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En el nombre del Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador. Amen.
The story of Noah is a story about faith in the voice of God who sometimes speaks a different message than what is evident to our eyes. Noah’s faith was such that he built a huge ark when there was, as yet, no rain. The rain eventually came and Noah watched as his whole world was destroyed. Cradled in the ark God told him to make, Noah waited – a long time (which is what 4o days means), long enough for God to redeem - to restore the world and to prepare Noah and his community to live in it.
God is like that. A divine peace can overcome us when we let it. Animals are good at letting it. Children are too.
In 1994, I took my three children to a farm in Conyers, GA where Our Lady was said to be appearing to a woman. There were 80,000 people gathered that day at the farm. I knew, having been once before without my children, that we would pray a Rosary together, so I brought provisions for my children. My boys were 2 and 3 at the time. Jessica was 12. I brought snacks, coloring books, the usual, and Jess had promised to help with her brother, our middle child, who couldn’t be still for 5 minutes - ever. As we started praying the Rosary, he laid down and put his head in my lap. We prayed all three Mysteries of the Rosary, which took about an hour to accomplish. The entire time we prayed, my son laid with his head in my lap, eyes open. I felt a powerful peace emanating from his body. It was clear to me that was a divine action happening in him.
God isn’t ever far from us. Indeed, God is within us – as close as our own breath. Our breath IS God’s breath breathing life into us and through us into the world.
So when St. Paul says the sufferings of the present time are nothing compared with the glory about to be revealed, he’s reminding us that whatever the world presents us, God can and will redeem it. “For in hope we were saved. [he says] Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Just as Noah did.
We know that our hope wanes at times. As I watch laws protecting our environment being rolled back to support corporate profits, my frustration rises and my hope wanes. I know my weakness is to believe I know what should happen and when.
Then I remember, usually by going to prayer, that my hope is not grounded in the present moment but in the great plan of God who redeems all things and draws the whole world into divine-earthly unity. Together with the community into which God has placed me, just as God placed Noah and his community on the ark, we will find our path forward, the path God sets before us, because, as St. Paul says, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to [God’s] purpose.”
Did you know that most churches are constructed to resemble an ark? Look up at the ceiling and see the inverted ship in which we journey together as a community. Like Noah, our call is to bring new life to a world continually being destroyed by human choices.
We are not spitting into the wind any more than Noah was a fool for building an ark in dry weather. Everything we do - our prayers, our Eucharists, our journey as a community in transition – is preparation for us to respond with God’s love to a world destroyed by human choices. We can suffer through any painful moment knowing that.
“Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” destroy our hope? No. There is no earthly destruction that can overwhelm or overpower the redeeming love of God. As St. Paul says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The gospel story makes room for us to experience terror and amazement at the destruction humans can wreak and the power of God’s redeeming love in response, It is terrifying at times.
Yet God redeems. Everything. Always.
So as we consider the effect of human choices on our climate and how we can respond, we remember Noah who prayerfully heard the voice of God and did as God commanded him, despite how foolish God’s request seemed in the moment. We remember that for a period of time Noah and his community were cradled in divine protection where they were overshadowed by divine peace, unable to see how God was working to redeem the total destruction of the world, brought about by human choices. We remember that we, like Noah, are sent into that new world to proclaim that God’s love, revealed to us fully in Jesus the Christ, can not be thwarted by human selfishness, lust for power, or poverty of spirit.
This is after all our baptismal vow: to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. (BCP, 305) We also vow to resist evil, that is, what causes division, sadness, destruction of creation, and unnecessary labor as some of the current national decisions on climate change are surely doing. St. David’s is already living into this vow by using (as much as possible) pottery cups rather than plastic, stainless ware rather than plastic forks and spoons. We also have advocates among us using their words in addition to their actions to proclaim this Good News.
Can we do more? Probably – but we must be listening as a community for the voice of God to guide us – on climate change, and on life.
Let’s close by praying together our Collect for today, giving thanks for our Cherokee sisters and brothers whose wisdom formed this prayer:
Collect: "Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice we hear in the wind, Whose breath gives life to all the world. Hear us; we need your strength and wisdom. Let us walk in beauty, and make our eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make our hands respect the things you have made and our ears sharp to hear your voice. Make us wise so that we may understand the things you have taught us. Help us to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes towards us. Let us learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. This we ask in your Holy Name. Amen. (Adapted from the Cherokee Great Spirit prayer.)
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