#pacifism — Public Fediverse posts

God Hangs Up the Bow

A Sermon on God’s Covenant with Violent Humanity

(Note: Sermons can be heard in audio format at https://millersburgmennonite.org/worship/sermon-audio/)

Genesis 6:5–22; 8:6–12; 9:8–17

Introduction

There are some Bible stories we think we know because we first met them as children.

Noah’s ark is one of those stories.

We picture the wooden ark, perhaps with a giraffe’s neck sticking out of a window. We picture lions and elephants, rabbits and zebras, two by two. We picture Noah with a long white beard. We picture the dove carrying the olive leaf. We picture the rainbow arching brightly across the sky.

It is one of the most common stories painted on nursery walls.

And yet if we actually read the story, it is difficult to imagine a less appropriate nursery story.

The story begins with grief.

It begins with corruption.

It begins with violence.

And then the waters come.

Let us pray,

Que las palabras de mi boca y las meditaciones de nuestros corazones sean agradables a tus ojos, oh Dios, roca nuestra y redentor nuestro. Amén.

Homily

Genesis tells us that God looked upon the earth and saw that “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil continually.”

And then there is one of the saddest sentences in Scripture:

“The Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

God is grieved.

Before God acts, God mourns.

That may be something worth remembering whenever we talk about the judgment of God.

God does not look upon human suffering from a great distance.

God does not simply watch humanity tear itself apart and shrug.

God is grieved to the heart.

And a few verses later Genesis tells us what has gone so badly wrong:

“The earth was filled with violence.”

That word may be the key to understanding this entire story.

The earth was filled with violence.

Human beings had learned how to hurt one another.

We had learned revenge.

We had learned domination.

We had learned to answer injury with greater injury.

The story of Genesis has already been moving in that direction.

Cain kills Abel.

Then Lamech boasts:

“I have killed a man for wounding me.”

And then he declares that if Cain is avenged sevenfold, Lamech will be avenged seventy-sevenfold.

The violence keeps multiplying.

One wound becomes another wound.

One death becomes another death.

One act of revenge becomes seventy-seven acts of revenge.

Until finally Genesis says that the whole earth is filled with violence.

It sounds ancient.

It also sounds familiar. Amen?

The earth is still filled with violence.

La Tierra sigue plagada de violencia.

Wars.

Bombs.

Shootings.

Abuse.

Hatred.

Threats.

Systems that grind people down.

Words designed not merely to disagree but to humiliate.

We are extraordinarily inventive when it comes to finding ways to hurt one another.

And God is grieved.

God looks upon the earth and God’s heart breaks.

And then comes the flood.

This is where the story becomes difficult.

Because if violence is the problem, what do we make of a story in which almost every living thing is destroyed?

If the earth is filled with violence, can violence cure violence?

That is a question we should not avoid.

Sometimes we have treated the flood as though it raises no moral or theological questions at all.

We simply say, “Human beings were bad, so God punished them.”

Then we move quickly to the cute animals and the pretty rainbow.

But Scripture itself does not move quite so quickly.

Because something remarkable happens after the flood.

Humanity survives.

Noah survives.

His family survives.

Animals survive.

The waters recede.

And then God looks at humanity again.

And what does God discover?

The human heart has not fundamentally changed.

Genesis 8 says:

“The inclination of the human heart is evil from youth.”

Notice that.

The flood has happened.

The world has been “washed clean” as it were.

Everything has been reset.

And yet the human heart is still the human heart.

The flood has changed the outer landscape.

But it has not changed the inner landscape of the heart.

Perhaps buried inside this ancient story is one of the deepest truths humanity has ever struggled to learn:

Violence cannot cure violence.

We can defeat an enemy and still have enemies.

We can destroy a nation and still have hatred.

We can punish a criminal and still have brokenness.

We can silence a person and still have resentment.

We can win the battle and lose the peace.

Violence can destroy.

It can restrain.

It can frighten.

It can dominate.

But it cannot create a new human heart.

La violencia no puede crear un nuevo corazón humano.

And so something changes in this story.

Not humanity.

But God’s relationship to humanity.

God decides to remain in relationship with creatures God already knows are capable of terrible things.

God chooses covenant.

And before we reach that covenant, there is this beautiful, quiet scene.

Noah opens a window.

The ark is still floating.

The world outside is uncertain.

Noah sends out a bird.

Then he sends out a dove.

The dove finds nowhere to land and returns.

So Noah waits.

Seven days.

Then he sends the dove again.

And this time the dove returns with a freshly plucked olive leaf.

Imagine that moment.

After all that water.

After all that death.

After all that waiting.

A leaf.

That is all.

Not a forest.

Not a harvest.

Not a field bursting with grain.

A leaf.

A tiny green sign that somewhere beyond the ark, life is returning.

I love that image because much of life is like that.

We want God to give us forests.

Sometimes God gives us a leaf.

We want the whole answer.

Sometimes we receive one small sign.

We want the relationship completely restored.

Instead, someone sends a short message.

We want peace in the world.

Instead, two enemies sit at the same table.

We want our faith to feel certain.

Instead, there is just enough light for the next step.

We want grief to disappear.

Instead, one morning we notice that we are able to smile again.

A leaf.

Sometimes that is how resurrection begins.

Quietly.

Small enough to overlook.

Fragile enough to crush between two fingers.

And yet enough to say:

There is land somewhere.

There is life somewhere.

The flood does not have the last word.

Noah waits again.

He sends the dove once more.

This time it does not return.

The dove has found a place to live.

The world is becoming habitable again.

And then God speaks.

God says to Noah and his children:

“I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you.”

Notice who is included.

Noah.

His family.

His descendants.

The birds.

The animals.

Every living creature.

And then God broadens it even further.

This covenant is with “the earth.”

Before Abraham.

Before Israel.

Before Moses.

Before the prophets.

Before Christianity.

God makes a covenant with creation.

Dios establece un pacto con toda la creación.

The first great covenant in Scripture is astonishingly broad.

It includes creatures who cannot understand it.

It includes animals who cannot agree to it.

It includes generations who have not yet been born.

It includes people who may never know the story of Noah.

God simply says:

I am binding myself to you.

I will not destroy the earth with a flood again.

And then God gives a sign.

“I have set my bow in the clouds.”

We call it a rainbow.

But the Hebrew word is simply “bow.”

The same word used for a warrior’s bow.

A weapon.

And that should change how we see the rainbow.

The rainbow is not merely decoration after the storm.

It is a weapon hung up.

God puts the bow in the clouds.

God lays down the weapon.

The ancient image may be that of a warrior hanging a bow on the wall after battle.

The bow is no longer in the hand.

It is no longer aimed at the earth.

It has been set aside.

And God says:

“When I see the bow, I will remember my covenant.”

That is striking.

We usually think the rainbow is there so that we remember God.

But the text says it is God who sees the bow and remembers.

The sign is for God.

God chooses restraint.

God chooses covenant.

God chooses to stay.

God knows what humanity is capable of.

And God chooses relationship anyway.

Dios sabe de lo que es capaz la humanidad.

Y aun así, Dios elige la relación.

Perhaps that is the great turning point of the story.

At the beginning of the flood story, God sees the violence of the world and responds with destruction.

At the end of the flood story, God sees the same human heart and responds with covenant.

God hangs up the bow.

For followers of Jesus, it is difficult not to see where this trajectory eventually leads.

Because many generations later Jesus enters another world filled with violence.

The Roman Empire rules through force.

Soldiers occupy the land.

Rebels dream of armed resistance.

People long for a Messiah who will defeat their enemies through violence.

And Jesus says:

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”

“Love your enemies.”

“Pray for those who persecute you.”

When Peter takes up a sword in the garden, Jesus tells him:

“Put your sword back into its place.”

In other words:

Hang up the bow.

And then Jesus goes to the cross.

Human violence does its worst.

Religion, empire, fear, politics, betrayal, and mob anger all converge.

Jesus is beaten.

Mocked.

Stripped.

Nailed to wood.

And yet Jesus does not answer violence with violence.

He does not call down destruction.

He does not summon an army.

Instead:

“Father, forgive them.”

And three days later the answer to the violence of the cross is not retaliation.

It is resurrection.

La respuesta a la violencia de la cruz no es la venganza.

Es la resurrección.

Life.

The olive leaf again.

A sign that death is not the victor.

This is why Christian nonviolence is not simply a political technique.

It is not merely the idea that peace is nicer than war.

It is rooted in our understanding of God.

God hangs up the bow.

Jesus puts away the sword.

The cross absorbs violence without returning it.

The resurrection creates life where violence intended death.

And therefore, followers of Jesus are called to become people who interrupt the cycle of violence.

Someone wounds us.

The instinct is to wound them back.

Someone insults us.

The instinct is to humiliate them.

Someone frightens us.

The instinct is to frighten them more.

Someone says something cruel.

We rehearse a crueler response.

Cain becomes Lamech.

Sevenfold becomes seventy-sevenfold.

Until families are filled with violence.

Churches are filled with violence.

Nations are filled with violence.

The earth is filled with violence.

And into that endless multiplication of harm comes Jesus saying something astonishing:

Not seventy-sevenfold revenge.

Seventy-sevenfold forgiveness.

Jesus takes Lamech’s mathematics of vengeance and turns it upside down.

That is what the kingdom of God does.

It breaks the arithmetic of retaliation.

But that does not mean passivity.

The covenant after the flood is not God saying that violence does not matter.

It matters so deeply that it grieves God’s heart.

Peace is not pretending harm did not happen.

Forgiveness is not permitting abuse.

Nonviolence is not standing by silently while someone is harmed.

God’s covenant is a commitment to life.

El pacto de Dios es un compromiso con la vida.

Therefore, peacemaking means protecting life.

Peacemaking means standing beside those who are vulnerable.

Peacemaking means speaking truth.

Peacemaking means resisting injustice.

Peacemaking means refusing hatred.

Peacemaking means interrupting cycles of revenge.

Peacemaking means finding ways to confront evil without becoming the mirror image of the evil we oppose.

Peacemaking may be one of the hardest callings Jesus gives us.

Because the bow feels powerful in our hands.

The cutting word feels powerful.

The revenge fantasy feels powerful.

The ability to crush an opponent feels powerful.

But God’s strange power appears in the decision to set the bow aside.

Maybe that is one question this story gives us:

What bow are we still carrying?

What weapon have we refused to hang up?

It may not be a literal weapon.

Maybe it is resentment.

Maybe it is contempt.

Maybe it is the story we keep repeating about someone, either out loud or in our heads, so that we never have to see them as human again.

Maybe it is our certainty that the world would be better if certain people simply disappeared or at least kept their mouths shut.

Maybe it is an old argument we carry around like a sheathed sword, ready to draw and jab whenever the other person comes near.

Maybe we cannot yet reconcile.

Maybe trust has been broken too deeply.

Maybe distance is necessary.

But we can still begin by hanging up the bow.

And then we can look for the olive leaf.

Where is life emerging?

Where is reconciliation beginning?

Where is someone choosing mercy?

Where is someone listening instead of shouting?

Where is someone protecting a stranger?

Where is a community feeding people?

Where are former enemies talking to each other?

Where is a child learning another kinder way?

Where is something green beginning to grow after the flood of pain and grief?

The signs are often small.

The kingdom of God often begins small.

El reino de Dios a menudo comienza de forma pequeña.

A mustard seed.

A little yeast.

A child.

A cup of water.

A loaf of bread.

An olive leaf.

But maybe our calling is not always to heal the whole world.

Maybe our calling is sometimes simply to carry a leaf. To “be leaf.”

To become the living breathing evidence that another way, another world, is possible.

A world where revenge is not inevitable.

A world where enemies can become neighbors.

A world where creation is treated as covenant partner rather than raw material.

A world where strength can mean restraint.

A world where God’s people no longer keep reaching automatically for the bow.

The flood story begins with one of the bleakest sentences in Scripture:

“The earth was filled with violence.”

But it does not end there.

It ends with covenant.

It ends with a bow hanging in the clouds.

It ends with God saying:

I will remain faithful to this earth.

Perhaps that is why we still need
this difficult old story.

We still live in a world
filled with violence,
and it is easy to believe
that violence will have the last word.

But the rainbow says otherwise.

The olive leaf says otherwise.

God is still committed
to this earth,
to life,
and to the possibility
of another way.

Let us pray,

Gracious and loving God,

May we be people
who grieve violence,
protect the vulnerable,
refuse to return evil for evil,
and watch faithfully
for signs of new life.

And when the bow
is placed in our hands,
may we have the courage
to hang it in the clouds
and choose a different way. Amen.

#pacifism is the accomplice of fascism and capitalism

#pacifism is the accomplice of fascism and capitalism

#pacifism is the accomplice of fascism and capitalism

#pacifism is the accomplice of fascism and capitalism

#pacifism is the accomplice of fascism and capitalism

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Painting on paper, 20 x 20 cm: Ambiguous impulses for your mental cinema!
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