“God Likes Elephants and Mosquitoes”
Wayne McLaughlin
February 21 , 2021
First Sunday of Lent
Leeds Presbyterian Church
Genesis 9:8-17
9:8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,
9:9 "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you,
9:10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.
9:11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
9:12 God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:
9:13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
9:14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,
9:15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
9:16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."
9:17 God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."
1 Peter 3:18-22
3:18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,
3:19 in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison
3:20 who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
3:21 And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
3:22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
Mark 1:9-15
1:9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
1:10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.
1:11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
1:12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
1:13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,
1:15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."
SERMON TEXT:
One of the things I decided to do after my retirement was to read some of the classics that I had never gotten around to reading. Since retirement I’ve read Dante’s The Divine Comedy, which I loved. I read Moby Dick, which I also loved. It’s beautiful prose and profound philosophic and spiritual undertone moved me. I also read War and Peace, another great classic. And a book I always wanted to read, but never got around to, Middlemarch by George Eliot. I absolutely loved it. I also read Homer’s The Odyssey. I thought it might be a little boring—an ancient Greek story. But it was very entertaining. I’ve been toying with reading Joyce’s huge tome, Ulysses, but so far I haven’t persuaded myself to do it.
Another great novel that I’ve read since retirement, a Russian novel with profound insight into human nature and the great questions that keep us up at night, is Dostoyevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov. I want to quote a character in that novel to begin this sermon. The character is a Russian Orthodox priest named Father Zosima. Father Zosima was known for his deep spiritual wisdom. At one point in the story he offers some spiritual advice, and I think his words will help us enter into our readings this morning. Here is what he says:
Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble them, don’t harass them, don’t deprive them of their happiness, don’t work against God’s intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to the animals…
My young brother asked forgiveness of the birds: it seems senseless, yet it is right, for all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world… All is like and ocean, I say to you. Tormented by universal love, you, too, would then start praying to the birds, as if in a sort of ecstasy, and entreat them to forgive you your sin. Cherish this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to people. [1]
Love the animals. I believe God had great fun creating the animals, don’t you? Of course, historically speaking, this took place through the mechanism of evolution—a gradual process of creation. But in the Bible’s parable of Noah and the ark, God told Noah to gather a male and a female of each species, and seven pairs of “clean” animals from each species. So, two of each of the “unclean” animals and fourteen of the “clean” ones.
This ancient story raises a lot of practical questions, such as: how did they catch two mosquitoes—and keep everyone from swatting one?
By the way, Noah probably got milk from the cows onboard. You know what he got from the ducks? Quackers.
You know what Noah’s greatest worry was? The pair of termites.
Why did Noah have to discipline the chickens on the ark? Because they were using “fowl” language.
COVENANT
The story of Noah and the Ark may be a parable, but it has an important message. According to Genesis, after the creation had gotten up and running for a while, God looked around and said to himself/herself, “Boy, what a mess. This isn’t working out too well. I think I should start all over again. I’m going to reboot.” The story of the Flood is God’s way of rebooting creation. Destroying everybody except Noah’s family. He gave Noah a blueprint of a big boat he wanted built. Noah built it and gathered all the species in the boat.
The most important part of the story is what God did after they came out of the ark. That’s when God made a covenant. Listen to what God says:
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you,
and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark”…
God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth…
When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
God establishes an unbreakable bond between not only humanity, but a bond with the earth and every species of animal. The Creator is promising an ongoing friendship with all animals; and a friendship with the earth.
The story of Noah and the Flood tells us of the first covenant in the Bible, even before God made a covenant with Israel, God had already made a covenant with all humans and all of the other animals. This is known as the Noahic (no-A-ic) Covenant.
It is a Contract of friendship with the earth; with the cows; and the cats; and the elephants; and the whales; and the birds; and the insects; and the humans. Friendship with the air; and the water; and the soil.
BEASTLY MINISTRY
Our gospel reading today tells us about Jesus going into the wilderness where he is tempted. Did you notice this part:
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
“He was with the wild beasts.”
It doesn’t say he was in danger in the presence of the wild beasts. It doesn’t say he fought off the wild beasts. He was simply “with” them. It sounds like Jesus and the beasts were friendly toward each other. It would make sense because God has made a covenant of friendship with the beasts. I’ll bet the “beasts” – the animals – were a comfort to Jesus during that period of psychological struggle. When Mark says Christ was tempted by “Satan,” I think that means that as Jesus was trying to figure out what his calling was, there was a part of him (“Satan”) that was resisting God’s call to be Messiah. The word Satan means adversary. And we all have to struggle with the adversary deep inside of us—that part of us that questions our call and resists our life of faith.
Now, of course our call to be friends with all of the animals is not a call for naïveté. I’m not going into a jungle somewhere try to pet the tigers. I know that Isaiah tells us that someday the wolf and the lamb will lie down together. Although I read about a zoo out in California where they have successfully put a wolf and a lamb in the same cage. It works out okay, they say. Of course they have to put in a new lamb every day.
NATURE
As we begin the season of Lent, perhaps part of our spiritual discipline could relate to how we befriend the animals and the soil and the water and the air. Maybe a renewed relationship with God will include a renewed relationship with Nature.
And when we say nature we must be aware that we're talking about ourselves. Nature is not something "out there," apart from us. No. We are a part of nature. Not “apart from” nature, but “a part of” nature. To take care of nature is to take care of ourselves. To destroy nature is to destroy ourselves.
This is one of the biggest inaccuracies we propagate in our conversations about our ecological responsibilities. If we are to base our lives on a proper theology of ecology, we have to begin thinking of ourselves as part of nature. If we hold nature at arm’s length, it becomes in our minds an “object” out there. We objectify nature as something to be used—even exploited. But if we keep in mind that we are nature, and nature is us, then it becomes hard to objectify and abuse nature.
We are the most rational part of nature, and the most conscious part of the natural world. Therefore, we have the most responsibility for the health of God’s earthly creation.
DIRT
Ellen Davis, Professor of Bible and Theology at Duke Divinity School, writing about ecology in the Bible, says,
In the Biblical story we have a kinship with the soil. The prophets tell us that “the soil is more like a relative than a resource: it is to be respected, and not just used.” [2]
We are related to the soil. The writer of the second chapter of Genesis uses a pun as he or she tells a story about the creation. In Genesis 2.7 the writer says:
…then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground
We don’t hear the pun in the English. In the original Hebrew it says:
vayyitzer Yahweh Elohim et ha-adam aphar min-ha-adamah.
The Lord God formed the adam (earthling) from the adamah (dust). It’s a pun because a story teller likes to make you smile. It’s word-play. But it’s also profound theology.
We are dirt. But special dirt. We are in-spirited (inspired) dirt. We are the only dirt made in the image of God. Which means we have a special calling. Part of our vocation is to live within the Covenant God has made with the earth, and the animals.
ARK OF BAPTISM
In our epistle reading today, Peter says that our baptism can be compared to the water that saved Noah and his family. They floated on the water: it was their salvation. We too are saved through the waters, the waters of baptism. The Sacrament of Baptism indicates that we are put into Christ as if he is our Ark. Our lives float on Christ just as the ark floated on the waters. You know how it is when you get into the lake or a swimming pool, and you want to float: you have to stretch out and relax your body and let the water hold you up. You trust the water. Likewise, in baptism we declare our trust in Christ. Baptism is the sign that Christ will buoy us up throughout our life.
And as baptized people, part of our calling is to join Noah's mission of saving the animals.
ANIMAL SALVATION
Recently I began writing a haiku for each of the 150 psalms. When I got to Psalm 36, I saw in two verses the whole Old Testament summed up in four words.
Verses six and seven contain these words: love, faithfulness, goodness, justice. Chesed, emunah, tzadaq, and mishpat. Steadfast love, faithfulness, goodness, and justice. That sums up the nature of God and the story of the Bible.
But there’s more. The very next line says, “Both human and animal you save, O Lord.” That line surprised me. It reminds the reader that God's salvation extends to the whole creation. St. Paul would later say: The whole universe awaits its salvation. (see Romans 8)
Which brings us back to the Covenant God made with Noah and the earth and all the animals.
A theology of ecology is found in the rainbow. The sign of God’s Contract of friendship with nature, which includes us. When God puts the rainbow in the sky, we are reminded that God has hung up his bow and arrow, adopting a non-violent attitude toward evil. The rainbow brings to mind the new beginning which God gave to the whole creation, and the friendship God has pledged to you and me and the elephants and the mosquitoes and the whales and the sloths. The rainbow is the big sky sign of a theology of ecology. The rainbow speaks of non-violence, diversity, and inclusiveness.
The nature of God is to love nature.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love nature as you love yourself—because you are part of nature.
The season of Lent could be a good time to intensify our efforts to heal God’s creation. And to renew our friendship with the elephants and the mosquitoes.
As Father Zosima wrote: If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.
NOTES:
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Trans. by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992 ), 319-20. [Part II, Book Six, 3g.]
2. Ellen Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Lanham, Maryland: Cowley Publications, 2001), 190.
