Скачать или смотреть The Silence Of Noah - Pastor Ed Lapiz

Trusting God enough to argue
WHEN FACED WITH the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham argued with God. Will you kill the righteous with the wicked? Will you really kill them even if there are only 50 righteous people? 45? 40? 30? 20? 10? And God agreed: If there were 10 righteous people, God would not destroy the city (Genesis 18:22-33). Unfortunately for Sodom, there were not even 10. God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but not for Abraham’s lack of trying to stop it.

When faced with the destruction of the Israelites, Moses, too, argued with God. When he lingered too long on Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:4), the people got impatient. They formed for themselves a golden calf, sacrificing burnt offerings to it. God threatened to destroy them in anger, but Moses pushed back. He didn’t argue that the people were innocent—their betrayal of God was clear. Instead, Moses pointed to God’s promise to the people to be inheritors of the land. He appealed to God’s trustworthiness.

But when presented with the people’s coming destruction, Noah was silent. He built his ark and put up with the nonsense of those around him who thought he was being foolish. Then he packed up his family, inventoried the animals, and let God seal him in. Did he do all that he could?

Have we?

My people, the Anishinaabe, have a similar story. The people have not been behaving well. They are greedy and selfish and hurting each other. Their lives are badly out of balance and this imbalance is getting close to causing irreparable harm to the Earth itself. So Creator, the Great Mystery, decides to start over. Eagle asks for time, time to find someone, anyone, who is living in a good way. Creator agrees to wait, and day after day Eagle flies, until finally she finds a family: One family who is praying. She carries word of this family back to Creator, her feathers falling to the earth because she has worn herself out so badly. Creator relents and the world is spared—all because Eagle risked arguing with Creator.

The Israelites were spared because Moses risked arguing with God. But most of us church people don’t argue with God. We don’t argue with our theology. We don’t argue with our teachers. Not for the sake of others, at least. We’ll argue because the pews are too hard or too soft or because we didn’t like the worship songs. We’ll argue over any number of things that inconvenience us, but we don’t argue about the things that convenience us. The Western church is too convinced of its status—of its chosenness—and so, like Noah, it preaches to the lost but does not argue about the pending judgment. In fact, I dare say that there is a certain frisson of excitement about that judgment, about being on the inside of that door when it finally slams shut, knowing that if people are outside, it’s their own fault.