If you’re like me, you’ve been seeing increasing media coverage of the climate crisis – including pollution – resulting in death and devastation among creation. How many species have succumbed and died—some by natural evolution, others killed by our wanton ways?
I remember a Bible verse from the Psalms (24:1-2), “The earth is the Lord′s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.”
Yesterday, the camera chronicled the sudden demise of coral which, in the circle and interconnections of life, protects fish, algae, and our shorelines from the ravages of weather. Coral cannot live in heated waters which recently have risen by more than 1.5 degrees and register 92.5F degrees currently around the Florida Keys.
As often happens, my mind wandered … until stopping at the story of Noah’s Ark.
I could be wrong (especially if we take into account the water turning into blood and the hail, among the ten plagues of Egypt, and the parting of the Red Sea), but I suspect that in the chronicle of Noah’s Ark, we find the first example of climate change and crisis. Remember? According to the story, it suddenly rained 40 days and 40 nights. Noah, his family, and animals entered the Ark on the day flooding began. It lasted 40 days and nights. The waters rose and all creatures, except those aboard, were destroyed.
In this account, Noah labored faithfully to build an Ark, ultimately saving not only his own family, but humanity itself and all land animals from extinction during the flood which God supposedly created after regretting that the world was full of sin.
After 40 days (and nights), the Creator was appeased. Noah sent out a dove, which returned with an olive branch indicating the presence, again, of land. And the Holy One made a promise – a covenant – in which he resets and renews the blessings of creation, reaffirming God’s image in humanity and the work of dominion. “Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth,” we are told by the author of Genesis 9:11 and 13.
Let’s not miss a vital point here …
Why are we told the Creator caused the flood?
Allegedly, because the world was full of sin.
This seems to be a theme in both books of the Bible, starting with Deuteronomy, whose core is the covenant that binds Yahweh and Israel by oaths of fidelity and obedience: God will give Israel blessings of land, fertility, and prosperity so long as it is faithful to God’s teaching; disobedience will lead to curses and punishment.
Remember: these blessings and curses are specific to Israel.
In Deuteronomy we’re told, “You must purge the evil from among you” (17:7). Several verses later (19:15-20), we are warned again: “Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. The rest will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an evil thing among you (19). Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot (20-21).
Despite its Hebrew reference to Israel, the idea of purging evil reportedly continues in the Greek testament with Paul the Apostle – aka Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee – reiterating, “God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked person from among you” (5:13).
Throughout all his presumed writings, however, Paul’s focus is purging what he saw as the “evils” inside of us, our “sinful” nature … although his Christianity ultimately led to the Inquisition, Crusades, and evangelical bullying. In the Hebrew scriptures, it’s the “other” and outsiders – peoples who worship foreign gods and idols – whom a jealous and zealous god used the Israelites to avenge.
Today, purging evil is paramount in subduing and saving ourselves from the climate crisis which threatens to destroy our world and ourselves. We must deal with the effects of a poisoned environment of our own making.
According to the United Nations, results of our changing environment already include intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, tragic flooding, polar ice melting, catastrophic storms, volcanic eruptions and emissions, seismic earthquakes, shifts in plant blooming times, and declining biodiversity. The heat is getting more intolerable; floods and mudslides are destroying people and property; hurricanes and typhoons are coming at us faster and more furiously; air quality indices show how difficult it is to breathe; winter and summer seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer.
Our beliefs will have little to sustain us if we don’t purge these evils from among us.
Pastor Bruce is with People of Faith Online Congregation and publishes Portugal Living Magazine.
"Exactly!" 