Relentless mercy and fierce love [Lent 1B - Genesis 9:8-17]

 The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Genesis 9:8-17

 

Relentless mercy and fierce love

St. Boniface, Guilderland

 

According to the book of Genesis, death came into this world, not through disease or atrophy, but through violence.  Brother against brother.  A clash of two creatures made in the divine image.  And that shattered God’s heart.  The pain vibrated through the universe.  God laid that pathos at the feet of Cain, the first killer, saying, “Your brother’s blood is crying out to me.”  And in that horrible early moment of human history, God recognized our fatal flaw and tried to stop it.  God inscribed Cain with a mark of protection in hopes that the cycle of violence might stop.

 

But it didn’t and we didn’t.  The violence continued, in thought, word, and deed.  Until God gave up and made a flood.  The reason God offered Noah for the watery disaster was human violence.  Genesis tells us that the earth was filled with violence because of people.  And God couldn’t take it anymore.

 

It was a stark solution to an intractable problem.  But also a curious solution because violence wasn’t entirely rooted out.  It lived still in the survivors, in the remnant, in Noah and his family; it was an inheritance that they would, sadly, continue to pass down the generations. 

 

We know that to be true because human history is marred by pain and told in wars.  We know that to be true because so many centuries later we still live with violence – in warzones and in neighborhoods, in schools and even in the happy bustle of celebration.  Blood cries out, as it always has.  The pain spills into countless lives.  And God’s heart breaks, on repeat.

 

Something crucial did happen during the Flood though; something that ensures our existence.  On the other side, after the water had receded, God decided on a different strategy.  It’s kind of like parenting.  Parenting, they say, is not a science but an art.  You try things until something works.  And sometimes nothing works and so, as a parent, you decide to take a chance on fierce, unconditional love, which, it turns out, is always the best answer. 

 

Once upon a time, God used a Flood.  But human nature could not be punished away.  And so God chose, instead, to fiercely and unconditionally love the people into their fullest potential; it was a bold act of divine hope; some faith put in an unlikely place: in the capacity of the human heart to choose love, to err on the side of mercy. 

 

That is the risk God takes when God initiates the covenant.  The covenant that God makes in today’s Old Testament reading is unconditional and everlasting.  And God makes that covenant with flawed people, an emotionally volatile people.  God chooses us – even when we make mistakes, and try to push away, and give into our worst tendencies.  Because that is what mercy requires.  That is what love does.   

 

It is quite the about-face.  In the Noah story, divine punishment dissipates as suddenly as the storm clouds clear and, in the light of that new day, God, it seems, sees creation through fresh eyes.  And decides to try tenderness. 

It is as if God realized something while Noah was floating above the world with a boat full of animals.  The reset button is not the answer.  The masterpiece will always be messy.  And the people, well, the people will never be perfect or even all that loveable.  And so it was up to God to decide what to do with this realization and God decided to fiercely and unconditionally love us – just as we are.

And that is what today’s story is about.  Rather than release another flood or stew in a sea of regret, rather than abandon our world, rather than drift away, God decided to get closer.  This is the story of closeness – an ancient people trying to make sense of a God who got much closer than gods were supposed to get.

God forms this eternal covenant with all of creation – and covenants assume a mutual relationship.  To do this, God had to open the divine nature to an eternity of mercy, relentless mercy – the only thing that could save us.  On the waterlogged earth, in the presence of a man traumatized by a world of death, God decided on an eternal, unconditional love, a love that anchored the cross on the far horizon of salvation history.

In this story, God destroyed the world because we were too violent – since Eden, since the beginning.  And still, here, in the story, this powerful God did the unthinkable: God lowered God’s defenses.  What is said in this story is that God hung a bow in the sky.  When we hear that phrase, when we read this story, we picture the beautiful colors of a rainbow – a weather event that happens when the sun shines in through a storm.  And that is true enough – in its beauty and in its poetry.  But the text doesn’t say rainbow; it says bow – a weapon, a weapon with no arrow left on the string, a weapon that, in this story, God hangs up.  Our traumatized species and this disarmed God: a match made in the aftermath, a match made on the threshold of hope.

It was the only way forward.  It was the example God set for the children of God.  Violence could not be the future.  Violence writes only endings.  The future, whatever it will be, will be cobbled together by peacemakers, peacemakers committed to the practice of relentless mercy.  And blessed are those peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

This story from Genesis is the very first story of this Lenten season.  It is a story of covenant.  A covenant is a promise.  But also it is more than that.  A covenant is a dream projected on to the future.  In this story God dreams an impossible dream with us, for us.  And then has the audacity to promise us that that dream will come true.  God promises us that love will outlast our violence. 

In that sense it sets the agenda for this season of reconciliation and penitence.  We are called to choose love in this violent age.  Choose love when violent intentions fill our hearts, when violent thoughts cloud our minds.  Choose love when violent words tempt our tongues.  Choose love when violent actions scar this human race.    

The Flood did not remove the worst features of our human nature.  Violence still plagues our planet and our species.  But the flood seems to have unleashed a tenderness in the heart of God.  Wars rage on on this globe.  Lives are cut short in the streets.  But God has the answer.  The Divine Warrior is now armed only with relentless mercy and fierce love – for us and for all the people of this planet. 

This Lenten journey will expose us, once again, to human violence, violence in the form of the cross.  But our story is ultimately an Easter story.  And the ancient promise, made in the distant days of Noah, is still true, and ever will be true: in the end, we will be saved by a flood that will never subside: an eternal flood of divine love and mercy.