PHOTO BY CAITLIN SWITALSKI Sermons from Park Hill Congregational UCC Denver, Colorado Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] February 18, 2018 “Anguish and Rage at the Slaughter of Innocence” Genesis 9: 8—17 New Revised Standard Version Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” It is “funny” how the story of Noah and the ark is found in the form of rainbows and bunnies and elephants on the walls of nearly every church nursery in the country – a virtual trip to the children’s zoo. We even sang about it in Vacation Bible School. The Lord told to Noah to build him an arky, arky…. Another verse, there’s like 10 of them, sang how The animals they went in by twosies, twosies, twosies, and a later verse sang how they came out in threesies, threesies, threesies, (who knew that Bible School was covertly teaching sex ed). The last verse proclaims that everything is now hunky dory, dory… Both religious and non-religious people know this story. But turning Noah’s Ark into a cute story about pairs going two by two, about how everything works out in the end, robs it of the shock. Right? All but two of every living creature is destroyed in an act of vengeance. Every man, woman, and child, except for one upright, but still imperfect, family dies by the intention of their creator. But, hey, everything worked out in the end. This is nothing if it isn’t a story of genocide. Using violence as a solution. Noah’s Ark describes divine wrath, explained as disgust so deep that God is said to have even regretted creating humankind.[1] That’s extreme, but in other ways, I get it. There are times I’m right there with God. Well, maybe not with the whole genocidal death and destruction thing, but tempted by the exasperation of thinking that perhaps the only way to make things right is to start over again. It’s often a theme of the prophets heard in Advent. But, in fact, at the end of Noah’s story, things didn’t actually work out very well.[2] Which God realized even before the whole episode was done. “So,” God said, “I’ll put a bow in the sky to remind me not to do it again.” Let me stop for a moment and acknowledge how this story and many others in the Bible are highly anthropomorphic – which means God is assigned human characteristics. Human feelings, not unlike the fish in Finding Nemo or Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy. But a dog is a dog, no disrespect, and a fish is a fish. And God is God. We can’t comprehend with our limited intellect and language what is ultimately a mystery. So, therefore, to understand, we often assign God human characteristics – language, feelings such as anger or despair, impulses, or the lack of impulse control, such as, for example, resulting in the death and destruction of all humankind and every living creature. It’s OK to assign God human characteristics. We can’t help but describe God through the lens of human experience. But we have to acknowledge we’re doing it and why. And to me, the why is, God is personal, not just a mystery. I need some form of language to express this, to express a relationship built on feelings and faith. It matters to me that I know that God “hears” our prayers. It matters to me that I know God “speaks” words of encouragement and caution and guidance. Although the song In the Garden is hopelessly hokey, dripping with sappy sentimentality, sometimes, like we experienced again this week, these words about Jesus say exactly what we need to hear: “And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.” Indeed, God is a mystery: described both as distant as the farthest star and as close to us as our breathing. So, yes, God is incomprehensible. And, God is completely comprehensible. So, back to the text. You know the basic outline of the Noah story. 40 days and 40 nights of rain. Months aboard an arky, arky before landing on dry ground, evidenced by a dove and an olive branch, everything back to hunky dory, dory. Genesis chapter 6 is the set up for the story. In it we are given the reason why God was driven to start over: “The inclination of the human heart is evil.”[3] Therefore God initiated a flood. But then, even before the end of the story, God promised, “I won’t do that again. The next time I’m ready to destroy humanity, I’ll put a bow in the sky so I can see it and stop myself.” How human of God to have a bad memory! But, curiously, then God reiterated, “The inclination of the human heart is evil.”[4] For exactly the same reason, God brought about the flood and God promises never to do it again. It’s easy to see why most interpreters describe this as a story of divine wrath. And as the justification for God’s anger to boil over. And even the extreme consequences – although it’s resemblance to an excuse for an abuser is disturbing. Did anyone else catch that? But that’s another sermon. This is a story of divine wrath. Or. At least one interpreter sees Noah’s story as one of divine grief. The kind of grief felt by a parent whose children get into trouble. Scott Hoezee explained: God’s heart was broken by the way humanity treated one another. God was deeply wounded and in pain. And so, this was God’s grief, not wrath. So, think about it from the perspective of a parent whose son or daughter gets into serious trouble. If it hasn’t happened to us, we watch enough news to imagine it. Hoezee said, “Most of the time what parents feel is not as much anger as it is deep, deep pain and heartache. Their response is often more tears than tirades. Sometimes people speak the language of anger and retribution, but at the heart, it’s grief.”[5] What they say and do is anguish, not rage. Although I’m not sure the distinction matters. In America on Wednesday, 17 more children and coaches and teachers were gunned down, at least 14 more wounded, and more than 3,000 were mentally, spiritually and emotionally wounded for a lifetime, caused by another mass shooting, by gun violence at their school. Classrooms and hallways and sidewalks that will never be seen the same. And add to that thousands of parents, families, siblings, cousins, and neighbors forever traumatized. In my anthropomorphic way of understanding, God grieves too. Holds us. Cries with us. Lifts us when we fall. God is anguished, and raged. Rage at the cowards who only offer their spineless “thoughts and prayers.” Their “now is not the time.” Whichever it is, rage or anguish, or whatever, God, I’d like to order up some good old-fashioned fire and brimstone wrath, vengeance and retribution to reign down on the headquarters of the NRA. Just send a lightning bolt to torch Wayne LaPierre’s multi-million-dollar mansion, paid for by the blood of these 17 children and their teachers, and the 20 1st and 2nd graders gunned down in Newtown, and every other death caused by their insistence on easy access to military style guns. Yet even God learned by the experiment of a flood that violence won’t solve the problem of human evil. Which, by the way, is not a teenager with a mental illness, not to excuse him, but the greed and power of the NRA and its lobbyists and their slaves in Congress who are purchased with campaign contributions. It is my heartbreak that wants to lash out with the power of divine retribution – by flood, fire, or both. And yet, in the story of Noah, that didn’t cause humanity to change. Remember how before and after the flood, God said the “inclination of the human heart is evil.” Although, I’m not sure I agree with that conclusion. That is a particular theological point of view which also embraces that humankind was born into original sin, that we are hopelessly, incapably fallen beings. No, instead, I embrace the theological point of view known as original blessing, that we were created good, or as God said, “very good.”[6] At the deepest point of our being, God created humans good, but too often we reject the good in each other. And, too often, in ourselves. What is a theologically sound response? How does our faith inform us in times such as these? First, we begin with our own grief. That’s where we start. To feel it. Change is not imposed but comes from within. With honest prayer that falls at the feet of God, begging for mercy. Like the prayer of Rabbi Joe Black on Thursday morning:[7] “God of the teacher and God of the student. God of the families who wait in horror. God of the dispatcher who hears screams of terror from under bloodied desks. God of the first responder who bravely creeps through ravaged hallways. God of the doctor who treats the wounded. God of the rabbi, pastor, imam or priest who seeks words of comfort but comes up empty. God of the young boy who sees his classmates die in front of him. God of the weeping, raging, inconsolable mother who screams at the sight of her child’s lifeless body. God of the shattered communities torn apart by senseless violence. God of the legislators paralyzed by fear, partisanship, money and undue influence.” It’s a beautifully, painfully, written prayer. Rabbi Black confesses to God: “We are guilty of complacency. We are guilty of allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by politics. The blood of our children cries out from the ground. The blood of police officers cut down in the line of duty flows through our streets.” You really have to read the whole thing. See below. In our anguish, we turn to words of comfort from the Lord, our Shepherd, who leads us by still waters and walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. But that’s not where it, or we, end. What comes next in the Psalm? Valley of the shadow of death, therefore: I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Your rod and your staff-- they protect[8] me. 5 You set a table for me right in the presence of my enemies. We don’t just move on, comforted. We will fear no evil. We refuse easy solutions and instant gratification. In fact, even if every gun disappeared tomorrow, there is something deeper in the psyche of our nation that is tearing us apart. I tried to put my finger on just what it is that insists I have a right to own a gun whose only purpose is to kill humans – not hunt, not protect my home and my family. It is a killing machine intended for war. What happens when school playgrounds become a war zone? God weeps at the human inclination for evil. But for that matter, what is it that insists my tax bracket is more important than public safety; that my comfort is more important than whether a child eats or a parent can take their children to the doctor? I’m reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and staunch pacifist during World War II. He struggled with questions like “what kind of love is it which refuses to act when innocent people are being slaughtered?”[9] How agonizingly relevant. To the horrors of his day, he came to the gut wrenching decision to participate in a plot to kill Hitler. He concluded that “to endure evil oneself is one thing, while to stand by as innocent people suffer is quite another.”[10] For his decision, Bonhoeffer was martyred. And just to be clear, this is not an endorsement for the assassination of our leaders. The innocence of children who sang about arkies and twoosies and threesies and everything is hunky dory, dory was slaughtered in an act of selfishness. “It’s mine. You can’t have it.” One of the, literally, seven deadly sins. Today God comforts a nation in mourning. And reminds us we must not fear evil. I remind us we must refuse to give up hope. And humbly remind God to have mercy upon deeply grievous humankind and forgive our erring ways. “Look, God! I see a rainbow.” But I will also understand if God simply isn’t in the mood. As the words of the song we will sing say: If we just talk of thoughts and prayers, and don’t live out a faith that dares, and don’t take on the ways of death, our thoughts and prayers are fleeting breath.[11] Thursday, February 15, 2018 Opening Prayer For the Colorado State House in the Aftermath of a Tragedy February 15, 2018 Our God and God of all people, God of the Rich and God of the poor. God of the teacher and God of the student. God of the families who wait in horror. God of the dispatcher who hears screams of terror from under bloodied desks. God of the first responder who bravely creeps through ravaged hallways. God of the doctor who treats the wounded. God of the rabbi, pastor, imam or priest who seeks words of comfort but comes up empty. God of the young boy who sees his classmates die in front of him. God of the weeping, raging, inconsolable mother who screams at the sight of her child’s lifeless body . God of the shattered communities torn apart by senseless violence. God of the legislators paralyzed by fear, partisanship, money and undue influence. God of the Right. God of the Left. God who hears our prayers. God who does not answer. On this tragic day when we confront the aftermath of the 18th School shooting in our nation on the 46th day of this year, I do not feel like praying. Our prayers have not stopped the bullets. Our prayers have changed nothing. Once again, a disturbed man with easy access to a death machine has squinted through the sights of a weapon, aimed, squeezed a trigger and taken out his depraved anger, pain and frustration on innocents: pure souls. Students and teachers. Brothers and sisters. Mothers and fathers- cut down in an instant by the power of hatred and technology. We are guilty, O God. We are guilty of inaction. We are guilty of complacency. We are guilty of allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by politics. The blood of our children cries out from the ground. The blood of police officers cut down in the line of duty flows through our streets. I do not appeal to You on this terrible morning to change us. We can only do that ourselves. Our enemies do not come only from faraway places. The monsters we fear live among us. May those in this room who have the power to make change find the courage to seek a pathway to sanity and hope. May we hold ourselves and our leaders accountable. Only then will our prayers be worthy of an answer. AMEN [1] Genesis 6:6 [2] Noah’s curse of his son Ham has been used as justification for slavery ever since [3] Genesis 6:5 [4] Genesis 8:21 [5] Scott Hoezee, Lent1B, Center for Excellence in Preaching [6] See Matthew Fox [7] https://rabbijoeblack.blogspot.com/2018/02/opening-prayer-for-colorado-state-house.html [8] Or “comfort” [9] William Bittinger, “Rachel Weeping” [10] Charles Marsh, “A Perplexing Contradiction” [11] Carolyn Winfrey Gillette
1 Comment
Jack Carey
2/22/2018 03:50:20 pm
Read these writings three times--otherwise their words of large and
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