This week began with the organization ISIS kidnapping and murdering twenty-one men from Sirte in Libya. The men’s crime was being Christian, members of the Coptic Orthodox church, native Egyptian believers in Christ. The news story saddens me. And it makes me wonder about a number of things. Would we have really noticed this story if it didn’t involve Christians—if those killed were Japanese businessmen, for example, or Mexican migrant workers? But more to the point, why does God allow this sort of thing to happen? ISIS is obviously an evil organization, so why does God let it exist? God is powerful enough to get rid of it. Why doesn’t God just fix things and take care of this problem?
It’s not the first time that a question like that has been asked. It may be an extreme situation, but there are lots of other times in our lives where we wonder why God doesn’t seem to be at work. God is supposed to love us, and we talk all the time about God helping us. And then terrible things happen to us and to our world, and it doesn’t look like God is being very helpful at all. People get sick, people die. We hurt one another through our words and through our deeds. Big problems exist in our world, problems like cancer, like alcoholism, like rape, like abuse. That’s to say nothing of the myriad smaller hurts and evils we perpetrate on each other. Why does God let these things happen? If God really loves us, why doesn’t he stop them from happening?
The Hebrews told a story about that. But before the story begins, it’s important to remember the end of another story, the reminder that God created humankind in his own image. We are made to be like God in the ways that really matter. What does that mean, to be created in God’s image? At the end of the first chapter of Genesis, when this image is described, God has primarily been a creator. And so humans are made to be creative too. We have incredible powers to choose our path in life and change the world through what we do. And so we do.
And so we did. But we the Bible story says that we “trespassed across the boundaries established in the beginning. Violence increasingly corrupted God’s “very good” creation, sending it spiraling down toward the disordered void from which it was formed. The celestial “sons of God” adulterated the proper relation between heaven and earth by taking and impregnating daughters of earthlings. Seditionists in the animal kingdom went against their given herbivore nature, turned bloody, and rebelled against and preyed upon their human stewards. Violence polluted the earth itself.”*
So God got involved. God refused to let these things continue to happen. God hit the cosmic reset button. Creation began with the Spirit moving over the waters, and so the waters would return in a great flood that would destroy everything that God had made. God took His almighty powers and used them destructively.
And it broke God’s heart. Perhaps it wasn’t until that moment, as the world was drowning under the waters of destruction, that God realized how much he loved creation. All of creation. The plants that grew on the land, and the animals that ran across it. Yes, God had saved a pair of each on the ark, not letting any species be completely wiped out, but think of all those that died! And the people, in all their diversity of color and shape, of creativity and intellect. How could a God of love let them all be destroyed without feeling destroyed himself?
And so, when the rains disappeared and the waters dried up, and the whole flood came to an end, God made a covenant with his creation. For the next few weeks, we’re going to get covenant stories in our Old Testament reading, but this one is unique among the many covenants God makes in the Bible. To begin with, God makes this covenant with all of creation. It’s not just Noah and his family that become the subject of this agreement, but rather God tells Noah that this covenant is “with you and your descendants after you, and with every 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 shows his love for not just humanity, but the whole world in this covenant.
Now, a covenant is a fancy word for a treaty or an agreement, something that two parties promise to undertake for their mutual benefit. But this covenant is also strange in that it is one-sided. God agrees to never again destroy the earth, and the humans and animals don’t have to do anything to complete the agreement. It makes this less of a contract and more of a promise on God’s part. The first of many promises God makes to the world.
Today’s reading focuses on the rainbow sign of the covenant. What’s this really all about? The ancient Israelites imagined that God was all-powerful, like a divine hunter raging across the heavens. And then, after the flood, God took his bow and arrow and hung them up. That’s what the rainbow is: God’s hunting bow, hung up where it can’t be used anymore. The rainbow is the perfect sign of this covenant, because in it, God is really promising never again to use His power for destruction. That’s not who God is. God is a creator, not a destroyer. God chose to limit himself, to set aside his powers, for our benefit, because he loved us too much.
Which is why God doesn’t just wipe out the terrorists—because that would make God a terrorist himself. Evil and destructive though they are, God cannot, will not stoop to destruction to eliminate them. But you can bet that God will find a way to bring his creative power to bear on the families who are mourning the loss of their loved ones this week, and will even find ways to inspire agents of ISIS to question what they are doing, and look for a better way to live.
It’s also why, in the fullness of time, God sent his own Son to us, and let us kill him, instead of tearing himself off the cross and putting an end to our destruction. Because God will not work against his own nature. And God is not a destroyer. God always conquers through the power of creation and love.
In Houston, Texas this week, a Muslim mosque burned, and the rear portion of the building was destroyed. The jury is still out about whether or not the fire was an accident or an act of arson. Whether hatred was the cause of this act or not, it has been the result, as the Quba Islamic Institute is now dealing with not only figuring out how to deal with the loss of its building, but also has become the focus of a flurry of hateful comments through the Internet. But rather than ignoring them, or responding with anger, the mosque’s assistant Imam decided to respond creatively.
One commenter said, “I can donate some bacon sandwiches and a Bible if you want.” The response was, “We would gladly take your donation. Knowledge is something we can never have enough of. And we may feed the homeless in our area with the sandwiches. You are such a thoughtful human being!”
When another person, Joshua Gray, wrote some particularly rude things, the religious leader invited him to come for a visit. Since Gray was a truck driver, he found himself in that part of Houston, and decided to take the mosque up on the offer. He spent five hours talking with members and observing them in prayer. “It just changed my opinion on a lot of the things I’ve seen and heard by just going in and actually talking to him face to face,” he said, calling the Muslim community in Houston friendly and welcoming.**
It’s just one of the many examples of how we can cooperate with God’s intention to love the world into healing and wholeness and new life. Instead of using destructive anger and hatred as a means to work, God calls us to be creative people. To reflect the image of God in which we were created. God is a creative God. And we are his people. So, go out and work with God to change the world through your love.
*WM Lloyd Allen. Feasting on the Word. Year B, Volume 2. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. Page 26.
**Al-jazeera America news online. “Imam of torched Houston mosque meets Islamophobia with love.” February 20, 2015.