Word to the Wise
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - Tuesday in the 6th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10 and Mark 8:14-21]When the Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how no desire that he heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved. Sp the Lord said: "I will wipe out from the earth the men whom I have created, and not only the men but also the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air, for I am sorry that I made them." But Noah found favor with God. {Genesis]
Today our lectionary journey through Genesis introduces us to the story of Noah and the Flood. Few Old Testament stories have captured the imagination as much as this one has! The imagination is quick to find humor: "Why didn't Noah get rid of the ___________ before they went on the ark?" The principal theme of the whole story, however, focuses on the ambiguous feelings of God about the human creature that God created. By endowing humans with free will and all the other elements of human desire and choices (Adam and Eve and their descendants), God took a chance!! Indeed any parent, disappointed with the choices their offspring make, can identify with God's disappointment. God decides to start over with the one human and his family that found favor: Noah!
Biblical, historical and archaeological scholars tell us that this story has its roots in some cataclysmic flood because the literature of surrounding ancient cultures also have a similar story, but with different theological interpretations.
What we are able to see from our own faith perspective is human accountability to God. The Gospel According to Matthew has Jesus referring to Noah in regard to being prepared for the last days of time. (Matt. 24:37-38) If, as St. Thomas Aquinas OP assures us is true, we are capable of friendship with God, then we must be prepared to experience the possibility of God's "disappointment" just as we find ourselves from time to time disappointed in the way we think God has decided. In the end God swears never again to "start over" by eliminating creation. God has kept that promise even if we humans continually find ways to destroy that very same creation. Once more, the Word of God reaches deeply into our present lives. AMEN