The World-Saving Power of One Person
We take our lesson today from the early chapters of Genesis. We’re in the part where God is creating and we’re learning things about God, things about ourselves, and things about the world.
By the sixth chapter, which introduces Noah and the Flood, we’ve just got the world set up. The first birds are singing their first songs. We’ve got oceans. The glorious cadence of day and night has begun its rhythm. Stars light the skies. And God holds the whole thing together.
Things are starting to buzz. People fan out and populate the countryside. You can almost hear music as everything begins to run smoothly.
Then suddenly, like a record scratch, we learn that the creator wants to wreck it. You and I read this and immediately think that such a thought sinks beneath our moral standards. “What kind of loving God would destroy the world?” We all know sophisticated people who have little patience with what they think are primitive religious ideas of God’s judgment and wrath. I imagine them sweeping away the whole idea and the Bible and religion with one quick dismissive back-hand gesture.
Of course, the problem is the people. People as a whole were bad. They were violent. Evidently, that evil was carrying the world in a direction that God never intended. God’s dilemma was like that of the potter at the potter’s wheel. It always takes a couple of starts before the pot starts taking the proper shape in the craftsman’s hands.
But before we decide too quickly that this is below our moral standards, we might just read it again carefully to make sure we’re not too hasty. When we do this a couple of interesting discoveries jump out. For example, God is crying. “God was sorry that he put people on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.” Wow! We know that people are really messing up. And they aren’t doing petty stuff like throwing gum wrappers in the streams. All of humanity is corrupt and violent. People have messed up and God wonders if he has messed up.
I don’t believe we’re looking at a holy temper tantrum here. But something has gone terribly wrong and it looks as if God wants to put the whole project in reverse and un-create the world.
Now as I think about Noah and God working on this problem of the coming Flood, I’m actually feeling a jolt of encouragement. Let me try to explain why I get a secret little thrill with this story. I like this because it’s something that is quite similar to what you and I are facing with all of this talk about global warming.
Here you and I are in 2019 and the news media and book publishers and even kids are sounding all five alarms about climate change. Global warming. Why isn’t climate change like the dozens of other problems you and I’ve faced and solved in our lives? We managed to get through world wars, nuclear buildups, the hole in the Ozone Layer, the crack cocaine epidemic, the y2k crisis (remember back on New Years day 2000 when all the computers were going to bring civilization to a halt?) and on and on. Why isn’t global warming like all the other problems from nuclear bombs to bullying?
Here’s why. Because warming, if it keeps rising, will bring about the extinction of most animals. And you and I, or rather our grandchildren are likely to be among the species that will also go crashing down in a savage struggle. Planet Earth has just gotten a stage 5 cancer diagnosis and the only remedies available are experimental cures.
I’ve never in my 67 years actually believed that the world wasn’t going to go marching on forever. I’m accustomed to thinking that every problem will get solved, that the bad guys will lose big in the end, the poor will get healthcare and air conditioning, and that we’ll have an endless roll out of gadgets even better than iphones. The thought that the big curtain is coming down only a few decades after my death but before the end of my granddaughter’s life span, is too upsetting to contemplate carefully. Something in me clicks into the stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance.
Let me tell you something about myself. I’ve always been the clever one who can think up some way to reframe someone’s dilemma or deliver reassuring news from the pulpit. But global warming and the slow decay of all those marvelous mechanisms that have kept Planet Earth running smoothly for millions of years stumps me. To realize that this problem isn’t going to go away is like Hollywood quicksand. I’m sinking and no matter how hard I struggle I continue to inch down.
And there’s no wisdom out there that has got this under control. I can’t phone some minister or counselor and hear from his or her voice that I need to stop catastrophizing and calm down and that everything is going to be fine. I can’t go back in my imagination and recall that my grandfather or dad got through that was a lot worse than this.
This is because nothing quite like this has ever happened before.
Remember now that I’m trying to say why I find Noah’s story gratifyingly. The reason is this: Noah also faced the end of the world. In fact, the rising water in Noah’s time isn’t all that different from the sea level rise that is a big threat from climate change. Noah, like us, knew what was coming and he was called to behave responsibly.
You’ve heard that saying that proud Marine Corps people say: “There’s no fight that is too big for the United States Marine Corps.”
Here’s what I’m saying that I’m feeling good about. There’s no problem that is too big for the Bible. So just finding end of the world stuff in there, and this isn’t the only place, is reassuring.
Someone says, this sermon is becoming a pretty big stretch. The Genesis Flood, a story out of the Bronze Age was not the greenhouse effect. Maybe you’ve dismissed that story as a relic of the Sunday School nursery years ago.
But what draws me to this story today is that the Bible has the guts (if I can be so blunt) to look squarely at the prospect of the end of the world. And to offer a response that is actually pretty cool.
So what happens? We know the story. Noah builds an ark. The ark saves the animals. Now, I just read in the newspaper that the North American bird population has plummeted by 1/4th in the last 50 years, and I read about Noah saving the animals and my response is, “Hmmm.” Pretty ironic.
Anyway, Noah builds an Ark under God’s guidance. God gives the plans. Wait a minute. God just created the earth and the stars and even Noah, but he needs Noah to build a boat to rescue the world? Okay.
The Bible even gives the dimensions of the Ark. The dimensions come in cubits which are about 18 inches. You need a calculator to convert the measurements. So the Ark is to be three hundred cubits long; fifty wide; thirty high.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I tend to fast forward through details in the Bible such as begats and lists of names in inventories of Temple impliments and blueprint details like the dimensions of Noah’s Ark. I’ve preached for 40 years. I’ve probably preached on this text 6 or 7 times at least. And I’ve never bothered to dig out the calculator and ponder those measurements.
So there have been a couple of people or groups of people who have attempted to rebuild a life-sized replica of the Ark. I’m thinking of the recently opened Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky. They were actually using the dimensions given here in the Bible. And when you look at what they build it hits you. That thing was huge. Really! You can see it from space. Now, the Ark in Kentucky was built with modern equipment. Christian millionaires needed to make large donations to get the project going.
The final result has tours that run through it. It’s like a museum. It’s more like a building than a boat, which is to say not sea-worthy. In fact, it isn’t even rain worthy. I know this because I read a news story about how the Ark Challenge company was in a dispute with their insurance company, which didn’t want to cover some rain damage. So Noah’s Ark was even cooler than Kentucky’s.
The real miracle in this story isn’t that there was a huge flood. The miracle is what one person manages to do if he will pay attention to what God is telling him and do what he is asked to do.
There’s more. Once Noah gets moving, God gets moving. I know that we tend to think of it the other way around. God leads the way and if we’re faithful, we follow. But in this story and many, many that follow in both testaments, God rides to the rescue on the faithfulness of people. We’ve got to do something. And then God does something. The whole sermon is right there.
Now watch how that works. The Ark finally comes to rest. The waters recede. The people and animals walk out onto land. Look at Noah. He builds an altar and sacrifices a couple animals as a Bronze Age way of saying, “Thank you Lord, for getting us through all of that.” (Don’t ask me where the animals came from, given the fact that Noah only let mating pares on board. I’m not going to get that one explained in this sermon.)
But here’s what happens. God smells the sweet smoke of Noah’s sacrifice and resolves in God’s own heart, “I’m never going to do that again. And just so God doesn’t forget his change of heart about destroying the world he places the rainbow in the clouds. Many times when it clouds up and threatens rain, there may be a rainbow that reminds us that this is never going to get out of control like it did when the earth was brand new.
What can we take from this story? You’ve surely noticed that I’ve left many questions that could be asked about this ancient story on the table. What do we make of God changing his mind? First he feels that his creation of the world is a false start and he wants to start over. Then he is weeping and blaming himself and wondering if he should have started a world in the first place. Then he’s working with Noah to rescue. Then God is vowing with the Rainbow Covenant: “I’m never going to do that again.” There are a lot of mysteries about God here that all of us are left to ponder.
Certainly, in a time when scientists are saying that we’re in the early stages of going extinct, we need to hang onto that promise at the end when God says that he’ll never destroy his creation. But again, how that will work out remains a mystery. Something tells me that to grab hold of that final promise that the world will always be okay and forgetting everything else is too simple. But there’s lots of grace there and it feels darn good.
What grabs me in this story is Noah. The person himself. Here’s someone who listened to God. He did what he was told. He clearly labored day in and day out, maybe for years at his appointed task. Did he save the planet? No. But wow, he saved a lot. That’s what I mean by the title of this sermon: “The World-Changing Power of One Person.”
Noah’s not the only one in the Bible who made an outsized difference as a single individual. Moses. Abraham. Samuel. Paul. They were often flawed individuals. David. They made mistakes. But they listened to God and changed the world.
Jesus entire ministry is peppered with examples of what I’m celebrating here, namely that in the face of a monumental crisis, you have monumental power.
Remember that story when Jesus and the disciples were crossing the water in a boat and they were overtaken by a terrifying storm. Hmm, we’ve got another storm in the Bible, a fact that we ought to be paying attention to in our time of mega-storms.
Anyway, Jesus and the disciples are bobbing on the waves out of sight of land and suddenly overtaken by a storm. Jesus is asleep in the bow of the boat as it climbs up the mountain of one wave and down like a Hawaiian surfer on the other. The disciples, some of whom are experienced fishermen, are terrified. They scream at Jesus. Wake up! How can you sleep. Don’t you even care?
Jesus is eerily calm. He cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “Shaaad uuuuup!”
What happens? Bam! The sea is as calm as a Japanese Koi Pond. Jesus looks at his dumbfounded disciples with an ever so subtle smile on the his lips. “So, what is the problem?” he says, “still haven’t gotten the faith-thing going I see.” With that he lays down and is snoring in 10 seconds.
A glorious question hangs in the air. “Who then is this that even the wind and waves obey him?” We know the answer. The answer is so glorious that the text doesn’t state it outright. We just have a question. “Who then is this that even the wind and waves obey him?” Who is it? It’s the one whose Spirit blew over the original wild waters and calmed them. It’s the one who ordered the chaos by simply speaking to it. Who is it? We know who it is.
Now that’s not the end of it. There is, I would submit, yet one more even more jaw dropping message in this story. Not only is the creator God riding around in the boat with the disciples, but that very God expects…are you ready for it? That very God expects that the disciples be doing the same thing. Where’s your faith, guys? Hasn’t it clicked in with you that awesome power for good resides in you? Don’t be afraid to be as good and as beautiful and as powerful as you are!
At the heart of our faith is this principle that God does his greatest work through people who were willing to carry their own plans for an ark.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that you and I are living in times that are no less dire than the time that Noah lived in. Righteous men and women are those who will face that. They’re the ones who take their assignment and set to work. Each of us has an ark somewhere in our thoughts and hearts. If you can’t think of something in this moment, begin to listen for it. Pray about it. Believe me, you have an assignment, and you’re important to what desperately needs to be done. God gives us the dimensions. The plan will be audacious. It will demand your toil and heart. And it will make a powerful contribution to the saving of this world.
