Beyond the Rainbow
The Genesis flood narrative is more than a children’s tale of pairs of animals and a divine promise symbolized by a rainbow. In this sermon Fr. Brandon explores the nuanced dimensions of this narrative, revealing a God deeply invested in the restoration of creation, grieved by human brokenness yet committed to new life. Join us as we consider our place in the unity of God’s creation.
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Transcript
In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Noah. His ark. Animals in pairs. Obediently boarding before a storm. Noah’s story is one of those narratives we tend to hear at a surface level, thinking we know it inside and out. A Sunday school favorite, we probably know it and interpret it in one of two ways. The first is the image we’re holding right now. A children’s tale of animals marching two by two.
A rainbow across the sky. We’re reminded of God’s love. And like the rainbow after the storm. God’s love is always with us. Even in the most harrowing times. The second interpretation is less sunny, a story of revenge in which God, in a state of divine rage over human corruption, decides to flood the earth, nearly wiping out all life.
A clean slate. This interpretation depicts God as a figure of wrath, one to be feared. But neither one captures the fullness of God’s story. It’s much more nuanced. Our understanding of God must be more expansive. The true narrative reveals a God who has a deep desire to restore the unity that was intended for creation from the beginning.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth, and the earth was formless, a void. There was darkness on the face of the deep, and God’s Spirit was hovering back and forth on the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light. How good and God separated the light, and the darkness.
Today’s gospel reading the beginning of John’s Gospel echoes the first creation story. In the beginning was God’s wisdom, and the wisdom was with God, and God was the wisdom. This one was in the beginning with God. All things through him came to be, and without him not one thing came to be. That which has come into being was life, and the life was the light of being, and the light in the darkness shines, and the darkness did not grasp it.
In Genesis, light came to be in the midst of primordial darkness. But John suggests an ongoing struggle between two forces in which light prevails from the very creation of the world. Water, light and darkness. Chaos and life.
The flood narrative is the culmination of a story of increasing human brokenness, which begins with the fall in Genesis three. There’s disharmony between humans and other creatures, between male and female, between humans and the Earth. Disharmony escalates to murder in Genesis four, and Genesis five traces Adam’s descendants to Noah, highlighting the ongoing spiral of misery. So by chapter six, the disorder is so great that God regrets ever making, ever creating humankind.
God saw how great was human wickedness on earth, how every plan devised by the human mind was nothing but evil all the time with a sorrowful heart. God regretted having made humankind on earth. With a sorrowful heart.
I’m certain many of us have loved to have loved someone whose decisions have been destructive, whose misery has spiraled in such a way that they cannot be saved. Whose actions have broken your heart? A sorrowful heart that desires reconciliation, harmony. God’s heart is grieved by the brokenness and corruption of creation. The flood, then, is not vengeful, but a divine expression of grief, a desire for right relationship.
Remember, Noah. The compliant animals. God’s intention was never total destruction, but renewal. The preservation of Noah, his family, and living creatures point to this recreate of act and the echoes of the creation story with God called good in creation. God now sees as corrupt, as evil. The separation and gathering of waters in creation is undone and then redone.
God, God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, is repeated after the flood, and the affirmation that humans are created in God’s image is reiterated. All of creation is given a new beginning. God does not create new beings, but restores God’s relationship with a remnant of those created in the beginning. Now, following the flood, God promises never to destroy all life with a flood again.
This is not because human brokenness has been eradicated, but God promises to find another way to reach us, to be with us, to restore us to the harmony that God intended. The symbol for God’s promise a rainbow. Again, two interpretations A divine cease fire in which God’s bow is hung in the clouds. In ancient times, gods were often depicted with bows and arrows, as a as symbols of war.
By hanging up the bow, God is retiring from battle, declaring that destruction is not the answer to restoring humanity to God’s self. The second interpretation points to a declaration of wholeness. This promise implies that God will pursue every other means to draw us back into harmony. Humankind, birds. Domestic animals. Animals. Every being that has life. Things visible and invisible.
God will seek tirelessly loving us into restoration with God’s creation despite our brokenness. Whatever barriers exist in our hearts that prevent us from experiencing the fullness of life in God, God will continue to seek and love us even to the point of death. Resurrection and ascension. A rainbow. Refractions, reflections, warps, and mirroring a widening circle. Always connected. Always diverse.
One. Disperse. Inclusive of many. Revealed in light and water. Much like baptism. Risen to a new life of grace. From the very creation of the world. Water, light and darkness. Chaos and life. May we embrace the water of life that Christ offers. The light that dispels our darkness and the promise of the rainbow that assures us of God’s unifying love.
Let us pray.
God, maker of marvels. You weave the planet and all its creatures together in kinship. Your unifying love is revealed in the interdependence of relationships in the complex world that you have made. Save us from the illusion that humankind is separate and alone. And join us in communion with all inhabitants of the universe. Through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Who topples the dividing walls by the power of your Holy Spirit, and who lives and reigns with you forever and ever.
Amen.