The beginning of Genesis sets the scene for who God is, who we are and what our purpose is. The first stories are important because we see what happens when the first spanners get thrown in. We see how God responds - how he judges!
I believe that God's judgment is rooted in his love for creation, not his anger towards it. We need His judgment because it is his wisdom, clear thinking, comment and contribution to what is going on. God is the expert, he sees the pitfalls and He does not have a history of being deceived. When the world has diverted off the path, God is the perfect person to help us get back on track.
The lessons to be learnt from the stories at the beginning are profoundly simple as ideas, but very hard in practice.
Lesson 1 - Personal God
Noah lived surrounded by un-Godliness yet he was ‘righteous and blameless' (the first time these two words are used in the bible)
The story of Noah, like with Enoch previously, shows us that one man can live with God even when everybody else around them is positively evil. An amazing example and challenge that is hard, not least because, if you are anything like me, you want to be liked and you want to make other people feel comfortable. Which is, of course, quite Godly too; and something we hold in tension as we undertake the call, made by Jesus, to be ‘peacemakers'!
Noah's relationship with God involved personal two-way communication. It wasn't just about personal survival - God used Noah to change the world. Multiplying, what is essentially, a very small offering and using it to do something remarkable. A story that is so familiar throughout the bible, feeding of five thousand from a small boys packed lunch being just one, that it makes me wonder why we feel so small, incapable and ineffective so much of the time. When he has something small to work with - he works with it. A mustard seed can move a mountain!
Apparantly Charlie used this quote in his talk too - but I cant help mentioning again:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead (20th Century writer)
Lesson 2 - ‘Plan A' God
Noah was part of the fresh start for the earth. God wiped the slate clean, washed the earth of all the bad stuff and gave Noah a chance to start again - an opportunity that many of us might like ourselves.
But God's plan is the same as before. He repeats the edict given to Adam and Eve:
"Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth."
In fact, as we read through the bible, the plan doesn't really change too much: ‘Multiply, scatter, govern'.
God's calling to Abraham is increase/multiply. His descendents were to be as numerous as the dust on the earth or the stars in the sky.
Jesus said "Go and make disciples of all nations"(Matt 28), "you will be my witnesses ......... to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1)
Jesus even links the end of the world to the fulfilling of this ‘plan A':
"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."(Matt 24)
There are also continual references about God being the God of the whole earth: "The earth is the Lords and everything in it" (Ps 24:1)
Everyday I take a brief look over the skyline of London. Lots changes, yet I see a great city that is a small representation of what god cares about and where I am meant to be ‘multiplying, scattering and governing'.
Sometimes I think we want a new ‘plan' when we haven't really dealt with the last one. Noah's story reminds us to go back to the last thing God said to us, to pick it up and to commit it back to God. In his story God wiped away all the other people, which some of us might think would be rather handy too. But God has promised never to do that again (there is no long-term future for a throw away culture).
It didn't take many generations for the world to get back to its pre-flood condition, with evil all over the place. So we might as well make it work with those around us.
If you tried following God's ‘plan A' and it went wrong - chances are he will call you back to it. And I wonder whether you will find it easy to move on spiritually until you do. Noah moved on: He clearly gets on with the Job because the world is getting populated and he has managed to tame the ground and produce wine.
He has been true to his name - ‘rest' or ‘comfort'.
But, as proved so many times in our lives - the place of rest can be the most dangerous:
Gen 9
20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.
The great man of God, ‘righteous and blameless', at the top of his game is found drunk, naked, in shame needing to be covered up - a painfully familiar story: which includes you and me!
For Adam: God made the clothes of skin. Noah's two sons covered him up. For us: Jesus doesn't just cover our shame but he deals with it by taking it upon himself.
This story is also a picture of how our sin effects others.
It breeds amongst the people around us. Noah's son Ham sins by taking advantage of his fathers nakedness: voyeuristically. It wasn't Noah's fault that Ham fell but it didn't help that he created an environment where it was easy for him to fall. It's not Ham's fault that some of his descendents ended up being destroyed in Sodom and Gomorrah but he probably had an impact. We all have an example to set.
Back to ‘Plan A'
After Noah the next person to throw a spanner in God's plans is Nimrod. He was a man of great strength and power. "He was a mighty hunter before the lord." And his name means "we shall rebel".
Nimrod built places to show the strength of man - including Babylon:
Gen 10
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel - because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
It seems that ‘Plan A' is being contradicted again! The people have started to settle and build cities.
Cities are not evil, but as with all things they have the potential to be used for evil: In this case the cities provided so much variety and opportunity that it was possible for them to stop travelling and settle there. They could forget God and their need for a relationship with Him. They could set up men as rulers rather than God.
And, to top it off, they built a tower to make a name for them selves so that they might not be scattered across the earth.
A tower is a high place, visible, to remind people of the turning points in their lives. They help remind us of who we are and where we have been. They are symbolic of what is most important in your life.
Other people, notably Abraham, built altars in the high places of life to remind themselves, and others, of who God is and how grateful they were to him. They used their power and success to build a place to the glory of God at which people would worship him. At Babel this was the opposite, the tower was built in the high place to the glory of man.
Lesson 3 - Power
This story encourages us to ask what we are building with our power?
Are they places that show our glory or God's glory?
Are my children, my house, my business, our church, for the glory of me/us or God?
I love the fact that so many verses in the bible end - "to the glory of God"
God's response to Babel:
God comes down to see the tower (which says a lot about the best achievements of men.)
It seems that the people have stopped scattering and are heading for problems. And it is not helped by the fact that they all speak the same language - more than just language - this was full understanding (we often talk in the same language yet misunderstand each other).
Imagine it all being much clearer - understanding culture and experience?
The sky is the limit.
But how terrible if the wrong person gets into leadership? Like Nimrod who took his power by aggression? Perhaps it would be better if a few people did miss his point?
- If people didn't understand him it could lead to all kinds of benefits.
- It would force the people to spread out and it would spread the power.
- It would humble people as they worked out how to communicate.
- It would mean they would have to help each other.
- It might mean that they would stop relying on the strength of man and turn back to God: after all, the more power you have in men's eyes the easier it is to consider God irrelevant.
Out of concern/love God makes a judgement:
He says ‘come let us' confuse - and he introduced different languages:
It is very interesting looking at language origin and language evolution because, from the little I have read, studies seem to conclude that at some point in history languages were suddenly and deliberately confused. This is because the nature of speech suggests a common origin yet the nature of the languages suggests different origins.
So - as God introduces different languages the people start to scatter again:
It also struck me this week that if we stop going for what God has called us to then we start to misunderstand each other. We hear the same words but miss the meaning. And then we find problems with mistrust.
Yet as we go for what God calls - to scatter and multiply - we start to understand each other again - I think it is because it is rooted in love.
That universal language.
To conclude:
- Are we multiplying and scattering?
- We are having children. Are we multiplying children of God - a bit.
- Are we scattered? Yes and no!
- Yes in that we live all over the world now. But are we scattered in our streets? Are we scattered in our families? Amongst work colleagues?
- Or - are we building a city within a city? A safe community that means we don't have to scatter?
It seems we have so far to go and we are so small - yet, back to the beginning - our stories tell us that God takes very little and works with it - multiplying.
Prayer
- Personal - To remember the calling of God given to us personally.
- Plan A -To help us scatter for the purposes of God's kingdom.
- Power - To use our power to build altars to God rather than towers to us.