Message: July 30, 2017 Given by: Geoff Kohler Series: & Noah and the Ark Scripture: Genesis 6:9-22; Psalm 1 Title: Noah & the Ark Noah and the ark is a strange story and, yet, it is one of the most popular children s stories on the planet which is also strange. With children, we focus our telling of the story on the old man and the big boat and all the animals that got saved and the big rainbow at the end. We don t actually tell children the full story because the full story is frightening and troubling. We are talking about God wiping out the population of the earth. That s not very happy, and in fact it is quite a grim story. This is one of the stories that s captured the imagination of people all over the planet and, as we talked about in the story of Jonah, it s one of the stories in the Bible where you have to decide whether it is truth or it s true. And there s been a host of effort made to prove it was true. Even I wrote a story about how the animals were called to come to the ark, and in my story all the animals were young, because you d need small animals to get them all on the ship. Someone has actually done the math on this. They figured out if you were talking about the animals coming of their kind, which is the way the Bible refers to the animals then we may be talking about a certain level of animals that is the genus in biological terms. Determining the number of genus and figuring 2 of some of them and 7 of others of them, they came up to about 30,000 animals. In figuring out the dimensions of the ark and using the lowest possible number associated with the cubit, these folks determined that there was room for 120,000 animals that were all small, younger animals about the size of a large sheep. So, if there were only 30,000, there was plenty of room for the animals, Noah s family and food. And that s just one of the discussions that s been had. We have movies and TV shows on the search for Noah s Ark. We have expeditions to find the ark. We now have, built upon the planet two life-sized replicas of the Ark. One of them is a living museum down in Kentucky. My friend, the actor Curt Cloninger, who has performed here, is the voice of Noah and portrays Noah in the videos that are part of the exhibit. People have worked extremely hard to figure out ways to make the story of Noah be a true story. Page 1
I don t need the story to be true for it to be truth. Part of the truth about the story is that although there are flood/salvation stories all over the planet, ours is different. The other stories involve gods, but they wipe out the planet because humans are too noisy or because they re just tired of them. But there s nothing in those stories about moral issues or the heartbreak of the deity involved. In our story, there is a clear depiction of people separated from God and of the people s inability to respond to God, and God is heartbroken. We need to recognize what s different about our story. And there s another thing when we approach any story of the Old Testament, we need to remind ourselves that this was Jesus Bible. This was Jesus truth about God. As we read the Old Testament, then, we need to interpret it through Jesus. Jesus is the clearest presentation we have of the nature of God and also the best portrayal of how humans are created to relate with God. Jesus knows God. So, if he s the presentation of the character of God and knows the character of God then he found God explained that way in the Old Testament. We need to hang on to these things as we interpret the story. So, it is through the view of life of the people who would have first heard this story and through Jesus that we approach this fascinating story. In the chapter before the part we read, we find that God is looking at humanity and is heartbroken over our violence and evil ways. He determines that the people should be wiped out. This is the first problem we have. How could this be the decision of God? At that time, the way people described the world was that God did everything. We looked at this when we considered the story of Jonah. We saw there that God appoints things a storm, a great fish, a big weed. What I suggested then was that we can interpret those things as telling us that God brought an intentionality into something that was already there. That God used this in the lives of people God s loves. God brings intentionality into moment and, also, God speaks in consequences. God doesn t produce the consequences of our actions. We do. But, God will speak into our hearts through the consequences we experience. This is how to tie together what Peter, in his first letter, says about Noah. At the end of the New Testament we have the Apostle Peter writing that the time of Noah demonstrated God s patience. Now, why would he go there if he hadn t learned through Jesus that God wasn t being angry or vengeful. We re told that God was doing something else. We need to use this to help us make sense of what we re reading. Page 2
What the people of the Old Testament wrote down as God s action can be understood as the living out of the consequence of their own choices. Someone here should be wondering, how could the flood be any kind of choice? The flood wasn t the choice. The choice came out of the lives of the people. The choice came through the choices that were being made continually by the people. Last week we looked at Cain and Abel and how his choices made him and his family move further and further away from God. The choices made by Seth, Cain s second brother, moved him and his family closer and closer to God and after many generations Noah was born and Noah was a man who could hear and obey God. It is through the obedience of Noah that we see the consequences of the choices made by the people who were the descendants of Cain. If you take the age of Noah as about 500 when he started building the ark and about 600 when he entered the ark you could claim it took a hundred years. That may be how it worked, but we can t tell for sure. However, regardless of what number you want to choose, the point of the story is that the building of the ark took a long time. We tie the word we receive from Peter that God s patience is on display with the time it took to build the ark and what we realize is that the way God displayed his heartbreak to the people was by having an obedient man live out his obedience in front of them. Noah creates this enormous sign to the people, an enormous boat that took an immense amount of time, which any of the people could have heard about, gone to see or talked with Noah and his family about. Here was this strange activity, with a strange explanation all of which shouted to the people God is active in the world. God is doing something here. Whenever we, or anyone, recognizes the activity to God, we are receiving an invitation. The invitation is to participate. The recognition of the activity of God is God offering us an invitation to come to his party, to join him in living, to live. God demonstrated his patience to the people of Noah s time by giving them years of watching an obedient man act in obedience. This is one of the ways God displays his nature to the world. He sends his people out to live lives of obedience. What we re called to do is observe when the activity of God shows up. You see, this is why you should come to SENT this year and what you should be doing at SENT. You Page 3
should be showing up to see and learn where God is active in the world. If you come to SENT this year you ll get to be part of Conversations of Calling. We re inviting people who are in business, in medicine, in faith-focused work, in the arts and in education faithful, obedient people to talk with each other about where they recognize the activity of God in those areas. Imagine, if you re an educator or in administration in one of our educational arenas, and you had the chance to sit down with a roomful of other people also involved in education. Suppose these people all shared ways or situations where they see God s activity right now. This is what will be happening in any of the areas of life I mentioned. Doing this might sensitize you to open your eyes more clearly to see where God is active. Hearing other business people tell their stories of where God is at work might remind you of where you ve seen God at work in your life. We are God s people who are SENT to be obedient in the world, displaying the nature of God. How are we to do that in our everyday lives? You who are retired, this means that you have a forum where you get to encourage younger people who are in the workforce or who are developing talents in the arts to see what you ve seen. Noah needed generations of support to get him to the place where he was ready to act in obedience to God. Our church, this church, is the place of generations of people who have opened their eyes, recognized the activity of God and have responded. SENT is the chance we have to gather our resources, to gather our generations and our insights and to gather others into the invitation of God. The people of Noah s time didn t recognize the invitation. God was looking for them to respond, but they had generations of separation built into their hearts and we re not willing to see. And the deal is, the way we respond to the invitation of God displays what we believe about God. When we recognize the activity of God, it is an invitation to participate, and how we respond says what we believe about God. Jesus told a story, a parable, about a rich man who threw a feast for his son s wedding. He invited all these people and they all turned him down. When they received the invitation they all displayed that they thought the man was worthless. They were all busy. They all had something else to do. We are not those people. We are the people who have recognized the invitation and want to keep our eyes open to continue to recognize the activity of God. We want to get together with others who have also decided to participate and learn from them what they re looking at, how they re seeing it and get more attuned to where God is at work. Page 4
In our first Scripture, we are told that the obedient person is like a tree that lives drinking in the living water of God, sustains itself on the river of the sovereignty of God. This person is always flourishing, always growing. This is a person who is getting to know God, to understand God. You see, the point of faith, the point of SENT for that matter, is not about doing good things. It is about knowing God. It s about getting to know God more and more. We re never going to get to the end of knowing God. This is why when Jesus is asked, What must we do to do the works God requires? Jesus said, Believe in the one he sent. Later he connects this with eternal life. If we re going to walk into eternal life like start it right now Jesus says, Eternal life is knowing God and the one whom he sent. The way we walk into life is to accept the invitation of God and to then participate. The way to accept the invitation of God is to recognize God s activity. Sometimes the activity of God is something going on right in our hearts. Sometimes it is something going on in our family. Sometimes it s in our neighborhoods or in our workplaces. Sometimes it s a little something and sometimes it as big as the biggest boat you ve ever seen. You see, what we as a church offer to our city and region in SENT is not a program, or a church activity. SENT is where we lay before anyone who shows up this is where we see the activity of God and we invite them to tell us where they see the activity of God and where we gain the resources, even from each other, to step into participating in the what God is doing right in front of us. The Bible tells us that a long time ago God put an obedient man to work on an immense sign of his presence and activity. In our time, God is placing us in every part of our lives to be a sign of his presence and activity. Because we need help knowing how to do that, knowing what God is saying through it, or even seeing how extensive God is at work, we are hosting SENT to invite people to teach us as we teach them. Page 5