Readings: Genesis 6:5-10 and 1 Peter 3:17-22.

Our readings today are well-known and also notoriously difficult.

The grammar of the First Letter of St Peter has drawn much thought over time. St Augustine of Hippo was asked by another bishop about its meaning and wrote a long reply [1] which I recommend, instead of modern scholarship that appeals more to esoteric knowledge than to established canonical texts.

The story of Noah is told to children who have picture books of bright rainbows, animals walking together, predator and prey all getting into the one ark through which they and eight souls are saved.

Yet the story of Noah has a serious and important message for humankind. For God was sorry that He had made us because of the wickedness that was in our hearts. Surely our days were limited to one hundred and twenty years, for God said His eternal Spirit would not contend with humans forever, which contrasts with Jacob who was renamed Israel because he wrestled with God and lived. Whereas in the days of Noah, those with whom God contended did not live, because they were dead in the flesh as opposed to alive in the spirit.

Now the flesh and the body are treated as separate ideas. The bodies we have, like the animals’ physical body—the stuff we are made of—are not evil or corrupt in themselves. But the flesh refers to the carnal desires that the rational animal can choose or give in to when he or she exercises no self-control: inclinations that go beyond mere nature because they tend toward excess rather than temperance or harmony.

So when the flesh is discussed in the New Testament particularly, we need to make this distinction. This is seen typologically in the book of Revelation: the little scroll, the Word of God, is sweet in the mouth yet bitter in the stomach—the stomach representing the lower nature, the one that does not love but desires persons, whom God made in His own image, as a means to his or her own ends; for his or her own pleasure, satisfaction or subjugation.

And God said He would wipe away humans and the animals upon which they depended for food to eat, clothes to wear, for trade, sacrifices and idolatry. We were made from the dust of the earth, and every plant had been given to ‘Adam’ [humanity] as food to eat.

The letter of St Peter gives apostolic authority to the typological reading that we have for the linking of Noah’s flood with the sacrament of baptism. A sacrament, as defined by St Augustine, is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace of God. Baptism confers the real, efficacious and transformative power of God to the cleansing of our souls—an efficacy that rests on Christ’s institution and promise, not on the personal holiness or office of the minister.

We take part in baptism to save our souls.

The flood waters that cleansed the earth in the days of Noah were of heaven and earth joined together—a distinction between waters that was made on day two of creation in Genesis. And this is also given by Jesus to the woman at the well, when He speaks of water that does not last, and the living waters that will never run out. This is also distinguished between what belongs to the world and what comes from the kingdom of heaven.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater (Isaiah 55:10).

Life, growth, abundance—these are the signs of the kingdom, when we see our neighbours, regardless of ‘age and stage’, as souls to be saved, not as objects or spirits to be taken advantage of or crushed.

The springs from the deeps and the rain from the heavens joined together as one. This highlights for us what St Peter says: that this cleansing was not merely a washing away of dirt from the body, but also a type pointing forward to the cleansing of our souls from the living waters of our baptism that pour out from heaven’s throne.

And the third part of the Nicene Creed helps with the text of the letter of First Peter [also 1 Peter 1:11] on the preaching of the Spirit in the days gone by, and also we:

“confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come.”

One baptism for the forgiveness of sins. A baptism that belongs to the spiritual and temporal order of the heavens and the earth, since all that is past is wiped away, so that we, renewed in body and soul, are made alive now.

Humanity was not created to lay in the dust nor to crawl on our belly. No. We were made to stand up, to be fully alive in relationship with our Creator and to live in harmony—body, soul, heart, and mind—as one with all creation.

And the ark was pointing forward to the gathering in the last days, that is the gathering of the People of God, that is the Church. Those who remain until the end are like the souls that were sealed in the ark. Jesus said that in these times people will be going about their day-to-day business, without concern for the urgency of the times, without knowledge of when their end will come.

As it was for them, so it is for us, as individuals and as a collective. Not one of us knows the day or the hour, and so we are to live expectantly, like the ten virgins with their lamps lit ready for the bridegroom.

With the purity of heart and soul gifted to us at our renewal, at the confession of our sins and the renunciation of evil works: when we speak His words of wisdom in our thoughts, words and deeds—we have a clean conscience. Yet as we go about our daily lives, do we have self-awareness enough to interrogate every thought as suitable for standing in God’s presence? Can we justify our thoughts, our words and our deeds before God? This process of reflection helps us to live with humility, for we must remember that to condemn our neighbour is to condemn ourselves; his foot is our foot, his hand is our hand.

I do not think that the Church Fathers and Mothers could ever have imagined what would become of the Church, more than simply a broken vessel but a shipwreck. We are, as the apostle writes, to be of one mind, a mind and heart directed to God, to fulfil the Greatest Commandment to love our neighbour as ourselves. The cross that we carry is to walk humbly with God, as Noah did. But also to recognise that we live the imitation of Christ, Our Lord and our God, who sent the apostles out two by two. For it is by the power of two that we are sent. For it is said of the Holy Spirit that He is the relation of love between the Father and the Son, and so in His likeness we were created for relationship, not for isolation. And it is through Christ and in the Spirit that we walk together and also dialogue, for “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17). 

Yet this new tendency to trust our own instincts without retreating to the desert places, to say that we are spiritual without needing the Church, is to cast an anchor out upon the land—to beach ourselves on an island. The interdependence of the relationship between individuals and the corporate body or collective Church, the People of God under God, has been forsaken. So many have abandoned ship in the discomfort and storms, for a return to the fleeting goods that are superficial, and for which the thirsts and hunger of the soul are never satisfied.

Noah was the righteous seed, blameless, with a clear conscience, and walked faithfully with God. We now, by our baptism, are the same type of seed that sows into a world seeming to descend into much turmoil and chaos.

Just as we plant a garden, so do we also lay stones as the foundations for a home or cathedral. God also planted a garden and laid the foundations of the earth. The earth is a beautiful place, and home for us to dwell. In gardens, when the rains come, we find peace and beauty, a place of growth; this was like the temple and the sanctuary of old, the house where the people of God encountered the Presence of heaven upon earth.

But as in the literal nature and the transcendent “super” nature, so too with us: like repeating patterns at different orders of magnitude, the body and soul are our dwelling place, and the garden is within us; with flowers like the jewels of the earth, sparkling and dazzling in the bright sunshine, mimicking the colours of treasures found in our heavenly home. These treasures are found through our love, living according to the Beatitudes, and through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

And we preach also to the dead in prison; for it is through Christ that the captives are set free; by our baptism that we are adopted into our family—through His grace and our faith working together in the orientation of our hearts to Him, and by our witness through the liturgy.

Set me free from my prison,
that I may praise your name.
Then the righteous will gather about me
because of your goodness to me. (Psalm 142:7)

Because only mankind has consciousness, this means all else, like the cows in the field, only by their being or the sheer fact of their existing is how the universal “whatever has breath” can praise (Psalm 150:6), or give glory to God. Therefore, as the term liturgy suggests a fitting response to the gift of being, with gratitude, this can only be rendered by mankind to God.

Liturgy is like the narrow path, or participation in the divine order, that allows humanity to recognise and respond to the God who created and loves us. Jesus says, “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life”; He is the path to the tree of Life and is the flaming sword of Truth—the Word of God made flesh, who lived and dwelt among us. In Christ we have the right way to live, to breathe and move and have our being.

St Irenaeus of Lyons said, “The glory of God is a living man”; that is the way humanity participates with the divine, listening and responding. This is to live as one who “walks with God,” existing in continuous communion with Him on the pilgrimage of our lives now and on into eternity.

Amen.

[1] St Augustine, Letter 164 (A.D. 414)