Sermons

Life on the Ark

John Wilkinson                                 Third Presbyterian Church  October 3, 2004                              Genesis 7:11-16 and 8:1-5

There is an adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I am not so sure. I am particularly not so sure where the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is concerned.

Every day across the country, in churches big and small, liberal and conservative, urban, suburban and rural, great things happen by the grace of God. We know this. Babies are cared for. Hungry people are fed. The faith is taught to our children. Beautiful music is made. Meetings happen – lots of meetings. Lives are transformed. Everyday, great things happen, by the grace of God.

And yet if you were a casual observed of the Presbyterian Church, gleaning your news only from the newspaper or columns that arrive at your computer or cocktail party chatter, all you would know is that we Presbyterians fight, and that all we fight about is sex. That’s why I’m not so sure that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

But I have good news this morning, and it’s not that I saved a bunch of money on my car insurance! The good news, which turns out to be rather different news, is not that we Presbyterians have stopped fighting, but that we are fighting about something other than sex. We are fighting about an equally complex topic, if not more so: Our relationship to Judaism and our perspective on the State of Israel. I will say in a moment why it’s important to think about these tings on this day, of all days.

The first reason is the timing. The Times had two stories of this topic just this past week, more column space than we have achieved possibly in the past decade. Many of you have had friends and acquaintances inquire “what on earth is going on with you Presbyterians?” First the facts. This past June, at the General Assembly in Richmond, the General Assembly took two separate actions that seemed quite unremarkable at the time, and very unrelated. The first action had to do with a stream of practice and belief called “messianic Judaism.” You might know messianic Judaism through one of its well-known groups, Jews for Jesus. Messianic Judaism believes, in broadest terms, that indeed Jesus is the Messiah, but that Jesus’ messianic nature does not trump Jewish practices and beliefs, but rather fulfills them.

The Jewish community sees messianic Judaism not as Judaism at all, but as a form of Christianity. Some practitioners find their way through Judaism, perhaps through a conversion experience. Others find their way through Christianity, often through the evangelical world. Numbers are relative small, problematic to our Jewish friends nonetheless and bewildering to much of Christianity.

At any rate, a messianic group in the Philadelphia area had been receiving Presbyterian money, and this General Assembly agreed, by a very small majority, to continue those funds.

That’s the first General Assembly decision. In a separate legislative decision, the General Assembly voted to ask the Presbyterian investment enterprise to begin exploring the possibility of diverting Presbyterian investments in the State of Israel as a way to bring about more quickly justice to the Palestinian people and peace in the Middle East.

Each of those actions seemed innocuous at the time—neither was reported as one of the Assembly’s top ten actions. And yet following the assembly, it appears that we have kicked up something of a hornet’s nest, and things are not getting any better, and, in fact, our Jewish friends are not at all pleased with us.

If you connect the dots of these two actions, it could appear that we are both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, or anti-Jewish. We are neither, of course. And yet, this messianic stream is viewed as a threat to American Judaism, and divestment is seen as a threat to the safety and stability of Israel.

For the record, let me first say that these specific issues, and the broader contexts, are complex and nuanced. They deserve our concerted study. We did not vote, for example, to promote the widespread proseletyzation of Jews, but simply the continued funding of this single group. We also did not vote to divest; we voted to explore the process of diverting. Nonetheless, we voted to do what we voted to do, nuances are lost and temperatures continue to rise.

Our system is such that my personal opinion is not any more important than anyone else’s. And yet on this World Communion Sunday, when Christians all around the world gather at the Lord’s Table, and when we do so here under the rubric of the Noah’s Ark story, allow me to venture a reflection or two. My file is as thick on this as almost anything. Our Presbyterian tradition embraces the right to dissent, and so in this case I think each of the assembly actions to be unwise and ill-timed.

On the messianic issue, which was a procedural debate as much as a substantive one, I do believe that we have an evangelical imperative to share what we believe about Jesus and to invite people into Christian community. But such invitations should be clear and humble and authentic. There is much about this messianic practice that could seem to muddy the distinctiveness between Judaism and Christianity. Further, any effort that “targets” anyone, and “target” seems to be the operative word, seems contrary to the very hospitality of Jesus. In 1987, a Presbyterian study document maintained that Jews had a continuing relationship with God, continued to partake in the ongoing covenant articulated in what we call the Old Testament. Paul in Romans seems to say it well—”God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.”

Israeli divestment, too, seems a less than helpful decision. I have been to Gaza and the West Bank. I have broken bread with Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis, with Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians. With a kind of fragile, delicate balance, it would seem that the state of Israel and a Palestinian state could co-exist. Suicide bombings and retributive killings seems to feed the cycle of violence.

And yet, Israel is not South Africa, the last subject of a Presbyterian divestment strategy. There are Jews in the U.S. and Israel who desperately seek peace.

Jewish response has been heated to this action. We did not consult with the American Jewish community prior to this vote. We have not decided to divest; we have recommended its study. Perhaps a wiser course would have been what we Presbyterians do best, and sometimes well. More study. Study of the current Israel-Palestinian situation. Study of the actual affects of investment policy. Study of the most effective ways to realize justice for the Palestinians, and safety for Israel.

And, in a broader context, study of the implications of Jewish-Christian relationships, and how what we believe about Jesus matters in how we behave about what we believe about Jesus. If you have Jewish friends who are concerned about these things, perhaps we can build on the goodwill of these friendships to forge a fruitful dialogue as we move into the future with integrity, for the reconciliation of all of the people of God.

Why talk about this at all? And why today? In some ways the timing could not be worse. The internal conflicts we are experiencing in the Presbyterian family will find no easy solution. The close vote on the messianic issue, which in some ways breaks down along stereotypical evangelical-liberal lines, surely indicates a symptom of a larger fissure, within the Presbyterian family, within the Christian family, with the family of the world. And yet perhaps that very timing would seem to magnify the strong need for dialogue. One constant Jewish response to all this is that “perhaps we did not know each other as well as we thought we did.” Perhaps that’s the case.

But why today? In some ways the timing could not be worse. But in some ways it could not be better. The confluence of two events.

It is World Communion Sunday, as we have mentioned. A day, perhaps a day more than any other day, when we consider the radical nature of the grace extended to us, the wildly welcoming and hospitable nature of the invitation we receive to this table. There are enough differences in this room this morning to make the point. Imagine those differences multiplied by a global, ecumenical, cultural, racial, ethnic factor. And yet, despite our differences, or perhaps because of them, here we are, to receive the elements of grace. The table is an open one, which serves in some ways to convict us because our practices are never as open. And yet here we are, compelled to work through our differences as we sit elbow to elbow and side by side at the table.

That’s what it must have been like on the Ark. We know the story well, do we not? It’s embedded in our spirits from childhood. We re-visit it today and live with it for a bit because we have committed ourselves to buy an ark-ful of animals on behalf of the Heifer Project. Read your bulletin and become involved as you are able.

It’s a story we know well. Humanity’s wretched behavior and God’s determination to start anew. The call to Noah and the ludicrous request to build a boat. The animals. The rain. The dove and the olive branch. The rainbow. There are so many themes to consider, as Walter Brueggeman would remind us. (Interpretation Commentary, page 73 ff) The incongruity of creator and creation. God’s decision to end creation and the apparent changeability of God’s mind. Faithful human response. The ongoing experience of chaos and deliverance.

For the moment, though, might we focus where the Genesis story provides little focus? We are provided detail upon detail about the rain, about the instructions on boat-building. We are provided detail upon detail about post-flood life, with the rainbow as the key signpost of the covenantal promise. Randy Northrup’s beautiful banners make the point better than any sermon could! In between, there are few details. We are told that God remembered Noah and all the animals, and we are left with the impression that Noah devoted considerable time each day with whatever version of the Weather Channel there was, looking for a break in the weather, looking for dry land. But precious little about life on the ark.

Imagine the complexities. Humorous images are inevitable and nearly endless. And yet more so than that. The complex organizational challenge. The morale. The sheer work involved.

I could not help but think of life on the ark as this Sunday approached, as we Presbyterians seek ways to live with our Jewish friends, as we seek ways to work for justice and reconciliation in our church in the Middle East, or in the American body politic.

There are no easy ways to go about this. It is hard work, this work of reconciliation. But because God provided the means by which Noah would build a boat, because Christ, at his table, provides the means, the bread and cup, by which we are nourished, we are to understand that the hard work is worth it and more so, we are to understand that the hard work of building this community of reconciliation is the call we have received.

Like Noah, we say “why me?” And like Noah, we hear the response “because I have chosen you.” And like Noah, we understand that we are given the provisions, the gifts, to build such a community.

Life together is never easy. True, authentic community is never easy. Life on the ark could not have been easy, and yet it is our call, and we are given the means to make it happen.
To be at the confluence of age-old hostility in the Middle East is to be, as an outsider, bewildered by the inability to find a peaceful solution. And yet there are glimmers every so often that make the effort not just worth it, but grace-filled. These are moments in our own broken lives, are there not, when grace works its way up and out, and we experience a deep sense of hope and joy. And satisfaction, the kind of satisfaction we experience as we are nurtured at this table.

Scholar Terence Fretheim writes that the essential turning points of the Noah story is that first verse of Chapter 8, when God remembers and by so remembering makes a new determination about the future of human history.

We will echo that pattern this day, as bread is broken, as cup is poured out, as Jesus, the one who calls us into life together, says simply, profoundly, “do this in remembrance of me.” As we are remembered, may we so remember, and build a life together in gratitude to God, who throws a rainbow in the sky for us, and feeds us, and all the world, with the bread of life and the cup of the new covenant. Amen.