Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13
Easter Vigil – Year A
What a re-telling. All strangeness is taken out of this passage by its unrelenting upbeat nature. Everything seems to automatically work out, unlike in our own lives. Unrealistic expectations of our relationship with G*D rise easily out of this redaction and bowdlerizing.
We don’t hear the questions, the doubts, the institution of drunkenness and slavery in a new creation. In not hearing these we lose an ability to deal with G*D and Neighb*r, as well as Self.
A covenant that has to deal with these unflattering realities will be the stronger. Surprises when internal and external events don’t go well can be better dealt with through a whole-story arc.
An Easter devoid of betrayal and loneliness/emptiness is not able to deal with the necessary realities of our lives.
Better to read these three chapters in their entirety and to wrestle with how Noah represents “righteousness”. This will aid us in dealing with our own “righteousness” and lack thereof.
- - - - - - -
We don’t hear the questions, the doubts, the institution of drunkenness and slavery in a new creation. In not hearing these we lose an ability to deal with G*D and Neighb*r, as well as Self.
Noah co-conspirator
in global destruction
can see the benefit
of everything blotted out
leaving him standing
on a mountain top
surveying all as hisNoah comes forth
savoring being a savior
all creation owing him
a debt of gratitude
wrapping a rainbow
about his shoulders
and gets drunk
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Signs of a new covenant are not present before the covenant is in place. There is no predicting that the building of an ark and loading it with a potential new earth will actually bear fruit.
Noah is not so much righteous as preternaturally anxious—should a flood come, how would we deal with that? This vision of an ark was made for Noah and he for it. The others involved all had their own reasons for dealing with Noah’s compulsive response to his question. And so we journey with Noah and his wife Emzara, Shem and Sedeqetelebab, Ham and Ne’elatama’uk, and Japheth and ’Adataneses. [Note: These names are from the Book of Jubilees. While recognizing different traditions have different names for the wives—we again ask, “What’s with the patriarchy?”]
We could spend hours with the imponderables of who was on the ark and why. Even putting all the various tales together wouldn’t get us any closer to the surprise of a new covenant.
We all know we are trapped in an expectation that the future will be more of the present. To expect more or different is just foolishness. We got on the ark to escape death, not to arrive at a new and different life. We even expect that plants will survive even if animals don’t because we didn’t bring seeds to plant, just as food for the interim.
Repeating this or any of the other creation or re-creation stories leaves us on a wheel moving of its own accord or resurrecting the old to go through it again. A vigil question is how to be open for yet another sign beyond that of a 7th Day/Sabbath or Eden East or Rainbow or Passover or Jericho or Cross or Empty Tomb. What sign today will lead us past our debilitating angst?
As found in Wrestling Year B: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
After looking at a first creation story we skip several more and land on Noah (Yes, take a look at the recent movie).
Here is is not a chaotic deep but broken relationships that start a story which is resolved by a return of a chaotic deep. It is not light that breaks upon the dark, but a frail vessel that rides the waves.
We are vigiling over another chaotic deep, that of death. This time it is not light or a ship, but “nothing” that becomes a sign of a new beginning. Let there be light; let there be an ark; let there be nothing.
We are vigiling to again see nothing and that means everything we thought impossible is being blocked only by our having turned a nothing into a fear to try. To embrace this nothing is to see the face of G*D.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/04/genesis-71-5-11-18-86-18-98-13-vigil.html
Signs of a new covenant are not present before the covenant is in place. There is no predicting that the building of an ark and loading it with a potential new earth will actually bear fruit.
Noah is not so much righteous as preternaturally anxious—should a flood come, how would we deal with that? This vision of an ark was made for Noah and he for it. The others involved all had their own reasons for dealing with Noah’s compulsive response to his question. And so we journey with Noah and his wife Emzara, Shem and Sedeqetelebab, Ham and Ne’elatama’uk, and Japheth and ’Adataneses. [Note: These names are from the Book of Jubilees. While recognizing different traditions have different names for the wives—we again ask, “What’s with the patriarchy?”]
We could spend hours with the imponderables of who was on the ark and why. Even putting all the various tales together wouldn’t get us any closer to the surprise of a new covenant.
We all know we are trapped in an expectation that the future will be more of the present. To expect more or different is just foolishness. We got on the ark to escape death, not to arrive at a new and different life. We even expect that plants will survive even if animals don’t because we didn’t bring seeds to plant, just as food for the interim.
Repeating this or any of the other creation or re-creation stories leaves us on a wheel moving of its own accord or resurrecting the old to go through it again. A vigil question is how to be open for yet another sign beyond that of a 7th Day/Sabbath or Eden East or Rainbow or Passover or Jericho or Cross or Empty Tomb. What sign today will lead us past our debilitating angst?
As found in Wrestling Year B: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience