5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually. 6 And
the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His
heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have
created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and
birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:5-8)
We
don’t exist just to exist.
God
created humanity with and for a purpose.
He made us
1)
to reflect the image of God (imago dei)
2)
to be productive (fruitfulness)
consistent with the Divine nature, and
3)
to express both the Image and productivity through community.
In
Genesis 6, with probably only a few thousand homo sapiens on the entire planet,
all clustered together somewhere on the continental plates of Africa and the
Middle East, the human species moved exactly away from our purpose.
They turned against the imago dei. The people in Noah's time tried to alter their physical image by marrying and mating with “the sons of God” (Genesis 6:4).
They pursued fruit-less activities. Our ancient ancestors used their magnificent brains to think up knew and exponentially worse ways to
disobey their Creator.
They corrupted community.
Few though they were, they hurt each other. Noah's world was filled with murder and violence. Nobody was his brother’s keeper. Every human
being in the Pre-Flood era was a danger to himself and to others.
Humanity
had become so exactly the opposite of what God created them to be that letting
them fill the planet would have been completely counter-productive.
So
the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the
earth, . . . for I am sorry that I have made them.”
God
said, “I’m sorry I even made you.”
Dang! That’s harsh. But it was totally justified.
The
amazing thing isn’t that God decided to literally wash the Earth clean of human
influence, but that He decided not to wash the Earth completely clean of human
influence.
God
preserved the human species by saving Noah and his immediate family.
Noah
was “perfect in his generations” (Genesis 6:9).
That doesn’t mean that he was absolutely perfect. Later on the dude gets sloppy, naked drunk.
(Genesis 9:21 ). “Perfect [sic] in his
generation” means that Noah was the best his culture could produce.
(By
the way, the next time you turn up your nose at someone else’s dysfunctional
family, remember that we’re ALL descended from a guy who got sloppy, naked,
passing-out drunk and then cursed out his grandson because the child’s dad
laughed about it. That’s Genesis 9:20-24.)
Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord.
This
Noah dude was the best pre-Flood humanity had to offer, but this is what GRACE
does. Grace is God working with the best
we have when even our best is pretty terrible.
Anybody
with an active newsfeed can see how generally ugly and imaginatively cruel we modern,
advanced humans are. Every cultural and
political demographic accuses the others of being worse, but all of us are
pretty frickin’ terrible. I mean, do you
re-read the stuff you post about THEM?
We
prefer lies tailored to our digital profiles to the truth. (Matthew 24:11-11)
We
complain about injustice, and we applaud injustice when it works to our
advantage. (Matthew 24:12a)
Christians
who preach about love spew liberal and conservative hatred. (Matthew 24:12b)
We
exploit each other and feel entitled to do so.
We
dismantle and desecrate every kind of human community.
We
are moving exponentially faster and farther away from our purpose.
The Great Flood of Genesis 6 was the result of God being just dog tired of people being ugly to one another. Look how ugly we've become.
Oh, yes. God is full of grace. He always has been. He was in Noah's day, too.
But even God gets tired of ugly.
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization (SAYNO); and
director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human
Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and
clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
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