Sermon: "The Heart of God"
Genesis 6:9-22, Matt 7:21-29

As I was preparing this sermon this week one of the news items was the withdrawal of Cathy Freeman from the Commonwealth Games due to her husband's illness. On the same day I heard of a family with a 7 year old Down's Syndrome child who has just been diagnosed with advanced leukaemia. Two families, one very publicly, coming to terms with the frightening prospect of cancer and realising the implications it will have for their plans and dreams.

Most weeks it seems there is news of a terrible accident or a disaster of natural forces - flood or cyclone or earthquake. Such situations whether they be in the private sphere on or a global scale must always raise the question of where God is in this?

My favourite commentary on Genesis has this statement in connection with the story of the flood. The writer says that the story is concerned with "the strange things that happen in the heart of God that decisively affect God's creation". While there are many difficult questions about the events life presents to us one answer that gives some help is that the difficulties and sadness we experience nevertheless happen "within the heart of God".

The two readings we have heard today point us in two directions: on the one hand they tell us something of the heart and character of God, on the other hand they challenge us with how we will choose to live our lives whatever our experiences are.

Let us come to the human dimension first - how do these stories of the flood and the house builders challenge us? Both, I think, draw our attention to the issue of foundations. On what do we build our lives? Will it withstand the buffeting floods that will come at some time?

The original readers of Matthew's gospel would have been very familiar with the idea of a choice between building houses on rock or on sand. The normally dry land had many wadis, or dry river beds that quickly became a flood course in the rare floods that swept through. Building a house in a flood course was obviously a foolish plan, and people may well have howled with laughter at the idea. But this is the picture of someone who listens to Jesus' words but does not obey them.

And what were the words Jesus was saying? This parable comes right at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the collection of hard teachings of Jesus about being peacemakers and turning the other cheek and giving to those who try to take from you. Words about forgiving others and not worrying and being perfect. Maybe the parable was pointing out that building a house on a rocky hillside out of the watercourse would be hard work: and yet it would stand the test of time and experience. Both houses might look the same. But their foundations will determine whether they ultimately stand or fall.

This is why the whole passage begins with the warning that what we say is not enough. In Jesus understanding there was no gap between believing and doing. If we don't do the words of Christ we clearly haven't truly heard them. We tend to think we hear first, then understand, then act. But in biblical thought real hearing is doing.

This is the remarkable thing about Noah. Of all humanity God chose him and his family, but not, as we sometimes assume, because he was morally upright. What was different about Noah was that he did all that God commanded him. In this he remains for us a model of faith - and note that he is the first example of a person of faith that we are introduced to in the bible. And what's more, he is a model of faith at a time of crisis and impending death. Our biblical stories remind us right at the beginning that faithfulness is possible in any place, in any circumstances. This meant that wherever Noah was he was standing on holy ground - ground set apart for God's purposes. The ark was holy ground - for it was a place of sanctuary; the dry land after the flood was holy ground, for it was the place of salvation. It is significant that the first thing Noah did was to build an altar for worship, to let that place be holy ground - despite the mud!

Noah was a model of faith in that he heeded and obeyed God's voice in all things. The big things, like the ark, and the detail, like what type of wood to use, what the measurements would be. God was part of everything.

This is building foundations. If we recognise God in the details - in the flower or the touch of a loved one or the sound of a symphony then we will readily turn to God in the big things - a crisis of health or circumstances or relationships.

Let's not forget that foundations are important not just in our personal lives, but also in the life of our church and our nation. Tomorrow is the 10^th anniversary of the Mabo decision - the decisive land rights case that overturned the legal doctrine of terra nullius. Eddie Mabo was horrified to realise that in the eyes of the law his home of Murray Island was considered to be uninhabited, to be "empty land" as terra nullius is translated. On behalf of his people who had been living off the island for thousands of years Mabo sought recognition of the right to exist on his traditional land. The case took ten years and was not decided until after his death in January 1992, but it was greatly significant for aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as well as being instrumental in changing the attitudes of other Australians. Amongst other things it impacted hugely on the will to continue a process of reconciliation. But the recognition that indigenous Australians have the right to exist on their traditional land is only the first step in building the foundation for a reconciled relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. A conference taking place in Melbourne this week recognises this as the conference is called "Unfinished Business". We were made aware again last weekend of the continuing hurt of the stolen generation, and of the ongoing disadvantage of our original Australians even in this city, the most prosperous of Australia's capitals.

Let's not be engaged in unfinished business. Let's not say the right words but forget to do the things God calls us to. Let's not build our lives on the sand when we have been offered the solid foundation of the knowledge of God's ways and God's concerns. Let us be people whose faith is shown in what we do and in the way we treat others.

And what of the divine dimension in these stories? What do they tell us about the heart and the character of God?

We know that the flood story told to us in Genesis is only one amongst many ancient flood stories - so the biblical writers must have wanted to say something particular about God. It is in the part of Genesis before Abraham, so the part which focuses on the broader concerns of humanity and creation. But, even so, it is still being told to an Israelite audience. The flood story is not, then, a universal statement about the nature of the cosmos but a particularly Israelite statement about their covenant with God. And this particularity, as we've already noted, comes down to one person: We are told that God remembered Noah. In the Old Testament when we are told that God remembers it means that God will act on behalf of his people. To remember is to see human need and to act to save. So God remembers the children of Israel in Egypt, God remembers the exilic community in Babylon, God remembers his servant Noah and brings him to a new beginning.

God can never be the God of the end of things. God always enables new beginnings. This truth comes to us right through the biblical stories. Remember the prodigal son? The story is about a welcoming father, not about a far country! And our story in Genesis has a remarkable new thing. It tells us that God repented of his decision. The intention in the flood had been to reverse the great story of creation - where in Genesis 1 God had separated the waters and created dry land and people and animals and plants, in Genesis 7 there is a releasing of the cosmic waters back to a state of chaos. But after the flood came a new creation. Again the separation of water and land (8:1-5), again the structure of day and night was restored (8:22), again the command to go forth and multiply was given to all living things (8:17). But a decisive change had taken place between these two accounts of creation: a change in the heart of God. Despite the inevitable return to sin God was determined to keep on with God's purpose for creation because it was a good purpose -God would be committed to creation no matter what.

God needed to change because in destroying creation God had suffered, God had grieved. An aboriginal reading of this story gives an even greater emphasis to this suffering since in aboriginal spirituality the earth is where God is present. We would perhaps feel more comfortable turning that around, not that God is in the earth, but that all of creation is within the heart of God. When God's heart is flooded by pain and suffering the heart of God must change. This is a new thought for some of us: that we don't worship an unchanging indifferent God, but we worship a God who "hurts and celebrates, responds and acts in remarkable freedom". The flood didn't so much put the world in jeopardy as put the heart of God in crisis. In Chapter 6 we read "The Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth and it grieved him to his heart" (6:6). By chapter 8 God is resolving in his heart to never again curse the ground. or destroy every living creature. (8:20-22) It is because of the heart of God that God's creation is offered a new thing.

And so this heart breaking story ends with something new: it ends with the first of the biblical covenants made between God and God's people. God makes a covenant and keeps on making it. Just as a rainbow is constantly renewed after every rainfall so God keeps making his covenant with us. Just as the "cup of the new covenant" is offered to us each time we approach the communion table so God's grace is constantly poured out for us. The gospel is that God remembers (8:1) Floods of chaos may overwhelm everything but they cannot quench God's commitment to creation - the foundation of which is God's love.

With Jesus' words in Matthew we are challenged to act out our faith, and like people who build to last we must take these word very seriously. But today we have also been reminded that through the overarching biblical covenant God's heart of grace always has the last word.

This makes all ground we stand on holy ground.

JM: Canberra 2 June 2002

Last updated: 4 June 2002