All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir

All God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir!

The Rev. Linda Campbell

Proper 4A

Genesis 6 – 8; Psalm 46; Matthew 7: 21 – 29

A couple weeks ago, I went with Penny James to take her ailing dog to the vet. The decision was made to put the dog down – and so Penny and her son stroked their beloved companion and said good bye. I was there to be the priest – so I didn’t cry – but when I got home, I immediately called my own son – to remember with him when we put our cat down. I know that all of you who have loved animals can understand the depth of emotion that our animal friends evoke in us.

Many of you have seen the video that Miriam Peterson produced about animals. The genesis of that film was the question that we began the 5 PM service with – For what do you hunger? I invited people to write a letter that would just be between them and God. Miriam shared with me that writing this letter to God put her in touch with her hunger for the wellbeing of all animals – especially of the polar bears who are threatened with the loss of their habitat and food because of the rise in the earth’s temperature.

This hunger – for the wellbeing of animals as well as people – puts Miriam very close to God’s heart. We often forget that the creatures of the earth are included in the covenant of God’s everlasting care. But if we actually understood things that way – wouldn’t we work hard to repair the damage we have done?

God goes to a great deal of trouble to carefully instruct Noah to take every kind of animal with him:

“and of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.”

At the end of the story, God makes a covenant with Noah and with every living creature that is with you. If God goes to all this trouble to save every creature, and make a covenant with All life – then it’s time to sit up and take notice!

The truth is that when we care about creation. When we care about global warming. When we care about recycling. When we care about energy use and energy policy. When we care about pollution. When we care about animal neglect and cruelty and factory farms – these aren’t just hobbies to make us feel warm and good about ourselves. And the truth is, they are not simply about our own survival. When we care about these things – and commit to do something about it - we keep our side of a covenant made between God and our particular Judeo Christian branch of the human family a long time ago. It was and it is a covenant that includes "every" one of us, "all" of God's precious children – including us, even when our own sinfulness and wastefulness and ignorance threatens the survival of others.

So who are we? And what are we doing here? We are stewards. We are here to tend the garden of creation. That is the job description that God gives humanity at the beginning of the Bible. The 1^st Chapter of Genesis calls human beings into stewardship. This is what it means, fundamentally, to be a human being. Tend the resources. Tend the plants. Tend the animals. Tend the air. Tend the water. Tend the land. And above all else, tend each other.

So that’s the 1^st Chapter of Genesis.

But then there was sin in the Garden of Eden. Then Cain killed his brother Abel – the first murder but not the last. “And from there on humankind just went on breaking and destroying what God had made until by this – the 6^th chapter of Genesis, that we read today - God ran out of pity. It is a rather fast catastrophe” isn’t it – to go from “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good” to the 6^th verse of the 6^th chapter: “the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” And so, the Flood almost wipes everything out.

It’s a frightening story isn’t it! Noah and the Ark is a favorite theme for decorating nurseries with –and yet, if you think about it, this is a whoppingly scary story of the near destruction of all creation by an angry God! I don’t want to get stuck on the “angry God” aspect of this story. Yes, there is a problem with a God who would destroy so many people and animals. But “The truth is that the Flood characterizes a destiny that the human community has unleashed upon itself.” (Towner) not that God did from the outside.

Because the larger truth of the story is not about God’s anger – but about God’s mercy. God is determined that, despite the violence and destructiveness of these human creatures, everything won’t be lost. Hope and mercy will have their way. And so, God gives very careful and detailed instructions for the Ark. Through a remnant of humanity, God provides for the salvation of all kinds of flesh and plants.

God and God’s salvation are the point of this story. God who feels compassion every single time our actions seem to call for complete and utter despair about God’s broken and ignorant and destructive creation – especially the human part of the creation. Mercy. Hope. Compassion. These remain. And when Noah and his family and all the animals step out of the ark onto barely dry land, God welcomes them. God makes a covenant with this fragile company of beings to accompany them into the future in a world that will never be perfect. The ongoing story of creation right through to the cross of Christ is that God has opened his very own heart to being affected and moved by what we do and do not do.

Barbara Brown Taylor, one of my favorite preachers, says this about God’s covenant. God’s covenant, she says, “includes all the species disappearing daily off the face of the earth. They are all of them our covenant partners – heirs of God’s promise just like we are – and those of us who understand our kinship with them tremble to think what we have done, killing off those to whom God has promised life….We too are allies of creation…wounded by the brokenness we see around us, the brokenness in which we ourselves participate. We are both the breakers and the healers…

It is still raining, you see. In our own time, the ark does not look so much like a barn floating on a choppy sea. It looks more like a blue-green ball bobbing on the dark ocean of space…If we go on perishing, it may have less to do with divine fiat than with our own amnesia. We have forgotten who we are and what we are supposed to be doing. (But God remembers the covenant he has made with us) – and desires that every living creature who rides this ark with us may share the unmitigated joy of walking down the rickety ramp to plant a foot, a paw, a hoof on dry land” (Gospel Medicine). (Parentheses mine)

Resources and quotes from:

Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine

Samuel: online commentary by UCC: http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/june-1-2008.html