Harvey, Noah, and God's Saving Work

If you took a close look at my stole last Sunday, you might have noticed that it was a detailed illustration of the story of Noah’s ark. It’s a beautiful piece of art, but I don’t wear it often because it doesn’t fit any church season very easily.

However, you can guess why I chose to wear it last week. And I’m going to wear it again this coming Sunday.

I keep finding myself reading and re-reading the story of the flood in Genesis these last few days. I’m searching for some kind of interpretive clue for making sense of the tragedy unfolding in Houston these days. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find comfort in the Noah story.

For one, according to Genesis, God causes the flood — no, to put it bluntly, God uses the flood for genocidal purposes. He wanted to purge the earth of human beings and start all over. So he picked Noah, who seemed like a good guy at the time, and gave him alone the lifeline he and his family would need to survive the flood.

I don’t believe that this is really the true explanation for the flood, let me be very clear. I do believe that there was a big flood in the ancient past; other ancient civilizations and cultures also have stories of a major, earth-altering flood. But the Noah story sounds like a very early, weak attempt to make sense of its widespread destruction, which is something we humans are always trying to do.

When tragedy occurs and disaster strikes, we work hard to make sense of it. We find it very difficult to accept the idea that storms happen because of a complex of factors related to atmosphere and barometric pressure and winds. We shrink from the thought that sometimes random things happen, or that accidents occur.

Sometimes the human authors of the Hebrew Scriptures struggled with this very tendency. They found it easier to ascribe a cause to the flood; since the only thing that could possibly cause a worldwide flood was God, then obviously, God must have caused the flood. And why? Well, isn’t it obvious that people can be evil?

It might have made for a plausible scenario for early civilizations, but the story sounds absolutely horrifying to 21st century people. This doesn’t sound like the God we know, nor like the God we come to know in the rest of the Bible.

When I consider the “meaning” of Hurricane Harvey and the subsequent flooding, I don’t ask, “Whose fault is it?” I’m not angry with God for “letting it happen,” nor do I think God caused it to happen.

Rather, when I look at what is happening in Houston, I see God at work in the aftermath of the storm through all the ordinary people who have put their own lives on hold to be in service.
Haven’t we all seen God at work in extraordinary ways? We have seen scores of inspiring photographs and videos of people helping people. We have watched journalists reaching out to assist elderly Alzheimer’s patients, uniformed officers carrying women and children, and teenagers piloting boats and canoes down flooded streets to save families. Every time we see someone else being saved, we are watching God’s salvation work happening.

This Sunday, we have the opportunity of participating in this salvation work. As a church, we are joining together to put together a number of flood buckets, which will be immensely helpful over the coming weeks as the flood cleanup begins. The church will provide the five-gallon buckets, but we need you all to bring the supplies. Here’s a list of what is needed, and you’re invited to bring them this Sunday morning. Bring them to your pews with you, because the service will be interactive and participatory. We’ll be putting together flood buckets AS an act of worship, and taking Holy Communion, too. See you Sunday morning!