Earth On the Brink. (What's the deal?)

 Czech poster for the film Lucky Dragon No. 5

"I'm going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive under Heaven. Total destruction."

"But I'm going to establish a covenant with you: You'll board the ship, and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives will come on board with you."

- Genesis 6:17-18
(translation from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language by Eugene H. Peterson)

When I introduced the "Back From the Brink" resolution to the committee at the 2019 UCC General Synod, I made a number of arguments about why it would be important for the full body to adopt the resolution. One of those arguments was a paraphrase of former secretary of defense Robert McNamara, from the documentary The Fog of War:

"And the conventional wisdom is don't make the same mistake twice, learn from your mistakes. And we all do. Maybe we make the same mistake three times, but hopefully not four or five. They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. You make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations."

I shared this story with the committee, and I noticed that, of all the arguments I presented, this was the one that found its way to the Synod floor verbatim. Committee chair Rev. Rose Wright Scott concluded her recommendation for a "yes" vote on the resolution by saying, "There is no learning from nuclear weapons because there is no second chance."

*   *   *

So: here we are with God and Noah, and God seems to be saying, "Noah, you get a second chance!" The text describes it as God's "covenant."

Now, I remember the part of the story about God and Noah and the rainbow, and how that represented a covenant. In that instance, God made a "never again!" commitment. (More on that in a few weeks when we reach Genesis 9). But I had not remembered that the language of "covenant" appears here, too, at the beginning of the Noah story.

I wondered: what does it mean to say "God has established a covenant with" Noah? What does it mean when we say "God has established a covenant with us?" Is it a unilateral promise? Or is it more like a two-way deal? And if it's a deal, what are the terms of the deal?

In particular, I'm interested in this part of the deal: Do we get a second chance? or not?

*   *   *

Frequently, we talk about our relationship to God in ways similar to the way we talk about a child's relationship to a parent. Sometimes we invoke the image of a parent who is eternally loving and forgiving, unconditionally, in conditions under which the child needs give nothing in return.  Other times we summon up the image of a "tough love" parent: love is a part of a deal and it continues to flow if, and only if, the child holds up their end of the bargain. At still other times, we think of God as a "nightmare" parent: full of wrath, impossible to please.

Which "parent" was Noah dealing with? I had hoped that I could take a shortcut to the answer by doing a little research about covenant theology. Perhaps some theologian had worked it all out already. Or, better yet, perhaps the meaning of the covenant in this story was already common knowledge and I was the only one still in the dark.

What I discovered is there are so many views about the meaning of covenant in the Bible that you are probably better off going back to the original text and wrestling with it yourself. I found that invoking the word "covenant" does not end the discussion about what God intends, but rather marks its start.

So I went back and looked at the story again. I wondered if it was really as cut and dried as the text suggests: did God just say some words, and then Noah shrugged his shoulders and started sawing and hammering?

I like to imagine that, confronted with this momentous pronouncement from God, Noah (or I) would have had the curiosity to ask, "What are you talking about? What's the deal here?"

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this isn't a story about a one-way promise, but rather a story about a two-way relationship, a "God covenant" as "being in covenant with God." And that that essentially boils down to "being in conversation with God."

Yes, in the most ideal situation I can think of, there would be a conversation between Noah and God. In my imagination, it might go something like this:

NOAH: "God . . . please . . . tell me what you desire. How do you want it to be?"

GOD: "Thank you for asking. The fact is, I can barely be said to 'want' anything. Look at creation! My main sensation is joy, all the time. But I'd like to invite you -- look and tell me, what do you see? What would be good?"

NOAH: (He looks around him.) "I don't know!"

GOD: "Well, think about it."

The word covenant comes from the root meaning "agree"; and that in term is connected to the root of the word "convene" - meaning "meet together." It seems to me that it has less to do with unvarying behavior, or terms and conditions, and more to do with getting on the same page by being in conversation and not abandoning the relationship.

So: when I read this part of the Noah story, I no longer wonder about "second chances." I am filled with wonder at this chance. I think it is a miracle that we are invited into conversation with God, and that our eyes may be opened, and that we possess the potential to act in the light of that conversation.

For a 21st century gloss on this conversation, one that bears on the "Back From the Brink" campaign to prevent nuclear war, see the powerful two-minute video of a conversation between two young men on a beach, created by the International Committee of the Red Cross, "What would you choose? Live or die?" ("Let's decide the future of nuclear weapons before they decide ours.")


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Related post:

Does "God" "care" that the ultimate outcome of the damage to the Earth's climate may lead to the end -- not of the Earth itself, nor of life on Earth, but of the existence of the human species on Earth?

(See Does "God" "care" about the climate crisis?)