God’s Rainbow Covenant with Noah and All Creation—Lectionary Reflection for Lent 1B (Genesis 9)
Genesis 9:8-17 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
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After God wiped out every living
creature on earth through the flood, that is everything and everyone not on the
ark that Noah built, God made a promise not to take such drastic action again. To
make sure God didn’t forget this promise, God placed a bow (rainbow) in the sky
as a reminder. Thus, whenever God sees the bow in the sky God will remember the
promise not to destroy every living thing. This is the story with which we
begin our Lenten journey (at least from an Old Testament perspective).
Noah’s story begins in Genesis 5,
where we learn of Noah’s birth and that of his three sons. The story really
begins in Genesis 6 where we learn that the “sons of God,” angelic beings,
looked down on the earth, got infatuated with the human women, and took them as
partners, the result of these pairings was the “mighty men of old.” And as was true of Zeus and the other gods of
ancient mythology, is true of these beings. It’s not marriage. It’s rape. The
result is the spread of evil on the land, so much so that God “was sorry that
he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” This
realization on God’s part, that creating humanity was a mistake, God decided to
wipe out everything on earth and start over. But before doing this God took
notice of Noah (Gen 6:5-8). As Esther
Hamori notes, in Genesis the focus isn’t on rape. Rather the text focuses on
the results of interspecies sex. She writes: “It’s like a divine beings version
of bestiality, and it results in monstrous, hybrid offspring. This is the
semidivine island of Dr. Moreau” [Hamori, God’s Monsters, p. 244]. Thus,
we have the foundation story, at least the biblical version, of the origin of
the giants who show up periodically in the Bible (even after the flood, which
leaves one wondering what happened to them during the flood).
Our reading for the first Sunday of
Lent is found in Genesis 9, so there is a lot of water that needs to flow to
get us to our passage. The story of Noah involves God taking notice of his
righteousness and a task given to him, that is, he is tasked with building an
ark so that two of every species might ride out the coming storm. The flood
begins to subside in chapter 8 so that Noah, his family, and everything on the
ark can safely disembark. Noah celebrated the end of the journey by making a
sacrifice (we would assume that he took with him some extra animals for the
sacrifices). At the end of chapter 8, God makes a promise to never destroy
every living creature. (Gen. 8:20-22). The opening verses of Genesis 9 set the
repopulating of the earth in motion, such that everyone and everything is
commanded to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 9:1-7). Hopefully, things work out
better the second time around, at least that would seem to be God’s hope when
God entrusted this work to Noah. As we know, things didn’t quite work out as
God intended, but the rainbow persists, and despite the continued presence of
floods, nothing like the flood Noah navigated takes place.
What is intriguing about this story
is that it challenges the idea that God is unchangeable; that God cannot have a
change of mind and heart. God essentially repents of creating humanity. In
other words, God admits to making a mistake when embarking on creation. Then at
the end, God seems to have a bit of remorse at having carried out this sentence
on humanity, which is why God makes a covenant with Noah. Walter Brueggemann
takes note of this question of God’s change of mind, noting that the question
of whether God will abandon the world “is a central question for Israel.” He writes: “Many people hold a view of God as
unchanging and indifferent to anything going on in the world, as though God
were a plastic, fixed entity. But Israel’s God is fully a person who hurts and
celebrates, responds and acts in remarkable freedom. God is not captive of old
resolves. God is as fresh and new in relation to creation as he calls to be
with him. He can change his mind, so that he can abandon what he has made; and
he can rescue that which he has condemned” [Brueggemann, Genesis, p 78].
For the First Sunday of Lent, we
don’t have to deal with the entire flood story. We just get the good parts
where God makes a covenant with Noah and all creation, promising never again to
cause a big destructive flood, along with the rainbow. Interestingly, today the
rainbow is rather controversial since it is a symbol of the LTGTQ community’s
fight for their rights. That it is controversial is somewhat surprising, but
then again, this is a season of backlash. I wonder if God is again lamenting
creating this human race that seems so intent on messing things up. Nevertheless,
the placement of the bow, which is a weapon of war in the ancient world, in the
sky as a sign both to God and creation has important implications. Miguel De la
Torre writes: “Even though the bow is an instrument of war, the unstrung bow in
the sky testifies to God’s pledge never to make war on humans again” [Connections,
p. 26].
The way we tell this story of the
flood is a bit of an enigma. It’s a story of judgment and redemption, though
only a handful of creatures get redeemed. Most of the creation is wiped out. Nevertheless,
it is a favorite bible story among Sunday school teachers and children. After
all, we love animals. What is more interesting to a child than the story of a
boatload of animals that get to ride out the flood waters. Even as our reading
leaves out the full story of Noah’s call to rescue a remnant of creation, we
tend to leave out the fact that this is a story of humans and animals drowning when
we tell the story of Noah to our children. When my son was born, one of the
members of the church where I was serving as an associate minister gave us a
Noah’s Ark night light for his room. It was quite lovely, and we kept it for a
long time. The problem is that this story, in its fullness, is rather
complicated, what with all the death and then God’s sense of regret at taking
that step. At one level it is good to know that God can have a change of mind
and experience regret, but you must wonder about why God would take such a
drastic step. While it is good news that the rainbow will remind God not to do
this the next time things get messy, again does that not cause you to wonder
about God’s character? In any case, we
can all breathe a sigh of relief because while it may rain and even flood, the
results will not be as bad as this one. Of course, God didn’t say anything here
about fire, but that’s another story.
I should say something here about
the historicity of the flood. It’s important to note that Genesis 1-11 is
understood to be primeval history or to use Barth’s term, a saga. We’re not meant
to take this as history, though articles pop up on the internet regularly
telling us that scientists have discovered the remains of the Ark. It’s usually
a rather oddly shaped rock formation somewhere near Mount Ararat in Turkey. Of
course, you can find a “full-size” mockup of the Ark in Kentucky. I think we
can safely ignore these reports. They never bear fruit. However, it is worth
noting that flood stories of different types permeate many cultures reminding
us of the destructive power of flood waters. As for the possible origins of
this story, we can imagine that this story originated in reports of a massive
flood taking place in the Tigris and Euphrates Valley. Whatever the origins of
the story, the focus here, in this passage, is the covenant God makes with
creation.
This is the first and broadest of
three covenants we read about in the Hebrew Bible. The other two are the
Abrahamic and the Mosaic Covenants. This covenant is made with the entire
created order, human and non-human. It is also one-sided. There are no
stipulations given as with the Mosaic Covenant. Unlike the other two covenants,
it doesn’t come with any promises of blessing or curses either. Just a promise
not to destroy things with water again. This covenant does, however, mark a
point of new beginnings. There is a new world out there to fill. After all, in
the opening verses of Genesis 9, God gives the command once again to be
fruitful and multiply. With this first
covenant, we discover that God has a universal interest. By making this
covenant with all creation, were reminded that even if God makes narrower
covenants with Abraham and his descendants as well as with Moses and the
Hebrews, God isn’t a nationalist or a nativist. God isn’t even a humanist. God
cares about the entire created order. At a time when we face the dangers of
climate change, pollution, and similar threats, this is a good reminder that
God does care about creation. So should we. As Miguel De La Torre notes: “It is
a covenant made with all humanity and, just as important, all of creation. The
well-being of humans will forever be intertwined with the well-being of the
planet and all the forms of life it contains” [Connections, p. 26].
As we begin this Lenten journey,
may we take comfort in the promise of this unconditional covenant God has made
with all creation, such that we might be fruitful and multiply, and live
together in harmony as a sign of God’s grace.
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