of Christ. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. Not sword nor famine nor the war on Christmas, nor mainstream media, nor democrats nor republicans, nor Hollywood nor social media. Nothing can separate us from Christ’s love. Jesus said come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Jesus offers us rest and peace in the ark that is the life of faith. The peace does not last if we hoard it. Like the people of Israel with Mannah in the wilderness. The Hebrews were freed from slavery in Egypt by God. They were wandering in the desert. They were hungry. They were tired. God heard their cries and offered them food, but only what they needed. God gave them manna every morning, enough for them to survive. On Friday, God gave them twice enough so they wouldn’t have to gather on Saturday, the Sabbath. But not everyone listened to God. Some gathered more than they needed and stored it up. And what happened to this Manna? It rotted away.
The grace and peace, the security of the arc of Christ is offered to us not as a storehouse for us to hoard but so that we can, in turn, be the body of Christ calling the world two by two into the safety and rest of Christ’s love. We cannot put God’s love into an index fund. We can’t put God’s love into a new real estate venture. Like the Manna, God’s love is offered for us to share. God offers us an ark in the church to share love. We can receive. We can share it. We cannot hoard it. We cannot deny God’s love to others or else we will start to lose it. The church is not perfect. We are not perfect. We don’t have it all together. I don’t have it all together. And I’m talking about the real, nitty gritty, down in the weeds love of meltdowns and tragedies and life changes and self-doubt. God wants us to be there for each other on this boat especially when we look and around and we are surprised by who we see. We are an imperfect people made whole by the perfect love of God. We are not complete. We have more room on this boat. Let us go and gather folks two by two or three by five or however many it need be.
God said to Noah build a great big boat. God wants our church to be a great big boat. You are loved by God. You are welcome here.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.