I am sure many of us have been paying attention to the news this week with heavy hearts and uncertainty about what to think. 

As news of the attacks by Hamas on Israeli citizens⎯rockets, soldiers, kidnappings and murders⎯it felt like yet another setback in an already shaky and unstable world.

Reports of the violence and tragedies have been dominating the news headlines. They were hard to hear and see. Yet, people started taking sides as soon as images, reports and videos of the violence were released. 

The safety and security of Israel, and the horrific acts of Hamas are claimed to be justification for Israel’s response in kind. The occupation and blockade of the Gaza Strip are claimed to be the cause of Hamas’s actions. While there is truth in each claim, neither are those claims the whole story of this complicated situation. 

I cannot help but think of that childhood refrain, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

I also cannot help but think of the story of Noah’s flood. A story baked into the DNA of people of the book – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A story rooted in the decision of God to blot out the wickedness in all the earth. Because of the wickedness of humankind (after God had done the work of creation only four chapters prior in Genesis), God decides to wipe out all of creation. 

God determines to wipe out the wickedness of humankind with an even greater act of violence by drowning all creation in a flood, save a few righteous families and animals. God erases one wickedness with an even greater wickedness. God responds to the corruption and violence of humankind with even greater⎯though righteous⎯violence. 

Significantly, as God gives Noah and his family meat to eat after the flood (Genesis 9), God adds the caveat that the blood must be properly drained from the animals – a reference to Kosher or Halal food preparation. The implication being that a part of humanity’s pre-flood wickedness was the improper worship of God and failure to keep the purity laws. These issues persisted throughout the Old and New Testament, and remained issues at play between Jews, Muslims and Christians throughout history to today.

This cycle of responding to violence with greater and righteous violence has been a part of the human story for 3,500 years. Versions of the flood story are not only told in the Torah, Old Testament and Qu’ran but in many of the mythologies of the Ancient Near East like the Gilgamesh Epic and Atrahasis Epic. It is part of the DNA of humanity and it is part of the cycle of history of that part of the world. 

Violent acts committed by the righteous in the name of blotting out the wicked and unfaithful are condoned by God… at least that is the rationale. 

Of course, the point of the flood story is that God realizes God’s mistake. God realizes that responding to wickedness with greater wickedness, to violence with greater violence, doesn’t solve anything. 

Instead, it takes the remainder of the Old Testament and the beginning of the Gospels to see what that rainbow covenant truly means. God’s promise never to flood the earth again is realized in the Christ who finally answers humanity’s death-dealing ways with Resurrection and New Life. 

In response to news headlines that we are seeing and hearing, let us pray for Peace and Reconciliation. We pray for Resurrection and New Life to take hold among us now.

A Prayer for Peace Among the Nations:
Gracious God, grant peace among nations. Cleanse from our own hearts the seeds of strife: greed and envy, harsh misunderstandings and ill will, fear and desire for revenge. Make us quick to welcome ventures in cooperation among the peoples of the world, so that there may be woven the fabric of a common good too strong to be torn by the evil hands of war. In the time of opportunity, make us be diligent; and in the time of peril, let not our courage fail; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
(ELW Occasional Services for the Assembly)