Do you know what kind of lights Noah had on the ark? Flood lights. Where did Noah keep the bees? In
the ark hives. If Noah had anteaters on the ark, what did the anteaters eat and why are there still
ants around? Of course, the story was never intended to be taken literally. It borrows freely from
the Gilgamesh Epic, a Mesopotamian flood story that had been around for about a thousand years. When
the spring rains flooded the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, it looked like the whole
world was under water. Their flood story from a 1700 BC clay tablet says that the gods were angry
because mankind had become too numerous and their noise was too loud, so they sent a flood to destroy
them, but the god, Ea warned Utnapishtim to build a large boat and load it with supplies and animals.
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The part of the story that we read said that the ark was made with resinous wood, but also said it was made out of reeds. It said Noah took two of every living thing into the ark, but if we read it all, it also says he took seven pairs of the clean animals, but only one pair of the unclean ones, which would include ants and anteaters if there had been any in the Middle East. We would read that Noah boarded the ark seven days before it began to rain, and that he boarded the ark after the rain begins. He sent out a raven to see if there was dry land, or he sent out a dove. It is two separate stories combined without attempt to reconcile the contradictions or remove redundancies.
So, the story itself tells us not to take it literally, but how then are we supposed to take it? The questions we should ask about Bible stories are rarely whether or not something actually happened; but what should we learn from what we have read. What makes it pertinent to our lives?
One thing the Noah story tells us is that God gets fed up with our evil. It is as if God borrowed a line from Bill Cosby saying, “I brought you into the world; I can take you out of it. I made you. I can make another like you.” We wonder if God gets so utterly frustrated with us that it would be easier to just start over again, with a better people. This also comes from a time when people believed that God controlled all the weather at his whim.
We also learn from the Noah story that God feels remorse at the loss of human life. God vowed to never again let the waters become a flood to destroy all living things. We have a picture of a god who wrestles with himself. God is disappointed and angry with the people he created, because he would like us to live together in peace and harmony, but we are too selfish and self centered and mean.
Have those of you who are parents ever hurt your children in an attempt to discipline them? Have you spanked them and then felt awful hearing them cry or seeing their tears? Yet we know that we must find a way to teach or discipline our children or they will not be fit to live with. The Noah story is about God’s inner conflict over how to deal with us. This God of the Bible is torn between a sense of justice and a desire for mercy, between anger at humans and love for them. Though they believed that God had the power to destroy, God’s love restrained Him.
And things haven’t changed all that much. The apostle Paul says that “all have sinned and lack God's glory.” Perhaps we all need to say this little prayer every morning: Dear God,
So far today, I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, haven't lost my temper, and haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or overindulgent. I'm really glad about that. But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on I'm probably going to need a lot more help. Amen.
Most people say they believe in God, but belief is not faith. Faith is what saves, so let me give you a simple example of the difference. Let’s say you are in your car at a stop sign, waiting to pull out on a busy street. A car is coming from your left with its blinker on, signaling a right turn into the street where you are waiting. It should be safe to pull out, but is it? So many people don’t put their blinkers on until they have begun to make the turn and so many more don’t seem to use them at all, that a blinker that is on well in advance may indicate that the driver doesn’t even know that their blinker is on. Is the car going to turn?
Saying that I believe that the car is going to turn is much like saying that I believe in God or I believe in Jesus. However, until I risk pulling out in front of that car, I do not have faith. Faith is acting on my belief. As Jesus put it, `It is not the one who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. It is not those who know the words and talk the talk, but those who walk the walk. Everyone who listens to these words of mine, says Jesus, and acts on them, will be like a sensible person who builds their house on rock.”
Jesus “house on a rock” illustration comes right after his Sermon on the Mount which has a few clear examples of the will of “his father in heaven, such as: “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not kill,’ but I say to you, do not be angry, do not call names or you will answer for it. You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say to you: offer no resistance to the wicked. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well. Give to anyone who asks you, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.
`You have heard how it was said; You will love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; for if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? You must be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.'"
God’s frustration with us is not over lack of belief, which 90% of the Americans say they have, but over our ignorance of God’s will, which results in selective belief and over our lack of faith which results in our unwillingness or inability to act on our belief. Faith will require us to do a lot of things that most of the world doesn’t believe will work. If we don’t believe, we will never act in faith, because belief and faith do go hand in hand.
One example of how intertwined they are, and illustrates what removes God’s frustration and gives us hope, is Edna Butterfield’s story about her husband, who once taught a class of mentally impaired teenagers. He was exceptional in that he looked at his students' capabilities rather than their limitations. Ron taught them to play chess, restore furniture and repair electrical appliances. Most important, he taught them to believe in themselves. A young man named Bobby soon proved how well he had learned that last lesson. One day he brought in a broken toaster to repair. He carried the toaster tucked under one arm, and a half-loaf of bread under the other.
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1. http://home.att.net/~atrahasis/tablets.htm
2. http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/theDetails.asp?whichOne=f&whichFile=faith