In the Beginning 05: Noah and the Flood

From the start of his reflection on the story of Noah and the flood, Tim introduced this idea: “In the Bible, God lets the kids tell the story.”  He taught that the people of Israel had an understanding of God that evolved over time, and that the evolution of their understanding is evident as we follow the evolution of the ways in which God is presented in the text. Their view of God, Tim said, grows up alongside the people themselves. Tim likened this to the way a child first sees their parents as all-powerful, unlimited and orchestrating every minute detail of life and then later sees them differently and in different stages. What surfaces for you as you consider this way of understanding not only the Hebrew people, but also the contents of the Bible and especially its earliest stories that are so familiar to many of us? How does this potentially impact your understanding of God? How does that feel?  What questions or curiousities arise for you as you consider the implications of fully integrating this lens into your understanding of the Bible?

In his teaching about the flood story today, Tim said, “humanity’s wickedness and God’s grief track together [throughout the scripture].” He added that God isn’t portrayed in the text as an angry father, but is, instead, shown to be a heartbroken and grieving parent.  How does this perspective and information compare to other ideas you’ve encountered about who God is, what God’s like, and how God acted in the story of the flood? What are the similarities? What are the differences? How does reflecting on any differences (or similarities) leave you feeling? What questions or thoughts come to mind? What implications seem evident to you as you consider? How does your conception of God, as God is present in the messes of today’s world, align with the picture of a heartbroken, grieving parent - close at hand to God’s hurting people?  Where do you see tendencies to lean into the idea of an angry, fed-up God as you observe and engage in the mess of today’s world? What advice might you give someone who desires to respond to the pain of the world with the heart of a grieving parent, but is struggling to access that grace-filled place?

Take a moment to really contemplate the current state of the world, in which broad ranging and rampagious human brokenness is on constant display. Another thing Tim said today is that “God isn’t untouched by human brokenness; God's bearing it with us all along.” In light of the reality of our world in this moment in history, how do you respond to the ideas that God is bearing it with us right now and that God isn’t untouched by the suffering you may be experiencing alongside many others?  To what extent does this assurance of God’s presence and attention feel meaningful? To what extent does it feel true?   How easy or difficult is it for you to remain connected to a place in which God’s active presence feels real and important? What helps? What makes it harder? If/when you’re able to connect to that place inside, how does it affect you? What does it look like to stand the in that fuzzy middle place of tension in which we engage fully in the suffering of the world around us AND open ourselves fully to the reality of God’s presence and engagement in our world? What makes that posture so difficult? What questions, resistences, or feelings surface for you as you consider that space and the work it can take to remain there?