Rainbow Connection
by Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
February 22, 2015
First Sunday of Lent
Genesis 9: 8-17
Chaos. Disorder. That’s what seems to be on the news all the time. The rise of ISIS. The spread of diseases. Civil unrest. And let’s be honest—ever since 9/11 people have been afraid. Certainly we’ve been afraid of things real and tangible, but fear has also been exploited—by politicians, by the news media, by entertainment. It’s a fear of a rising tide of chaos and unrest.
And yet, our Gospel tells us (Mark 1: 9-15) that Jesus came to proclaim “good news.” How can we proclaim–and believe–good news in these challenging times?
The story of Noah’s flood is about a rising tide of chaos and unrest, and how God promises to protect us from it, forever. The story of the flood is about fear, and the story of the rainbow is about grace. It’s important to understand the context of the story, because it’s about us. It’s about today.
The Biblical flood story is written in deliberate and conscious contrast to the same story of the flood as told in Babylonian mythology. In that story, “the god Marduk suspended his bow in the heavens, after he had defeated Taimat, the goddess of the deep waters.” (Plaut et al. The Torah: A Modern Commentary. New York: Union of Hebrew Congregations, 1981. P. 70.) The rainbow in the Babylonian story is a war bow, and it symbolizes what theologian Walter Wink has called “the myth of redemptive violence.” It symbolizes that the world was created through violence, and can only be recreated and renewed through violence. The gods have created a violent universe, and only warriors and heroes fare well in such a universe. (See, e.g., Wink, Walter: Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1992, p. 25ff.)
According to the Babylonian myth, war and conquest, victory and defeat, are the only measures the world operates by; and only constant bloodshed can make the world a better place. Think about it: that’s the same thing the terrorists believe. And often we fall victim to it too, believing that war and violence are the answer when plenty of evidence shows us that unless war is coupled with smart politics, then war just becomes a ceaseless cycle of violence that multiplies on itself.
And if that’s the dynamic we see happening in the world around us, and we are not heroes and warriors ourselves, no wonder we’re afraid.
So let me remind you, as of the very first importance: THAT IS NOT HOW THE BIBLE SEES IT. The Bible tells the story of the flood very different from the Babylonians—because Jews and Christians believe in a God very different from Marduk of the Babylonians.
First of all, the God we believe in is ONE GOD. So there’s no heavenly war going on between one God named Marduk and another named Tiamat, or any other gods, for that matter. There is only one God, consistent within God’s self. God is not a split personality, with one part of Him wanting one thing and another part another. There is just the one, so there can’t be any heavenly battle.
There can’t be a heavenly battle between God and Satan, either, by the way. That would imply that Satan is another god on a par with the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. There is a serious misreading of Jesus’ teachings about the end-times and of the Book of Revelation. Jesus teaches, remember, that “there will be wars and rumors of wars, but this is not a sign of the end.” He says that because there were then, and always will be, wars and rumors of wars. There’s no question that these are a sign that humans are the cause of disunity with God, creation, and one another; no question that we need God’s redemption based on that fact alone—but wars and rumors of war are NOT the sign, as some believe, that the end time is upon us.
The other common belief is that Revelation and other biblical sources predict a massive human war between the forces of good and the forces of evil. THIS IS NOT TRUE. In Revelation 19, war imagery is used to describe the way that evil lines itself up against God and makes ready to defeat God—BUT THERE IS NO WAR. One moment a great army is amassed—the next you see it conquered. No war actually happens. Furthermore, this isn’t a literal war happening on earth, with evil humans lined up against good ones—it is a spiritual war happening in heaven, between human ideas of how the world should operate, and God. Evil spiritual forces line up against God. And again, it’s not a war at all, because God simply doesn’t need to bother to fight. The forces of evil are ready—and then it’s done. They’re defeated. God is God. The idea that human evil could defeat God is absurd.
The Biblical account of the flood takes the image of the bow of war and turns it on its head. As Gerhard von Rad observed, “God shows the world that he has PUT ASIDE the bow” (Von Rad, Genesis. The Old Testament Library, Wright et al., eds. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961. P. 134.).
The Flood story in the Bible deliberately flips the meaning of the Babylonian story. The world is not shaped by violence, and God does not intend to use violence to solve the world’s problems; indeed, violence will not ultimately win out in God’s gracious plan. The rainbow means that God has ordered the world so that it will always work to human advantage, despite humanity’s terrible penchant for undermining our own best interests—despite our penchant for mistreating the world in which we live and our fellow human beings. God is not at war with humanity. Indeed, what the rainbow means is that, if we’re willing to trust God with the direction of history, and flow with its direction, then by God’s grace healing and wholeness can come to human relationships and to our own spirits.
The rainbow means that God has arranged human history for human benefit, not for punishment. So whatever’s wrong in the world is certainly not God’s punishment on us. It’s more likely our own doing. And if we trust the promise of the rainbow, then we trust God to heal, to make whole, to solve the problems of the world with something other than violence. We Christian need to remember these words from I John 4:18: “There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out all fear; for fear has to do with punishment.” If we live in love, not fear, we see opportunities for forgiveness, hope, and reconciliation we might otherwise miss. If we live in love, not fear, our eyes are opened to the divine good for all the world that God’s rainbow symbolizes.
Some people may say that’s looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. But we can view it as looking at the world through eyes of faith–and that means finding God’s grace and goodness in the world even as we look the world with eyes wide open to the concrete reality around us, because perfect love casts out all fear.
I have heard, often, that people wonder where the “moderate” Muslims are that I have spoken of in the past—the ones who don’t want war and aren’t on a crusade against the West. Why don’t they speak out? People have asked. An understandable question. And the answer is, they have—over and over. The Fiqh Council, the council of US Muslim Imams, has stated in detail that “there is no justification in Islam for extremism and terrorism…the Q’uran states: ‘Whoever kills a person unjustly… it is as though he has killed all of mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he has saved all of mankind.” They continue: “God mandates moderation in faith …when He stated in the Q’uran: ‘I have made you to be a community of the middle way.”
Recently the Dallas Morning News reported that the DFW Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations “condemned the ‘horrific barbarism’ of the Islamic State.” These Muslim leaders “said continued violence from the Islamic State for Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and its allies prompted Muslim leaders to speak out now. ISIS and its allies are ‘barbarians,’ who do ‘not represent Islam,’ they said.
In 2011, “Imam Amin Latif, the President of the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York said ‘We condemn terrorism and any act of political violence against innocent, non-combatant civilians – no matter who is committing the acts, or who the victims of that violence are. These are the clear teachings of Islam…’”.
These are just a handful among many such statements by American Islamic leaders—never mind even more from England, Europe, and the Middle East itself. Why is it that we don’t know of these very public, easy-to-find statements? The Fiqh Council raises that same question, and their answer is simply that peace doesn’t sell newspapers or get blog hits the way war and violence do. It doesn’t fit the storyline the media wants to tell of a war between civilizations, a war between good and evil—the storyline, in other words, of redemptive violence—the storyline we Christians are called upon to reject.
I realize that to a lot of people this sounds foolish and naïve. I’m not for a moment saying that we shouldn’t resist ISIS and Islamic extremism with every ounce of our energy. But when we decide to tar all of Islam with the same brush, we are falling prey to the myth of Redemptive Violence—an absolute war between good and evil–which is essentially a denial of the faith we have as Christians, our faith in Jesus Christ. God has ordered the world for good, and to the extent that we align ourselves with God’s good purposes good things are more likely to happen. We are called to live in faith in the goodness of God, and God’s good intentions for all humanity, rather than fear.
So we need to figure out how to live together. Of course it will be hard work sometimes, but let’s not start by assuming that because some Muslims are the enemy, they all are. Bridges of understanding and community are essential—and quite possible, if we’re willing to trust in the goodness of God’s plan rather than buy into the myth of cosmic war. By the grace of God we live under the rainbow of covenant, not the rainbow of war. Let’s not be naïve about what humans to trust—but let’s also remember that we can always trust God. “There is no fear in love; for perfect love casts out all fear.” Let us not be driven by fear, because we trust a God who loves us. Let us always, no matter what, be driven by our confidence in the grace and love of God.