Summer at the Shore:  Whatever Floats Your Boat

Genesis 6-8, Matthew 24:36-44

            Just when you thought it was safe to get back on an airplane, listen to this report from the Department of Homeland Security:  At Newark International Airport, an individual who claimed to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a compass, a protractor, and a calculator.  Authorities believe that he is actually a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement.  He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction (internet). 

            All puns aside, we know that there is much evil and violence in our world.  Sometimes it feels as if the world is going to just fly apart at the seams.  If it’s not Iraq, it’s North Korea, if it’s not North Korea, it’s Liberia.  Or New York City Hall.  To bring it even closer to home, think about what happens in the workplace.  Your workplace.  It may not be guns and violence, but what else is going on?

            USA Today listed the most common types of unethical and illegal behavior that people say that they have engaged in at work. 

            Cut corners on quality control.

            Covered up incidents.

            Abused or lied about sick days.

            Lied to or deceived customers.

            Put inappropriate pressure on others.

            From world class violence to petty dishonesty, evil is nothing new.  It goes all the way back to the beginning of the world.  In Noah’s day, the world was corrupt and evil.  And no one seemed to care. . .no one, that is except God and Noah. 

            What about today?  It was at least three decades ago that a famous psychologist posed the question:  “Whatever became of Sin?”  It’s a good question, because many people don’t believe in sin any more.  Kind of like our young Labrador, Amazing Grace, who definitely does not believe that there is such a thing as sin.  She thinks that she is immune.  She thinks it’s ok to sneak out the front door and explore the neighborhood.  Which, actually would be fine, except that there are a lot of cars and trucks that race by our house.  She needs boundaries in order to be safe.  And so do we.  The problem with sin is that it is self-destructive.   

            There’s a phrase that people use a lot these days:  “whatever floats your boat.” 

The idea behind that statement is a philosophy that says that whatever you want to do is fine.  Your opinions, your behavior, your preferences are yours and I’m not going to interfere.  So far so good, “you say tomato, I say tomahto,” you like strawberry, I like chocolate.  No big deal.  But take it a step farther to moral values, ethical decisions, how you treat other people, and “whatever floats your boat” can get a little dicey.  It may begin to sound as if there are no absolute standards, no right or wrong, no such thing as sin or evil.  As if God doesn’t care how you live your life.  It’s just each person for himself or herself.  As it was in the days of Noah. 

            Does God care how you live your life?  The story of Noah suggests that yes, God does care how people live.  In Noah’s day God cared enough to want to push the delete key and start the story all over.

The story of Noah doesn’t tell us exactly what God’s standards are, but the rest of the Bible gives us some pretty good clues as to what God cares about.  God cares about integrity and love and justice and mercy and compassion.  God cares about the poor and the oppressed.  God cares how we treat our employees and our friends and our family.  But there’s something that God cares about even more than that.  Most importantly, God wants people to be vitally connected with God.  The only real difference between Noah and the rest of the world was that, in the words of Genesis, “Noah walked with God.”  And the rest of the world didn’t. 

            And that’s what God wants from people.  To enter into a relationship with God, to walk with God.  People who walk with God find themselves more able to live according to God’s standards.  But the point is not so much about being good versus being bad.  It’s about walking with God, forming a relationship that is real and that brings life and direction and purpose. 

            Noah’s story underscores what a struggle it is for people to make that vital connection with God.  The passage from Matthew sheds some light on that.  In the passage from Matthew, Jesus talks about what the world will be like in the days before he returns.  It will be like the days of Noah, he said.  People will eat and drink, get married, live their lives, just like they did before the flood.  And they will not be aware of Jesus and his coming, just like they were unaware of the flood.  It will come as a surprise.

            Why will it be such a surprise? The same reason the flood surprised people.  It wasn’t that the Ark was invisible.  Quite the contrary.  It was huge, and Noah took years building it.  It’s just that it didn’t make sense.

            Think about how it was for Noah and his contemporaries.  For us, boats are commonplace.  If God said to Eric, “build me a boat,” Eric would just say, “how big?”  Because boats are commonplace and we know what they are good for.  The boat God wanted might stretch even Eric’s tolerance a little bit.  That thing is huge.  But it’s still a boat.

But Noah lived in the desert.  There was no need or purpose for boats.  Rain was not a common occurrence.  Depending on how you interpret the first few chapters of Genesis, there may not have been rain at all, much less a rainstorm or a flood since the beginning of time.  So, when Noah began to build his big boat, and continued building for many years, that Ark was as out of context as an elephant in your living room.  Or a space ship in your back yard.  It didn’t fit their understanding of reality.  It didn’t connect.  What connected for them was providing for their families, protecting their possessions, taking care of themselves. 

Not only was the Ark out of context for them, so was God.  They lived their lives as if God did not exist.  They were detached from God, lived only for themselves.  That’s why they became wicked and corrupt.  And that’s why God wanted to push the delete button and start over. 

God didn’t want to give up on human beings altogether, though, and we can thank Noah for that.  The Ark became the means of salvation for the human race, but it was kind of an exclusive cruise, wasn’t it?  There was only room for Noah and his family, what with all those animals on board. 

God’s intention with the flood, was to start over, give humankind another chance through Noah.  How have we done?  We’ve more or less bungled that second chance, haven’t we?  But God said, No more floods.  Instead of pushing the delete key this time, what God has done, is to provide an Ark that has room for everyone, through Jesus and what he did for us on the cross.  All these years God has been building a different sort of Ark to hold people and carry them into the kingdom so that they will not perish.  We call this Ark the church.  And it is not an exclusive cruise, like Noah’s, it’s for everybody who wants to come.  Like Noah, our calling is to build, and beyond the building, our calling is to fill the Ark with people.   

            But here’s the difficulty:  In our day the church often seems as out of context to people as a big boat in the middle of the desert.  The ways of God do not make sense to them. To people on the outside, the things we do in here don’t seem all that connected with real life.  What does singing a few songs, saying prayers, listening to a boring preacher have to do with what I deal with every day?  It doesn’t connect.  Doesn’t matter.  Not really. 

            It’s not that they are uninterested in God.  I think for most people it’s just that they don’t realize that they can know God personally.  They don’t know that church can be fun.  They may feel a certain dissonance in their lives, but they don’t realize that what’s missing in their life is a vital connection with God.  

Now, we know different, because we’re in the boat.  We know that the things we do here make a difference in our life.  It helps us to come here and be together.  We grow spiritually, we support each other, we help each other to know God.   Most of all, God meets us here. 

            There are a lot of people who try to predict when Jesus will return and what exactly will happen when he does.  But nobody knows, except God.  But it will be like the days of Noah, Jesus said.  Those who walk with God will be prepared.  Those who live their lives apart from God will miss the boat.

            The bottom line for us is:  walk with God.  The challenge for our ministry is:  help other people to see how very important this is, and how good it is to walk with God. 

            There were two boys who asked their mother if they could go down to the beach and look for shark teeth with their uncle.  The mom knew that there were no shark teeth on the beach.  She had walked on the beach many times and had never seen any shark teeth.  Other things, yes, but no shark teeth.  She agreed that the boys could go, but she knew that they would come back empty-handed.  About an hour later the boys returned with their uncle, with shark teeth in hand.  It turned out that mom was wrong.  There were shark teeth on the beach.  But she had never looked for them.    (parables, 22.8.3)

            There are lots of things that are going on all around us that we don’t notice.  Kids are growing before your eyes, your tomatoes are turning red, bees are buzzing around pollinating the world, your white blood cells are fighting off infection and there are shark’s teeth lying all over the beach just waiting to be found. 

            So, to switch my analogy from Arks to sharks, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to help people discover the shark’s teeth lying about on God’s beach.  God is alive and involved in the world.  God is reaching out in love.  Help people to bridge the gap in understanding.  Help them to see, through you, that it’s possible to have a living, loving relationship with God.  That church is a good place to be.  And that it matters.