Noahs Ark and a covenant with all creation

Hello everyone! Yet again we are back for the fabulous experience of TUC Talks.

A name that is says it all.

So, Terrigo United Church, we're having a conversation, and it is about our last Sunday's reading, which is Sunday, the 13th of September.

And our readings were Genesis 6, 5 to 22, 8, 6 to 12, and then 9, 8 to 17.

And today I have Grey Knight with me to be my conversation partner.

G'day Grey.

Hey Richard, how are you?

Now, Grey, you've done the same as what Nick, our youth worker, has done.

You've gone through the Synod selection panel and And live to tell the tale.

And lived to tell the tale.

So you're on the pathway towards ordination.

Indeed, indeed.

Ah, potential Reverend Grey Knight.

I think you called me Pre-Reverend the other day, didn't you?

Pre-Reverend, Potential Reverend.

Yeah, yeah.

We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to yes, to come up with a proper name.

Um Gray's fine.

Gray's Sir Grey.

It is excellent that you could join us.

Great.

Thank you very much for having me.

This reading, I've got to say, we were doing one and two Timothy there for a while, and now we've stepped into the Old Testament.

It was a big sigh of relief from me.

But I gotta this was an interesting passage.

So Noah's Ark.

Do you have the Noah's Do you have the Noah's Ark story around your house somewhere?

Look, this is one of those stories that I I I we grew up with as kids.

Yes.

Um so there's the picture book stories, I think I even had a pop-up book uh the story of Noah's Ark, and it's a feel-good story.

It is a feel-good story.

But the fascinating thing about the feel-good story is that I don't think the people that make the pop-up books actually read the story.

Look, I think it's a bit dark in spots.

Yeah, look, I I don't think it is a feel-good story at all.

I think it is in some ways, but I think one of the disservices we do to the biblical narrative sometimes is turn it into a kid's story.

It's important to tell the kids what's going on and teach kids from a young age an appropriate language, of course, but don't trap it there.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So the thing, there's a couple of things that I found really interesting in today's reading.

The first one is that, and I and I was talking about this with my congregation, the the book of Genesis, it's a conglomeration of three or possibly even four different stories that they wedge together.

And so as you read through the Genesis story, you can see those different lines, and particularly when it comes to this story of Noah's Ark, because like in one spot they're talking about animals going in with in pairs, and then another spot they talk about we take seven of one type of animal and five of another type of animal.

So it's actually not in a sense, it's like two stories that have been banged together.

It was I find it's an absolutely stunning and fascinating story, and it was one of the first that I some years ago started to deconstruct.

When I say deconstruct, as in not believe it, but look at what I was taught about it as a child and strip away, strip everything away and then start again.

Yeah.

And and uh if you read it as a as a literal event, you're faced with all you create all sorts of issues, like were there seven or five or two of each animal?

Yeah.

Um and the other thing is, does the numbers actually matter?

Yes.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

I'm not saying they do or they don't, but um it they're there for a reason.

Yeah.

But what is that reason?

And I think one of the things that came out to me in that deconstruction process was I looked at some of the other history around, um, and ancient Nera, and some of your some of your listeners and yourself will be aware of this, that the oldest, what is generally considered as the oldest written um I can't think of the word, the oldest written material ever discovered uh was discovered um a few years ago now, called the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Now, the Epic of Gilgamesh um was discovered in the ancient city of Nineveh, um, and it's on display in the British Museum, of course, it's the British Museum, but it's there.

They've stolen it.

Absolutely.

Um but it recounts uh an ancient flood story, they call it the deluge.

Yeah, the Mesopotamia area has a number of different cultural flood stories.

Yeah, absolutely.

So when you read the Genesis account alongside the Epic of Gilgamesh, uh it's absolutely fascinating.

So initially, the Epic of Gilgamesh says that the gods, uh the motivation for sending the flood was that they were cranky with humans because they woke them up.

Oh so the motivation for their god was annoyance, so let's destroy humanity.

But when you read it alongside the Genesis account, you see, no, the God wasn't cranky, God was um upset and grieved.

I think it's his grief to his heart in the in in Genesis, doesn't it?

So his motivation was out of grief that the earth was destroyed.

Yeah.

There's a flood story in in the indigenous culture as well.

In sort of some of the dream time story, there's a flood story of some kind.

Not you know, not uh not any not anywhere near the same kind of story.

You're right.

God grieving is one of the things that I found fascinating in this story that God looked at the world and grieved because of what God was seeing.

Absolutely, it's a it's a really powerful image because when we talk about God, we normally talk about God being strong, decisive, unchanging, all of those things, which is really important stuff for us to hang on to.

But in this story, God changes, and that for me is really interesting because it starts with God grieving and and going, don't like this world.

You know, I've made everything, I've set it up, and now it has gone to trash a little bit, and I am grieving that I ever made it.

Absolutely right, and I think that then what we're then faced with, and you say God changes, or our our um our approach or our way of understanding God changes, perhaps, um, in that the whole monarchical view of God as in Lord over everything, controlling everything, now changes.

Where we've now got this flood coming where God saves one man and his family, yeah, and he saves that man and his family because he's righteous and has and has moral integrity, essentially.

True.

Although one of the things that I was saying in my sermon on Sunday is it that's true, he is a righteous man and he has moral integrity, but you but God in a sense is showing grace to Noah.

Yeah, he's because it is by no works of his own that he is saved.

Um, because if you go all the way to the not to the end of the story, but a long way in, one of the things that I said to my congregation on Sunday, if you read it, uh when Noah makes the offering in towards the um end, I think it's in chapter eight, he makes an offering, and God smells the offering, you know.

So the flood has been and gone, and and now Noah and his family have come out of the ark, and Noah makes an offering to God, and God smells the offering, and it is sweet to God.

And God says, Now I I will actually get the right words because I think it is just fantastic.

And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent towards evil from childhood.

I will never again destroy all living things.

So here is God looking at Noah after the flood, Noah and his family, and the words still are, even though everything they think and imagine is bent towards evil from childhood.

So God here at the start looks at it and grieves because the people are bad, and by the end, there he looks at the people and they're still bad.

But he doesn't destroy them again.

Yeah, I'm not gonna destroy them again.

God changes because God, yeah, God by the end, God's not looking at the world and grieving and going, I've made a mistake there, I'll try and fix it.

God has changed God's attitude to the people.

What's absolutely fascinating with that is that if you then read that alongside the epic of Gilgamesh, at the end of the story of the epic, the gods come down, uh, that they they show a favoritism to somebody at the end, but the gods come down as flies to buzz around the destruction because they were hungry because the humans hadn't uh made any sacrifices to them after the flood, which is absolutely bizarre.

But when you compare that to what the Hebrew God or what the Genesis account says, God was pleased with the aroma, which is totally opposite to the epic finish.

Yes.

Now, to me, that says, so why on earth, what is the purpose of these two accounts?

What is the well, certainly the Genesis account?

Um, and I think one of the uh things that I learned about that was that Genesis wasn't written at the time of the flood.

Um, Genesis was probably written, you know, this, and I'm sure most of your listeners would know this, but most of uh the book of Genesis was written during or just after the Babylonian exile.

Yeah, that's one of the big theories, isn't it?

Absolutely, as a as a an uh an origin story.

Yeah.

So if they were in Babylon, they would have the Hebrews would have been exposed to the epic stories, uh, or they the um Macedonian stories, not Macedonian, Mesopotamian stories, um, they would have been exposed to that, and now they're telling stories to re-identify themselves, to maintain their culture, to maintain their sense of um who God is and and their sense of the choice of being his people or God's people.

Um, and what they're saying is, look, okay, this is what we've been taught, this is what our God's like.

Yeah, our God's completely different.

And and the thing about what God is like in this story is that God, one, will show grace to Moses, and two will say, I will never again destroy all of the world.

Absolutely.

You know, God changes God's attitude here by saying, I'm not gonna do that again.

But I think from there, God really works on, well, how do I relate to these people?

I I I agree, I totally agree with that, and I think that one of the things that we that we get from the story is that uh God, it's don't be afraid of God.

He's not the God of the Mesopotamians, he's not the God of the Babylonians, who, if you get it wrong, is going to destroy you.

He's the God who's grieved, who then goes through a process of restoring and restoration, and now says, No, I want to live with you, I want to put this bow in the sky, and this is and this is in one sense that's a bow is a is a aggressive instrument of attack.

I'm hanging this bow up, yeah.

So I'm not gonna do that anymore.

And yeah, and don't you love that the bow in the sky is God saying, and this will be a reminder to me.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, God saying, I'm gonna remind myself every time I put that bow in the sky.

And and I think that this story sets in place God that wants to relate to us and God that wants to be close to us, and you know, from here in the narrative lectionary, our next reading is the call of Abraham, and so it jumps from this story where God is sort of changing and relating to the people to, and now I want a people that will follow me and hold to me.

And that's where he calls Abraham.

Yeah, I agree, and and I think one of the other things that we're getting from the story of Noah before we get to Abraham is God saying, actually, this is how I want you to look after things.

So I think I see a very early, uh, we're going back a little bit, but I see a very early ecological story of that where God is saying, Okay, I'm gonna rescue mankind or humankind through um Noah and his family, but I also I'm I'm including the whole of creation in that.

So I want other things being built in, and I'm seeing that actually what God's saying this whether you know whether this the flood story was a real event or not really doesn't affect my faith one way or the other.

But I do think there's some things we can get out of that, and one of those is that our job as God's people is to care for creation and and to and to look out if there's a if there's a uh an event or a crisis event, it's to look out for that and care for that where we can.

Yeah, and then we move into you know the the rest of Genesis, the rest of this um origin story that's being told to the people.

This is who God's like, yeah, because the covenant itself, I love the covenant that God creates here, because the covenant is not with Noah, the covenant is with all of creation, yeah.

So God creates the covenant and puts the bow in the sky, but the words are I will never again destroy all of creation, and then God creates a covenant with all things.

And and you're talking about the environmental aspects.

One of the things I was mentioning on Sunday is that if we treat creation with disrespect, we are actually treating with disrespect something that God has chosen to make a covenant with.

So if we go in there and destroy the environment or through our actions cause an animal to become extinct, we are destroying something that God has actually made a covenant relationship with.

God is in an active relationship with.

I agree.

You know, so so for example, I'm a Tasmanian.

The Tasmanian tiger is the iconic species that has been has become extinct in Tasmania.

But through human action, we brought an end to an animal that God put a bow in the sky to say, I will I will never again destroy the world.

But we as humans have gone in there and gone against what God has said God will not do.

We have we've destroyed something that God said I'm not gonna destroy.

Which God already said we would probably do anyway, when he said every account or every uh inkling of their heart is evil.

Yes.

So it's which means it's self-centered.

Yeah, so like for our selfishness means that sadly we we we through our actions damage what God has done.

Um But the great thing is in this story that at the start God would grieve about that.

You know, in the beginning of the No Noah's Ark story, God looked at the humans and what they were doing, and God grieves.

But by the end, I'm sure that God sort of is saddened by the fact that human intervention has caused the Tasmanian tiger to go.

But God is not God is not grieving because of how evil humans are, God is actually changed and is now working towards how to restore human the human heart.

And that's where Jesus fits into the story.

And I think that's where we're getting the picture of the dove um being a symbol of peace, uh bringing the olive branch back first, yeah, and then not coming back.

There's the there's this um uh this approach of peace, this approach of not not pacifism um and not passivity, but let's just now be peaceful about this, let's just let this move forward.

Yeah we've got we've got some emotion here, let's let's how's this gonna happen pan out?

It's not how's it gonna pan out, it's it's going to pan out and the way of Christ is the way of peace.

Yeah, like like God who is all powerful, God who is the creator of all things, rather than getting angry with creation because it's not doing the way that it was meant to be, you know, it it wasn't meant to be like this.

Um, and therefore, rather than getting angry with creation and sending a flood to destroy the whole lot, God now has said, I'm not gonna do that.

But now we've got the uh now we've got the question of what will God do?

And we have the call of Abraham and God saying, Well, I'm gonna relate to people, I'm gonna have a relationship with you, and then God rescuing the people from Egypt and saying, Well, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna have a covenant relationship with you, and then God sending the prophets and saying, Well, no, I'm calling you back to myself again and again and again, and then God sending Jesus Christ and saying, And I want to cleanse you and heal you and draw you to a relationship with me forever.

And that's that's what I see starting in this in the the story of Noah and the flood is this constant is this uh restoration and renewal.

It didn't destroy humanity, he renewed humanity or he renewed the world, and he renewed through a covenant, renewed that relationship with them with us.

Yeah, and again and again and again throughout history, God works towards a relationship that is closer and closer and closer.

And I just love the imagery of the Hebrews sitting around after their exile and hearing that story and going, but our God isn't like their God.

Our God is doing this for us, our God is doing this, our God is doing this, our God is a God of restoration and renewal, and He's renewing us through the creation, and we've got to look after that.

Just this whole contrast between the two, uh, what they've been exposed to for 70, 80 years, yeah, and now what they're hearing um as as or what they would have heard anyway, but now perhaps a bit more so.

Now we're going back to our going back to Jerusalem, we're going back to um our place that God promised us.

Yes, it's like it it is it's in a sense one of the launch pads, or the creation story you could see as the very beginning and the launch pad, but in a sense, this relaunches the way that we understand God.

The creation story sets up this image of God wanting to be close to the people, yeah, and then that being broken, and this resets God wanting to be close to the people.

And I and I think saying to the people that He chose or God chose, uh, saying to them, This is how I want you to show me to the rest of the world.

Yeah, you know, that's why they're the chosen people.

Now, why we're the chosen people to show God to the rest of the world, yeah.

And it's not just God, is it?

Because the the covenant is with all creation, and therefore God wants this relationship with all of creation.

Yeah, it's a yeah, it's a fabulous little run, isn't it?

Love it.

Are there any other bits that you found from the the Noah's Ark story that you wanted to?

Uh look, I just love the story uh anyway.

Uh and and like I say, that if as soon as we talk start reading it as a as a literal event, we run into all sorts of you know scientific and archaeological issues and and perhaps even theological issues.

Uh and I and I think it's you know, if it is a if it was a real event, great.

If it wasn't, great too.

Um it's the things we learn from it.

And I just think that what what what I learned from that is that particularly what we've just been talking about, that we have a duty, a responsibility uh to the God to the Creator God to look after God's creation and to show people how to do that, to show people what God's like.

And I just love that whole imagery about that.

It's you know, the the the contrast, the comparing and the contrast that I that I did uh with the two stories, yeah just was uh just blew me away.

Just totally blew me away.

That you know, we'd heard of other stories, of other flood stories.

Um but when you look at it and go, eh, they're so different, they're similar but not, uh same, same but different.

Um there was all this um stuff going on, be afraid of the gods, because the gods can wipe you out just like that, and they'll only save you if you're any good.

And he could read that into Genesis, but it was a fairly it's not what's been to be read into Genesis.

What's to be read into the Genesis account is you don't be don't need to be scared of God.

You know, God wants a relationship, God wants the connection, God w and and went out of it, go out of God's way to do that.

Yeah, and God puts the bow in the sky, and the bow in the sky is the sign of peace from God to us.

Like and to me, and one of the things I love the most, it's like I'm not a warrior God.

You know, if this is the bow, as in bow and arrow, I'm hanging it up.

It's not gonna be it's not gonna be used for um destruction anymore.

And I'm just like, wow, that's just such a cool thing.

Well, I was mentioning to my congregation, I've heard and um I've heard it said that when a bow in that culture in that era was held in the upright position, it was an act of war.

So if two armies were heading to each other and they held the bow in the upright position, then it was to say, We're ready to do battle with you.

Yeah, um, but if they held the bow in the down position, it was to say, I I want to be at peace with you.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so it was that sort of no, no, we're not wanting to have the the fight.

Yeah, and that's you know, going back to what we first mentioned, uh as a child story, that was never mentioned to me as a kid's story in the in the pop-up book.

Um it was just a rainbow, isn't it lovely?

Because it's beautiful colours, and that's what you know, that's fantastic, nothing wrong with that.

But I only learned about the uh the bow imagery a couple of years ago.

Yeah, a few years ago.

Uh one other commentary actually put a really interesting slant on the bow imagery, because the bow, the way that the bow sits in the sky, if you were to put an arrow into the bow, the arrow would shoot, you know, and in the world that we're talking about here, they would have had an understanding of God being up.

Yeah, and the bow, if you put an arrow in that bow, it would shoot up, it would shoot up towards God.

And so some of the some commentaries would actually say that what God is saying with the bow is uh uh the aggression will go at me, not at you.

It hurt me.

Yeah, it'll hurt me if the yeah, it'd hurt me, not you.

Interesting, yeah.

It is an interesting image, isn't it?

And and I think in a sense, that is replicated through history when God sends Jesus, you know, God could, and Jesus says himself, I could easily call armies of angels to come and protect me and and do damage here, but instead Jesus is prepared to suffer and die for us.

His actions are self-sacrificial actions.

And you could say, because in God's language, because I made a covenant with you.

Yes.

So because the covenant is not something that is left behind here.

No.

You know, this covenant, we don't sort of say, well, that's that that's that's really old testament, therefore it's gone.

The covenant is a covenant of it's a contract that God says, I'm gonna hold to this forever.

And I think that's something we don't always understand fully, is the binding nature of a covenant over a promise.

A promise is binding too, but a covenant, there's symbols in place and signs in place that that lock that covenant in.

Um, you know, we talk about marriage covenants, we talk about covenants in business in some areas because they're so binding.

I think sometimes we miss that.

That this is actually from God, this is a binding covenant.

Yeah, the sign of which was a bow.

And and in a sense, one of the things that we know about God is that God is not as frail and fickle as humans.

If God makes a covenant, God will stick to it.

Yeah, you know, yeah, yes, God changes God's mind through this story from I am going to destroy all earth to Noah I'll keep Noah.

But but at the end of it, God makes a covenant, and this covenant will hold, and it'll hold throughout history.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Great.

Is there any other bits that you would like to raise up as you've reflected on Noah?

I don't I don't think so.

And I reflected on Noah.

And as soon as I as soon as you sent me the text that you were you were using, I read it and thought, oh, Epic of Gilgamesh.

And what was fascinating, what was absolutely fascinating, is uh I just looked at my social media feed, all right, and there was a big sign, somebody, I don't know who it was, and I didn't follow it up as I don't usually, but there was this big sign on there that said, um, was Noah's Ark a real or was Noah's ark, the story of Noah's Ark, was it real or made up?

Comments, please.

And I'm like, I wonder who wrote that.

And I didn't put anything in it.

Your algorithm you must have said to your wife, I've been up, I've been up to look at Noah's Ark.

I couldn't even say that we had a conversation.

I think it was a text message.

The algorithm is quite scary, isn't it?

Yeah, oh yeah, to worry.

But anyway.

But I just saw this uh and I thought, oh, fantastic.

And then thought uh then my thought process, my thought process was okay, let's just have a think about what else went on.

What did oh I no, I did something with this a few years ago.

What was it?

So that was it.

And then of course they um there was that film made um within the last 20 years, wasn't there?

Noah Noah.

Um I forget who made it, but it was fairly I watched it and I thought it was fantastic, but most uh most of the uh other Christians that I knew that watched it didn't like it.

I think because it had um echoes of of uh Mesopotamian um stories in there, which was quite interesting.

I think was it was it Russell Crowe made it?

Oh look, yes, Russell's done a few things, right, Russell has done a few things.

I could be wrong on that, it could be a Russell thing, yeah.

Yeah, um for me I have really loved going back to the start with this one, and I think it sets in place the rest of our narrative lectionary year beautifully because it sets in place God wanting relationship and God wanting a covenant that will bind God and humanity and God bind God and the world, and so from here we live in this covenant relationship with God.

Yeah, it's awesome.

I did bounce back to Jesus quite a number of times one.

I thought the the way that God offered grace to Noah, I actually picked up that in that God offers grace to us today, yeah, and that that in the end there is this sour the salvation act of Noah, God saves Noah for relationship, and that's exactly what Jesus Christ does.

Jesus saves us and wants a relationship with us today.

Yeah, absolutely.

Such a great story, and and and so relevant, it's still relevant.

It is, it is um well, great.

I I've got to do a couple of adverts.

One, the holiday kids club is coming up.

Um yeah, that if anyone can help out with the holiday kids club, please do.

Two, uh we've got the aged care forum coming up.

If anyone has family members going into that sort of stage of life, um let us know.

Come along, it's very good.

And three, we have Harvest Festival coming up on the 25th of what are we, October?

Is it next month's October, isn't it?

Yeah, 25th of October.

Nearly Christmas.

Yeah, it's getting closer.

25th of October, and that is that's where once a year we have all of our worship services together and have a big festival of all that God has given to us.

Excellent.

It is gonna be excellent, thrilling ride.

So those are the three notices.

Um great, thank you for the conversation.

My absolute pleasure.

Enjoyed it so much.

Thank you very much.

I'm gonna have to go and have a look at the epic of Gildamesh did you say.

Yeah, it's worth a read.

It's worth a read.

Oh, it's worth a read.

It's fantastic.

Oh, well, not quite as good as Noah, but it's okay.

I'm gonna click to the Bible story, I'm gonna hold to that one, but um, I might have a side read and see what it says.

Compare and contrast, I think, is the uh the academic phrase you use.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks, Megan.

Thanks very much for seeing.

And um, thank you everyone for joining in for TC Talks this week.

Thanks.