Reading: Genesis 8-11, Psalm 3

One of the known tropes of Fantasy and Science Fiction is the “world reset.” Some catastrophic event or power fundamentally changes the way the world works. I first encountered this mode of storytelling in middle school, in a series of novels by Fred Saberhagen called The Empire of the East, an old style sci-fi story where technology has stopped working and magic has started working. More recently S.M. Stirling picked up a similar vein in his novels of “the change”, starting with Dies the Fire. When I got into high school and read Shakespeare, I recognized the theme in The Tempest. Finally, much much later, I came to see that these all had a common ancestor in a story I already knew- the flood narrative in the Bible.

All Things Made New

In chapter 7, God pressed the reset button on creation. He was grieved by the violent evil of humankind, and he chose to start over with Noah, the one righteous man of his generation, and his family. In today’s story we find Noah still on the Ark. There is a story of waters receding, breezes and winds over an earth without anything growing on it (see Genesis 1 and 2), and the hints of new life coming in the form of an olive branch in the mouth of a dove. Finally, Noah and all the animals are ordered by God out into the wiped clean world. Then, God makes Noah a promise. He sets up a covenant, an everlasting standard of behavior and state of affairs. The Earth and it’s natural cycles- day and night, seasons, years- will never cease again. Noah and his descendants will not only eat plants but animals as well. Capital punishment is set up as the natural order for both humans and animals. This may seem harsh to some of us, but compare it with the song of Lamech back in chapter 4. God is limiting the vengeful inclination of humankind by setting up a system of balanced justice. God has set up new and different rules for this world than the ones he set up for Adam and Eve in the garden. We have met one of the great themes of the Biblical story. God makes all things new.

Humans, We Have A Problem

Except there is Noah and his family. One element of the this story often glossed over, if it is mentioned at all, in the popular or “Sunday School” version is the second part of chapter 9. Noah goes out and gets drunk. Then his son does… something. Here we run into one of the (many) issues with trying to understand a story we are separated from by at least 3500 years. We read this story and see a strange instance of Ham, the son of Noah, walking into his father’s tent and seeing him naked and passed out from too much wine. Noah’s other sons drop a blanket on him. When Noah finds out what happened, he curses Ham’s son Canaan, who so far had no part in the story at all. Huh?

So here is the thing: we are not ancient near eastern people. Our culture is radically different than that of Noah and the generations that followed him. We do know that in Hebrew, “uncovering nakedness” was unacceptable and appears to by euphemistic for improper sexual behavior. We also know that responsibility for family shame was borne by descendants. In our culture today that is ridiculous, but for most of human history in most cultures, it has been par for the course. Beyond that, we are simply out of our depth trying to understand why these sorts of things happened. What Genesis does tell us is that they did happen, and the events were important to moving the story forward.

So what does this tell us about the story? I believe we have just met, for the second but certainly not the last time, another of the great themes of the Biblical story: Humans, we have a problem. God has hit the reset button on creation. Whatever world existed prior to the flood is gone. There is a new covenant in force. The rules have changed. We have another chance to get it right.

But we don’t. Our second father of all mankind, Noah- the only righteous man in his generation- makes a mess of his relationships right out the gate. He over-consumes. His son misbehaves. He utters a curse. The humans are at it again.

And they are (maybe re?)discovering technology. The Babel story begins with Noah’s descendants using the baked brick and bitumen to begin building a tower. All the humans are gathered together in one place, using a new technology to build themselves a monument. God looks at this and expresses concern. Now, given what he know about God so far in the story, what is his concern about? This is a character that worked the creation, caused a flood, and rewrote the way the world works. He says, nothing will be impossible for them, so he confuses their languages and sends them throughout the Earth. God is not worried about rivalry, he simply knows the humans have a problem, and they are not going to do well all together with advancing technology. He wants a world filled with humans. And this is how he got it. The story is moved forward.

Finally, we come to the descendants of Shem, a line ending with Abram the son of Terah, whose family leaves their city in Ur and travels to the land of Canaan. The introduction of Abram to the story reads similarly to the introduction of Noah a few chapters ago and sets us up to wonder, what is God going to do with Abram now that he has promised not to hit the reset button again? Who is our next hero, and can he succeed where Adam and Noah failed?